body. And wherever there are natural bodies and local motion, there is either repulsion, or yielding, or division; for these things above mentioned, namely, compression, relaxation, repulsion, yielding with many others, are universal passions of matters every where, and yet from this fountain has flowed that multiplication of circles complicated at pleasure, which they will nevertheless have to be so adapted to each other, and to move and turn with such smoothness and slipperiness one within the other, that there is no obstruction at all, no fluctuation; all which are plainly fanciful, and trample upon the nature of things. The third is, that all natural bodies have their own proper motions; and if any be found to have more than one, that all the rest come from elsewhere, and from some separate moving body. Than which nothing falser can be devised, seeing all bodies by the manifold consent of things are endued likewise with many motions, some ruling, some obeying, and some also lying dormant unless exerted; and proper motions of things there are none, except exact measures and modes of common motions. Hence again has come forth a separate primum mobile, and heavens above heavens, and a continuous chain of new structures, to meet the demands of such different motions. The fourth is, that all celestial motions are performed in perfect circles; a thing very cumbrous, which has produced for us those prodigies of eccentrics and epicycles; whereas if they had consulted nature, they would have found that while motion orderly and uniform is in a perfect circle, motion orderly but multiform, such as is found in many heavenly bodies, is in other lines; and deservedly does Gilbert laugh at this, saying that it is not probable nature would have formed wheels of one or two miles for instance in circuit, to carry a ball the size of a palm 5. For it seems that the body of a planet is no bigger, as compared with those circles which they invent for it to move in. The fifth is, that the stars are parts of their own orb fixed as it were by a nail. But this is very evidently a conceit of those who deal with mathematics, not with nature, and fixing all their attention on the motion of bodies entirely forget their substances. For that fixation is a particular affection of compact and consistent things, which keep firm hold by reason of the pressure of their parts. But it is quite inconceivable, if it be transferred to soft or liquid bodies. The sixth is, that a star is the denser part of its own orb; whereas the stars are neither parts, nor denser 6. For they are not homogeneous with the air, differing only in degree, but they are quite heterogeneous and differ in substance; which substance also is in respect of density rarer and more open than the ethereal. There are likewise many other opinions equally vain; but these will suffice for the present business. So much then for the doctrines of philosophy concerning celestial bodies. As for the hypotheses of astronomers, it is useless to refute them, because they are not themselves asserted as true, and they may be various and contrary one to the other, yet so as equally to save and adjust the phenomena. Let it then be arranged, if you will, between philosophy and astronomy, as by a convenient and legitimate compact, that astronomy shall prefer those hypotheses which are most suitable for compendious calculation, philosophy those which approach nearest the truth of nature; and that the hypotheses of astronomy shall not prejudice the truth of the thing, while the decisions of philosophy shall be such as are explicable on the phenomena of astronomy. And so much for hypotheses. But with respect to astronomical observations, which are assiduously accumulated, and are continually dropping like waters from the heaven, I would by all means have men beware, lest Esop's pretty fable of the fly that sate on the pole of a chariot at the Olympic races and said, "What a dust do I raise," be verified in them. For so it is that some small observation, and that disturbed sometimes by the instrument, sometimes by the eye, sometimes by the calculation, and which may be owing to some real change in the heaven, raises new heavens and new spheres and circles. Nor do I say this because I would have any relaxation of industry in observations and history, which I say should be sharpened and strengthened in all ways, but only that prudence and a perfect and settled maturity of judgment may be employed in rejecting or altering hypotheses. Having therefore now opened the way, I will make a few general observations on

5 Gilbert Physiol. Nov. ii. II.

6 Cf. Arist. De Cœlo, ii. 7.

the motions themselves. I have said that there are four kinds of greater motions in the heavens. Motion in the depth of heaven, upward or downward; motion through the latitude of the zodiac, deviating to south and north; motion in the direction of the zodiac, quick, slow, progressive, retrograde, and stationary; and motion of elongation from the sun. And let no one object that this second motion of latitude, or the dragons, might have been referred to that great cosmical motion, being an alternate inclination towards north and south; inasmuch as these spirals move in like manner from tropic to tropic; only that the cosmical motion is spiral simply, whereas the other is likewise sinuous and with much smaller intervals. For this has not escaped me. But the fact is, that the constant and perpetual motion of the sun in the ecliptic without latitude and dragons, which sun nevertheless has a common motion with the other planets in respect of spirals between the tropics, forbids me to agree with this opinion. We must therefore seek other sources both of this and of the three other motions. Such are the ideas with regard to the celestial motions which seem to me to have least inconvenience. Let us see then what they deny and what they affirm. They deny that the earth revolves. They deny that there are two motions in the heavenly bodies, one being from west to east; and affirm a difference in speed, one out-stripping and leaving the other behind. They deny an oblique circle with a different position of its poles; and affirm spirals. They deny separate primum mobile, and carriage by force; and affirm a cosmical consent as the common bond of the system. They affirm that the diurnal motion is found not in the heaven only 7, but also in the air, water, and even the exterior of the earth, in respect of its verticity. They affirm that this cosmical motion of flowing and rolling in fluids, becomes verticity and direction in solids, until it passes into pure immobility. They deny that the stars are fixed like knots in a board. They deny that eccentrics, epicycles, and such structures are real. They affirm that the magnetic motion, or that which brings bodies together, is active in the stars, whereby fire evokes and raises fire. They affirm that in the planetary heavens the bodies of the planets move and revolve with greater velocity than the rest of the heaven in which they are situated, which does indeed revolve, but more slowly. They affirm that from this inequality come the fluctuations, waves, and reciprocations of the planetary ether, and from them a variety of motions. They affirm a necessity in the planets of revolving faster and slower, according as they are situated high or low in the heaven, and that by consent of the universe. But at the same time they affirm a dislike in the planets of preternatural velocity as well of the greater as of the lesser circle. They affirm a tendency to follow the sun, by reason of neediness of nature, in the weaker fires of Venus and Mercury; the rather, because Galileo has discovered certain small wandering stars attendant upon Jupiter. These then are the things I see, standing as I do on the threshold of natural history and philosophy; and it may be that the deeper any man has gone into natural history the more he will approve them. Nevertheless I repeat once more that I do not mean to bind myself to these; for in them as in other things I am certain of my way, but not certain of my position. Meanwhile, I have introduced them by way of interlude, lest it be thought that it is from vacillation of judgment or inability to affirm that I prefer negative questions. I will preserve therefore, even as the heavenly bodies themselves do (since it is of them I am discoursing), a variable constancy.

7 Motum diurnum inveniri non in cœlo, sed et in aere, aquis, etiam extimis terræ, quoad verticitatem. So the sentence stands in the original. But it seems that tantum or some equivalent word has dropped out.-J. S.

THE NEW ATLANTIS

PREFACE.

BY JAMES SPEDDING.

THE New Atlantis seems to have been written in 1624, and, though not finished, to have been intended for publication as it stands. It was published accordingly by Dr. Rawley in 1627, at the end of the volume containing the Sylva Sylvarum ; for which place Bacon had himself designed it, the subjects of the two being so near akin; the one representing his idea of what should be the end of the work which in the other he supposed himself to be beginning. For the story of Solomon's House is nothing more than a vision of the practical results which he anticipated from the study of natural history diligently and systematically carried on through successive generations.

In this part of it, the work may probably be considered as complete. Of the state of Solomon's House he has told us all that he was as yet qualified to tell. His own attempts to "interpret nature" suggested the apparatus which was necessary for success: he had but to furnish Solomon's House with the instruments and preparations which he had himself felt the want of. The difficulties which had baffled his single efforts to provide that apparatus for himself suggested the constitution and regulations of a society formed to overcome them: he had but to furnish Solomon's House with the helps in head and hand which he had himself wished for. His own intellectual aspirations suggested the result: he had but to set down as known all that he himself most longed to know. But here he was obliged to stop. He could not describe the process of a perfect philosophical investigation; because it must of course have proceeded by the method of the Novum Organum, which was not yet expounded. Nor could he give a particular example of the result of such investigation, in the shape of a Form or an Axiom; for that presupposed the completion, not only of the Novum Organum, but (at least in some one subject) of the Natural History also; and no portion of the Natural History complete enough for the purpose was as yet producible. Here therefore he stopped; and it would almost seem that the nature of the difficulty which stood in his way had reminded him of the course he ought to take; for just at this point (as we learn from Dr. Rawley) he did in fact leave his fable and return to his work. He had begun it with the intention of exhibiting a model political constitution, as well as a model college of natural philosophy; but "his desire of collecting the natural history diverted him, which he preferred many degrees before it". And in this, according to his own view of the matter, he was no doubt right; for though there are few people now who would not gladly give all the Sylva Sylvarum, had there been ten times as much of it, in exchange for an account of the laws, institutions, and administrative arrangements of Bensalem, it was not so with Bacon; who being deeper read in the phenomena of the human heart than in those of the material world, probably thought the perfect knowledge of nature an easier thing than the perfect government of men,-easier and not so far off; and therefore preferred to work where there was fairest hope of fruit.

To us, who can no longer hope for the fruits which Bacon expected, the New Atlantis is chiefly interesting as a record of his own feelings. Perhaps there is no single work of his which has so much of himself in it. The description of Solomon's House is the description of the vision in which he lived,-the vision not of an ideal world released from the natural conditions to which ours is subject, but of our own world as it might be made if we did our duty by it; of a state of things which he believed would one day be actually seen upon this earth such as it is by men

such as we are; and the coming of which he believed that his own labours were sensibly hastening. The account of the manners and customs of the people of Bensalem is an account of his own taste in humanity; for a man's ideal, though not necessarily a description of what he is, is almost always an indication of what he would be; and in the sober piety, the serious cheerfulness, the tender and gracious courtesy, the open-handed hospitality, the fidelity in public and chastity in private life, the grave and graceful manners, the order, decency, and earnest industry, which prevail among these people we recognise an image of himself made perfect, of that condition of the human soul which he loved in others, and aspired towards in himself. Even the dresses, the household arrangements, the order of their feasts and solemnities, their very gestures of welcome and salutation, have an interest and significance independent of the fiction, as so many records of Bacon's personal taste in such matters. Nor ought the stories which the Governor of the House of Strangers tells about the state of navigation and population in the early post-diluvian ages, to be regarded merely as romances invented to vary and enrich the narrative, but rather as belonging to a class of serious speculations to which Bacon's mind was prone. As in his visions of the future, embodied in the achievements of Solomon's House, there is nothing which he did not conceive to be really practicable by the means which he supposes to be used; so in his speculations concerning the past, embodied in the traditions of Bensalem, I doubt whether there be any (setting aside, of course, the particular history of the fabulous island) which he did not believe to be historically probable. Whether it were that the progress of the human race in knowledge and art seemed to him too small to be accounted for otherwise than by supposing occasional tempests of destruction, in which all that had been gathered was swept away, or that the vicissitudes which had actually taken place during the short periods of which we know something had suggested to him the probability of similar accidents during those long tracts of time of which we know nothing, or merely that the imagination is prone by nature to people darkness with shadows,-certain it is that the tendency was strong in Bacon to credit the past with wonders; to suppose that the world had brought forth greater things than it remembered, had seen periods of high civilisation buried in oblivion, great powers and peoples swept away and extinguished. In the year 1607, he avowed before the House of Commons a belief that in some forgotten period of her history (possibly during the Heptarchy) England had been far better peopled than she was then. In 1609, when he published the De Sapientid Veterum, he inclined to believe that an age of higher intellectual development than any the world then knew of had flourished and passed out of memory long before Homer and Hesiod wrote; and this upon the clearest and most deliberate review of all the obvious objections; and more decidedly than he had done four years before when he published the Advancement of Learning. And I have little doubt that when he wrote the New Atlantis he thought it not improbable that the state of navigation in the world 3000 years before was really such as the Governor of the House of Strangers describes; that some such naval expeditions as those of Coya and Tyrambel may really have taken place; and that the early civilisation of the Great Atlantis may really have been drowned by a deluge and left to begin its career again from a state of mere barbarism.

Among the few works of fiction which Bacon attempted, the New Atlantis is much the most considerable; which gives an additional interest to it, and makes one the more regret that it was not finished according to the original design. Had it proceeded to the end in a manner worthy of the beginning, it would have stood, as a work of art, among the most perfect compositions of its kind.

The notes to this piece, which are not marked with Mr. Ellis's initials, are mine.

J. S.

TO THE READER.

THIS fable my Lord devised, to the end that he might exhibit therein a model or description of a college instituted for the interpreting of nature and the producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of men, under the name of Salomon's House, or the College of the Six Days' Works. And even so far his Lordship hath proceeded, as to finish that part. Certainly the model is more vast and high than can possibly be imitated in all things; notwithstanding most things therein are within men's power to effect. His Lordship thought also in this present fable to have composed a frame of Laws, or of the best state or mould of a commonwealth; but foreseeing it would be a long work, his desire of collecting the Natural History 1 diverted him, which he preferred many degrees before it. This work of the New Atlantis (as much as concerneth the English edition) his Lordship designed for this place 2; in regard it hath so near affinity (in one part of it) with the preceding Natural History.

NEW ATLANTIS.

W. RAWLEY.

WE sailed from Peru, (where we had continued by the space of one whole year,) for China and Japan, by the South Sea 3; taking with us victuals for twelve months; and had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months' space and more. But then the wind came about, and settled in the west for many days so as we could make little or no way, and were sometimes in purpose to turn back. But then again there arose strong and great winds from the south, with a point east; which carried us up (for all that we could do) towards the north by which time our victuals failed us, though we had made good spare of them. So that finding ourselves in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world, without victuals, we gave ourselves for lost men, and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, who showeth his wonders in the deep; beseeching him of his mercy, that as in the beginning he discovered the face of the deep, and brought forth dry land, so he would now discover land to us, that we might 5 not perish. And it came to pass that the next day about evening, we saw within a kenning before us, towards the north, as it were thick clouds, which did put us in some hope of land; knowing how that part of the South Sea was utterly unknown; and might have islands or continents that hitherto were not come to light. Wherefore we bent our course thither, where we saw the appearance of land, all that night; and in the dawning of the next day, we might plainly discern that it was a land; flat to our sight, and full of boscage; which made it shew the more dark. And after an hour and a half's sailing, we entered into a good haven, being the port of a fair city; not great indeed, but well built, and that gave a pleasant view from the sea and we thinking every minute long till we were on land, came close to the shore, and offered to land. But straightways we saw divers of the people, with bastons in their hands, as it were forbidding us to land; yet without any cries or fierceness, but only as warning us off by signs that they made. Whereupon being not a little discomforted, we were advising with ourselves what we should do. During which time there made forth to us a small boat, with about eight persons in it; whereof one of them had in his hand a tipstaff of a yellow cane, tipped at both

1 In the Latin translation Rawley adds, aliarumque Instaurationis partium contexendarum; alluding probably to the De Augmentis, the only portion of the Instauration not belonging to the Natural History, which he seems to have been employed upon afterwards. 2 It was published at the end of the volume containing the Sylva Sylvarum. 3 The words "by the South Sea " are omitted in the translation.

4 So in the original. If discovered be the right word, it must mean removed the covering of the face of the deep. But I think there must be some mistake. The Latin version has quemadmodum in principio congregationes aquarum mandavit et Aridam apparere fecit. The allusion is, no doubt, to Genes. i. 9: "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear".

5 mought in the original; a form of the word frequently, though not uniformly, adopted by Bacon. I have always substituted might.