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| Title page of one edition of New Atlantis, from 1899, found online here. The original copy in the digital scan comes from the Bodleian Library, which was opened during Bacon’s lifetime on November 8, 1602. |
A recap of The ALR’s table lodge last night is forthcoming (actually, I have a lot more catching up to do), but I close out this month with a commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the death of Francis Bacon, which I meant to finish three weeks ago.
On April 9, 1626,* Bacon died at age 65 in London. Rather than recount his supersize life, nor dare approach that Bacon/Shakespeare, Masonic/Rosicrucian thing, as riveting as that reading can be, I took the opportunity lately to revisit his unfinished story New Atlantis in my reading preparatory to a paper I hope to submit for a future Heredom.
It is said he’d been writing it during the early 1620s, but it was printed posthumously, maybe something he wouldn’t have been keen on because of its incompleteness. Weighing in at only forty-one pages, New Atlantis has no climax or conclusion. There is an abrupt ending, but his story may foreshadow the establishment of the Royal Society just a few decades later. Bacon authored this story in English, which can’t be said of all his writings.
Atlantis, unknown to modern man, but in the minds of ancient Greeks, was said to have been located in the Atlantic Ocean, outside the Straits of Gibraltar. Plato was the first, as far as we know, to write of it. The mythical island was exhumed in Western consciousness when Plato’s (and others’) writings fueled the Renaissance. Bacon’s New Atlantis is placed in the Pacific. Mention is made in New Atlantis to “the great Atlantis”—as a reference to America.
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| etymonline Click to enlarge. |
His story is referred to as a utopian fable and, when assigned in academic reading, very often is paired with Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, published in 1516. That author coined the word “utopia,” borrowing from Greek elements ou (not) and topos (place). Literally, utopia means “nowhere”—a place that does not exist. I think it’s safe to say this story influenced Bacon.
New Atlantis tells of a Spanish ship adrift in the Pacific that finds the island Bensalem, a name also worthy of etymological examination. And I’d love to learn how Bacon decided to make his lost sailors Spanish, given the sea change of 1588 and his assessment of the Catholic Monarchy. Initially, these Spanish seafaring men are warded off by the island natives, but once their Christian faith is confirmed, they are allowed to debark and are permitted food and rest for a time. On land, the Spanish discover these island people know a life only of bounty, safety, and harmony cultivated by both high moral cultural norms and an advanced scientific knowledge.
Brotherly love is the foundation of the society. While the moral code of the people derives from a peculiar “apostolical and miraculous evangelism of St. Bartholomew,” the words of the Old and New Testaments were comprehensible to the “Hebrews, Persians, and Indians” who inhabited the land with the natives.
The island’s history is explained through dialogue, rather than narration. The Spaniards’ principal contact is a “Christian priest” who holds the office of governor of the House of Strangers, the place where these visitors are billeted. He says:
There reigned in this island, about nineteen hundred years ago, a king whose memory of all others we most adore, not superstitiously, but as a divine instrument, though a mortal man: his name was Solomona, and we esteem him as the lawgiver of our nation. This king had a large heart, inscrutable for good, and was wholly bent to make his kingdom and people happy.
Among Solomona’s accomplishments was:
...the erection and institution of an order or society, which we call Solomon’s House, the noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the earth, and the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God. Some think it beareth the founder’s name a little corrupted, as if it should be Solomona’s House; but the records write it as it is spoken. So as I take it to be denominates of the king of the Hebrews, which is famous with you, and no stranger to us, for we have some parts of his works which with you are lost; namely, that natural history which he wrote of all plants, “from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall,” and of all things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our king, finding himself to symbolizes in many things with that king of the Hebrews which lived many years before him, honored him with the title of this foundation. And I am the rather induced to be of this opinion, for that I find in ancient records this order or society is sometimes called Solomon’s House, and sometimes the College of the Six Days’ Works; whereby I am satisfied that our excellent king had learned from the Hebrews that God had created the world, and all that therein is, within six days, and therefore he instituting that house for the finding out of the true nature of all things, whereby God might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and men the more fruits in their use of them, did give it also that second name.
In Bacon’s age, such students of the world were known as natural philosophers. We call them scientists. In this story, they are shown to have mastered the elements, literally curating the land, waters, and air—with all their wildlife, crops, and minerals—to ensure the health and well being of the island’s inhabitants. “We have also a mathematical house, where are represented all instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made,” the Spanish are told. “These are, my son, the riches of Solomon’s House.”
If you know how Bacon pursued scientific inquiry in his intellectual life, and his thoughts on religion, you can see why he might also use fiction to marry concepts of the spirit with exploration of the material.
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| The final, albeit not closing, paragraph. |
The conversation continues, revealing the splendor of Bensalem, with a frank explanation of how such deep and broad knowledge was accumulated, before the tale trails off to a void. “The rest was not perfected.” is the note to the reader admitting the frustrating cliffhanger of this premature conclusion. Yet it’s a fun read, with a number of references that Freemasons would appreciate, and with themes that would be obvious to certain Rosicrucians. At only a few dozen pages, New Atlantis can be read easily in less than an hour, with ample time for puffing a pipe and sipping some sack.
*They used a different calendar back then, so just play along.
