Francis Bacon's New Atlantis

Francis Bacon was the founder of the modern scientific method. The focus on the new scientific method is on orderly experimentation. For Bacon, experiments that produce results are important. Bacon pointed out the need for clear and accurate thinking, showing that any mastery of the world in which man lives was dependent upon careful understanding. This understanding is based solely on the facts of this world and not as the ancients held it in ancient philosophy. This new modern science provides the foundation for modern political science. Bacon's political science completely separated religion and philosophy. For Bacon, nothing exists in the universe except individual bodies. Although he did not offer a …show more content…

The parchment is "signed with a stamp of cherubins' wings... and by them a cross" (Bacon, 420). To the sailors, the cross was "a great rejoicing, and as it were a certain presage of good"
(Bacon, 420). After the natives leave and return to the ship, they stop and ask
"Are ye Christians?" (Bacon, 421). When the sailors confirm that they are, they are taken to the island of Bensalem. On Bensalem, the sailors are 'confined' to their resting place and are attended to according to their needs. The sailors reply, "God surely is manifested in this land" (Bacon, 424). Upon talking to the governor the next day, he exclaims "Ye knit my heart to you by asking this question, [the hope that they might meet heaven], in the first place, for it showeth that you first seek the kingdom of heaven" (Bacon, 427). This is not true. The sailors have already sought food, shelter and care of the sick. In other words, they had sought self preservation. As Bacon put it, "they had already prepared for death" (Bacon, 419).

After the Feast of the Family, the father of Salomon's House has a conference with the travelers. The father says, "I will give the greatest jewel that I have. For I will impart to thee... a relation of the true state of Salomon's
House" (Bacon, 447). The greatest 'jewel' is not one of monetary value but of knowledge. The father continues, "The End of our Foundation is the Knowledge of
Causes and secret motion of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of Human