FRANCIS BACON
Second Edition
Edited by
This second edition first published 2017
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Edition History: Harlan Davidson, Inc. (1e, 1980; revised edition, 1989)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626, author. | Weinberger, Jerry, 1944- editor. | Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626. New Atlantis. | Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626. Instauratio magna. English.
Title: New Atlantis ; and, The great instauration / edited by Jerry Weinberger.
Description: Second Edition. | Hoboken : Wiley, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015049558 | ISBN 9781119097983 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119098027 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy--Early works to 1800. | Philosophy of nature--Early works to 1800. | Science--Philosophy--Early works to 1800. | Utopias--Early works to 1800.
Classification: LCC B1155 2016 | DDC 100--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049558
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Portrait of Francis Bacon by Paul van Somer, Di Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images
Set in 10/12 pt SabonLTStd-Roman by Thomson Digital, Noida, India
1 2017
The Crofts Classics edition of Sir Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and The Great Instauration has been in classroom use since the late 1970s, having been revised to correct typography in 1980. Since those early years much scholarship, including some of my own, has been published on Bacon in general and on these two texts. I therefore thought a significantly revised second edition was in order, especially since some of my earlier conclusions about these works of Bacon had changed, even if only slightly.
Given the opportunity to bring a new edition into print with Wiley, I thought it best to increase the amount of material in order to provide student-readers wider context in which to consider Bacon's project as a whole and New Atlantis in particular. To this end I decided first to provide the aphorisms on the Idols of the Mind from The Great Instauration: Novum organum Book One. The purpose of this addition is to make clear how much Bacon thought the problems of human reason resulted from reason's inherent weaknesses, not just the weight of obscure traditions. In order to broaden the political context for New Atlantis I have included two of Bacon's Essays: “Of Unity in Religion” and “Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates.” These two essays, along with reference in the interpretive essay to Bacon's 1622 The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh, link Bacon's utopian fable to some of his most concrete considerations of practical political life, especially as regards religion and war. I decided as well to place the interpretive essay on New Atlantis and Bacon's essays at the end of the volume, as it will be more useful to students after they have read Bacon's texts.
For his warm and helpful support for this second edition I would like to thank Andrew J. Davidson, Senior Editor (History, Social Sciences & Humanities) at John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The project could not have gone forward without the indispensable help of Project Editor Julia Kirk and Editorial Assistant Maddie Koufogazos. Project Manager Ian Critchley did a masterful job overseeing the copy editing, typesetting, and proofreading stages of production. My wife Diane, as usual whenever I'm absorbed in a book project, put up with much neglect while I worked on this new edition. Her cheerfulness during my distraction never fails to amaze.
The text of the New Atlantis is reprinted from the widely respected, once standard edition of Bacon's works by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath. The original spelling and punctuation have everywhere been retained. The New Atlantis was first published by Rawley in 1627, after Bacon's death, and no original manuscript of the work remains. All the editions of the New Atlantis since 1627 have been reprints of Rawley's first edition, and fortunately there are no serious variations in the editions. The 1627 edition has “Solamona” and “Salomon's House,” while the 1658 and 1670 editions, among others, have “Salomona” and “Solomon's House.” Spedding follows the 1627 edition and is supported in this choice by the Latin translation. Although Spedding is probably correct, the variation makes no difference at all in the meaning of the text. The 1627 and 1670 editions have “It so fell out, that there was in one of the boats, one of our wise men of the society of Salomon's House …” while the 1658 edition, which Spedding follows, has “It so fell out, that there was in one of the boats one of the wise men of the society of Solomon's House …” (see p. 74, below). In this instance, Spedding is perhaps wrong, since the 1627 and 1670 texts are supported by the Latin translation. But Spedding's text is not emended in this volume, because, again, the variation makes no difference at all in the meaning of the text. The 1627 edition and Spedding have “came aboard” (see p. 64, below), while the 1658 edition has “made aboard”; and the 1627 edition has “that we knew he spake it …” (see p. 77, below), while the 1658 edition and Spedding have “that we knew that he spake it. …” These minor variations require no emendation. No critical problems in the text have so far been discovered that would warrant rejecting Spedding's text as the standard edition of the New Atlantis. The Great Instauration was published originally in Latin in 1620 as Instauratio magna. The translation used in this volume for the preliminaries and the aphorisms of Novum organum on the Idols of the Mind is Spedding's widely reprinted translation. Although Spedding's translation was long considered to be the standard, it is sometimes loose, and two important corrections have been noted (see pp. 21, 32, below). Volume XI of the Oxford Francis Bacon, edited by the late Graham Rees, will doubtless become the standard and, it is to be hoped, widely reprinted translation and edition. I have referred to it as necessary for this classroom edition.
| 1561 | Born in London, son of Lord Keeper of the Seal. |
| 1573–1575 | Studied at Cambridge. |
| 1576 | Enrolled at Gray's Inn, where he studied for less than one year. |
| 1582 | Became a barrister. |
| 1584 | Sat in the Commons. Bacon was an influential member of the House of Commons for the next thirty-six years. |
| 1597 | Essays. |
| 1603 | Knighted by James I. |
| 1605 | Advancement of Learning. |
| 1612 | Essays, enlarged. |
| 1613 | Appointed Attorney General. |
| 1618 | Made Lord Chancellor; created Baron Verulam. |
| 1620 | The Great Instauration: Novum organum. |
| 1621 | Created Viscount St. Albans; impeached for accepting bribes. |
| 1622 | The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh. |
| 1624 | Most likely date by which Bacon had written New Atlantis. |
| 1625 | Essays, greatly enlarged. |
| 1626 | Died April 9. |
| 1627 | New Atlantis published. |
Along with Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Descartes, Francis Bacon was one of the founders of modern thought. These thinkers coupled realistic politics with a new science of nature in order to transform the age-old view of humanity's place in the world. They contended that once the efforts of the human intellect were directed from traditional concerns to new ones—from contemplation to action, from the account of what people ought to do to what they actually do, and from metaphysics to the scientific method for discovering natural causes—the harsh inconveniences of nature and political life would be relieved and overcome. No longer to be revered or endured, the realms of nature and society would become the objects of human control.
Bacon called his version of this project the “Great Instauration,” an ambiguous term that means at once great restoration and great founding. But he left no doubt that he was engaged in something altogether new: His restoration—his reform of the ways and means of human reason—would in fact be a founding because its aim would be “to lay the foundation, not of any sect or doctrine, but of human utility and power,” in order to “command nature in action.”1 Bacon did not, however, think his instauration would be quick or easy. It would surely provoke opposition from political, theological, and academic interests with something to lose in a new intellectual order. But for Bacon, the larger problem was that the impediments to the power of reason are deeply rooted in the character of reason itself. In his famous doctrine of the “Idols of the Mind,” he outlined four categories of defects that infect and mislead human reason.
First, reason seeks more order in the world than actually exists and it gets fooled into thinking that impossible things exist. Second, reason tends to become obsessed with one cause that it thinks explains everything. Third, words fool reason, as if all words refer to something real. Finally, reason has been seduced by a long history of fruitless and quarrelsome philosophical speculation. Bacon has an especial dislike for the baleful influence, still active at his time, of Plato and Aristotle. Their dogmatic preference for contemplation over action reflected contempt for the practical arts, a contempt much more harmful than noble. For it merely served to hide the real courses of nature from view, so that from Aristotle one hears “the voice of dialectics more often than the voice of nature” and in Plato one sees that “he infected and corrupted natural studies by his theology as much as Aristotle did by his dialectic.”2
For Bacon, these defects of reason had first to be exposed and rooted out as far as possible before reason's true powers could be unleashed. Then, an entirely new science, based on careful induction and especially experimentation, could discover the latent actions of nature and bend them to human purposes. Human life needs tools for action, but from the ancient wisdom we got nothing but theological and metaphysical claptrap. Moreover, the ancients applied this intellectual junk to practical and political affairs, especially after Socrates, who was famous for having brought philosophy down from the heavens. But the ancients' concern for practical affairs was in fact impractical and served merely to fuel violent controversies about justice and the best regime, controversies that are inevitable when we are faced by material scarcity and a cosmos that is hostile to our wills and indifferent to our needs.
For Bacon, reason directed by new means and ends would endow human beings with powers over nature unimaginable by his contemporaries. He wasn't restrained in what he predicted. Bacon's new science would put nature on the rack: it gives up its secrets “when by art and the hand of man she is forced out of her natural state, and squeezed and moulded.”3 When the latent actions and structures of nature are then genuinely understood, he argued, the dreams of the alchemists really will come true: it will be possible to transform something not gold into the real McCoy.4 And so it is: with atomic science it is possible today to turn mercury into gold, and that's no different in principle from turning oil into polyester cloth for a suit of clothes. Bacon did not blush at taking aim even at the corruptibility and mortality of the human body, the conquest of which he called the “noblest work” of natural philosophy.5 Bacon's project was thus far more than a mere reformation of human reason and even more than the founding of a new intellectual or political order. For every founding prior to his own had been limited by something beyond the powers of the founder, whether it be nature, fortune, or God. With Bacon's project we encounter an altogether new horizon, one that forces a reconsideration of the words: “In the beginning...”
It is fashionable now to have doubts about modern science and technology and to acknowledge that their blessings can be mixed. But even so, we entertain such thoughts from within a world already transformed, mostly for the better, by them: In our everyday lives we interact constantly with their products to the point of taking them for granted. Imagine if you will, what life must have been like before the discovery of anaesthesia or when women had lots of babies because so many newborns died. In making the case for his Great Instauration, Bacon could only conjecture about the future powers of modern science and technology. A quick look at the plan laid out in his 1620 The Great Instauration shows that Bacon knew perfectly well that his project would be a matter of generations and far beyond his powers to effect. The plan describes six parts, most of which are vastly incomplete. The first part was to be a survey of the knowledge presently available and of forms of knowledge that have so far been omitted and need to be developed. Bacon tells us that this first part is “wanting,” but that “some account” of the matter can be found in the second book of his (1605) Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human. The second part was to present the art of interpreting nature, by which Bacon means the discovery of the latent motions and structures of natural phenomena. That part is Novum organum, which follows The Great Instauration in the 1620 volume. But it is but a “summary digested into aphorisms” and is in fact largely incomplete.6 The third part was to be a natural history cataloging all the phenomena of nature. In the 1620 volume, Bacon provides not that history but rather a list of one hundred and thirty different histories to be written on natural phenomena such as winds, comets, seas, gems and stones, the human heart and pulse, and so on (although he did write the history of winds, a history of life and death, and a history of dense and rare). The fourth part was to be a demonstration of how the new art of interpreting nature would be applied to those natural histories, but of this part we have but a few fragments. The fifth part would be a temporary collection of conclusions derived by Bacon from his ordinary reasoning, later to be tested by the new art of interpreting nature. Again, we have just a preface. The sixth part would consist of the complete philosophy set out by the plan. Of this, of course, nothing exists and Bacon himself comments that it is a “thing both above my strength and beyond my hopes.”7
So what can we learn about our time from Sir Francis Bacon? Not all that much about natural science and technology as we know them. But that said, Bacon thought seriously about what it would mean for humankind to possess the power over nature he envisioned and we now have. He knew that the scientific transformation of the world would have extraordinary moral and political consequences and that it would pose new problems in place of old ones: In a world to be conquered rather than endured, what moral and political principles will guide the human energies released by the activity of conquest? And in a world freed from God's providence—a world in which we literally choose our own destiny—will anything limit the objects of our choice? And what are the best means for overcoming the resistance of those who would stand to lose with the passing of the old world, or of those too timid to welcome wholeheartedly a new and unknown one? Bacon's teaching about modern science is ultimately about human relations during and after the conquest of nature. Thus the core of his teaching about science is to be found not so much in his account of scientific investigation, but rather in his moral and political thought.
Of part six of his plan, Bacon says that if it were to exist, it would describe the ends of science, where “human Knowledge and human Power, do really meet in one”; and of such a picture Bacon says not that it is beyond his powers and so impossible for him to provide but rather that, given “the present condition of things and men's minds,” it “cannot easily be conceived or imagined.”8 This means, of course, that with difficulty such a picture can be conceived or imagined and is not beyond Bacon's strength and hope. By 1624 Bacon had written in his New Atlantis just such a picture of a society formed by and dedicated to natural science and the technological conquest of nature. Bacon names this society “Bensalem,” which means “offspring of peace, perfection, or wholeness.” Bensalem is, moreover, dedicated to ends that are “compounded of all goodness.”9
Bacon, however, did not publish New Atlantis during his lifetime and it did not see the light of day until 1627. By long tradition New Atlantis has been thought to be incomplete. According to Rawley, Bacon's secretary who oversaw its publication, the work was left unfinished because Bacon was deterred by considerations of time and preference from composing the “frame of Laws, or of the best state or mould of a commonwealth,” an account of scientific politics, that would have completed it.10 But before we accept Rawley's opinion, it is important to remember Bacon's claim that the sixth part of his project would be difficult to conceive or imagine. In The Great Instauration Bacon explains this difficulty as the result of men thinking “the matter in hand” to be “mere felicity of speculation” rather than the mastery of nature.11 But in his division of the sciences in the Advancement of Learning, Bacon provides an additional explanation for this difficulty, at least as regards politics. There he says that government is a “part of knowledge secret and retired, in both these respects in which things are deemed secret; for some things are deemed secret because they are hard to know, and some because they are not fit to utter.”12 If the end of science is difficult to imagine, this may well be because the account of its politics must be “secret and retired.” Moreover, in his 1623 Latin version (De augmentis scientiarum) and expansion of the Advancement of Learning, Bacon comments that if his “leisure time shall hereafter produce anything concerning political knowledge, the work will perchance be either abortive or posthumous.”13 This describes New Atlantis to a T. It is entirely possible, then, that New Atlantis may only appear to be incomplete and may indeed be the picture of the end of science as anticipated in the sixth part of Bacon's plan: since it's about the politics of science its teaching is “secret and retired” and to be discerned only with difficulty. We may well have to read very carefully and between Bacon's posthumous lines. Moreover, if we take Bacon at his word, something about the politics of modern science is not just hard to know but also not fit to utter. Just what might that be?
Being convinced that the human intellect makes its own difficulties, not using the true helps which are at man's disposal soberly and judiciously; whence follows manifold ignorance of things, and by reason of that ignorance mischiefs innumerable; he3 thought all trial should be made, whether that commerce4 between the mind of man and the nature of things, which is more precious than anything on earth, or at least than anything that is of the earth, might by any means be restored to its perfect and original condition, or if that may not be, yet reduced5 to a better condition than that in which it now is. Now that the errors which have hitherto prevailed, and which will prevail for ever, should (if the mind be left to go its own way), either by the natural force of the understanding or by help of the aids and instruments of Logic, one by one correct themselves, was a thing not to be hoped for: because the primary notions of things which the mind readily and passively imbibes, stores up, and accumulates (and it is from them that all the rest flow) are false, confused, and overhastily abstracted from the facts; nor are the secondary and subsequent notions less arbitrary and inconstant; whence it follows that the entire fabric of human reason which we employ in the inquisition of nature, is badly put together and built up, and like some magnificent structure without any foundation. For while men are occupied in admiring and applauding the false powers of the mind, they pass by and throw away those true powers, which, if it be supplied with the proper aids and can itself be content to wait upon nature instead of vainly affecting to overrule her, are within its reach. There was but one course left, therefore,—to try the whole thing anew upon a better plan, and to commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations. And this, though in the project and undertaking it may seem a thing infinite and beyond the powers of man, yet when it comes to be dealt with it will be found sound and sober, more so than what has been done hitherto. For of this there is some issue;6 whereas in what is now done in the matter of science there is only a whirling round about, and perpetual agitation, ending where it began. And although he was well aware how solitary an enterprise it is, and how hard a thing to win faith and credit for, nevertheless he was resolved not to abandon either it or himself; nor to be deterred from trying and entering upon that one path which is alone open to the human mind. For better it is to make a beginning of that which may lead to something, than to engage in a perpetual struggle and pursuit in courses which have no exit. And certainly the two ways of contemplation are much like those two ways of action, so much celebrated, in this—that the one, arduous and difficult in the beginning, leads out at last into the open country; while the other, seeming at first sight easy and free from obstruction, leads to pathless and precipitous places.
Moreover, because he knew not how long it might be before these things would occur to any one else, judging especially from this, that he has found no man hitherto who has applied his mind to the like, he resolved to publish at once so much as he has been able to complete. The cause of which haste was not ambition for himself, but solicitude for the work; that in case of his death there might remain some outline and project of that which he had conceived, and some evidence likewise of his honest mind and inclination towards the benefit of the human race. Certain it is that all other ambition whatsoever seemed poor in his eyes compared with the work which he had in hand; seeing that the matter at issue is either nothing, or a thing so great that it may well be content with its own merit, without seeking other recompence.
Most Gracious and Mighty King,
Your Majesty may perhaps accuse me of larceny, having stolen from your affairs so much time as was required for this work. I know not what to say for myself. For of time there can be no restitution, unless it be that what has been abstracted from your business may perhaps go to the memory of your name and the honour of your age; if these things are indeed worth anything. Certainly they are quite new; totally new in their very kind: and yet they are copied from a very ancient model; even the world itself and the nature of things and of the mind. And to say truth, I am wont for my own part to regard this work as a child of time rather than of wit;9 the only wonder being that the first notion of the thing, and such great suspicions concerning matters long established, should have come into any man's mind. All the rest follows readily enough. And no doubt there is something of accident (as we call it) and luck as well in what men think as in what they do or say. But for this accident which I speak of, I wish that if there be any good in what I have to offer, it may be ascribed to the infinite mercy and goodness of God, and to the felicity of your Majesty's times; to which as I have been an honest and affectionate servant in my life, so after my death I may yet perhaps, through the kindling of this new light in the darkness of philosophy, be the means of making this age famous to posterity; and surely to the times of the wisest and most learned of kings belongs of right the regeneration and restoration of the sciences. Lastly, I have a request to make—a request no way unworthy of your Majesty, and which especially concerns the work in hand; namely, that you who resemble Solomon in so many things—in the gravity of your judgments, in the peacefulness of your reign, in the largeness of your heart, in the noble variety of the books which you have composed—would further follow his example10 in taking order11 for the collecting and perfecting of a Natural and Experimental History, true and severe12 (unincumbered with literature and book-learning), such as philosophy may be built upon,—such, in fact, as I shall in its proper place describe: that so at length, after the lapse of so many ages, philosophy and the sciences may no longer float in air, but rest on the solid foundation of experience of every kind, and the same well examined and weighed. I have provided the machine, but the stuff must be gathered from the facts of nature. May God Almighty long preserve your Majesty!
Your Majesty's
Most bounden and devoted
Servant,
FRANCIS VERULAM,
Chancellor