RECORD OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 



Bacon came early to believe that the method of investigation 

 which IK- adxocated would be best promoted by the corporate 

 action of men who could devote their whole energies to its pursuit. 

 As tar back as the year 1(117, before the publication of his * Novum 



-non \ he had already composed his ' New Atlantis', in which 

 he embodied his ideal conception of how such corporate action 

 minht be organi/ed and established. His vivid imagination 

 portrayed, in a kind of allegorical picture, a carefully planned 

 and well-endowed college, consisting of a company of thirty-six 

 divided into groups, each of w r hich should be charged 

 with a special department of inquiry or research. The field of 



rprise was to embrace the whole of Nature, and was to be 

 both theoretical and practical, with the view, on the one hand, of 

 unravelling the causes of things ', and, on the other, of obtaining 

 such a knowledge of facts as would lead to new discoveries and 

 inventions. One-half of the Fellows were to be employed in 

 collecting from foreign countries and abstracting from books and 

 from mechanical arts and liberal sciences all that had been 

 previously discovered or invented. The rest of the company, 

 consisting of six groups, were to be variously employed in trying 

 experiments, tabulating former experiments and results, and 



iiring to draw forth conclusions useful 'for man's life and 

 knowledge and to establish generalizations that might lead to 

 * greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms'. 2 



UacoM died in ir.'ju. His* New Atlantis ', which had remained 



among his papers, was published the following year, and attracted 



inn h attention that in forty-three years no fewer than ten 



it had been issued. \Vhen we remember what a 



<>n of crises in the political history of this country these 



mprised, we may in some measure realize the strength of 

 mo\ run nt which the great philosopher had set on foot, and 



which could thus advance in the midst of civil war and social 

 confusion. He did not live to see any attempt made to give 



iltinn that tin- deductive philosophy which he 



IM- j-phMnliilly illustrated by Newton and other workers within 



<>f practical invention if the truth must be 



-iMikni, 1 he >ays, \vhen the rational and dogmatic sciences began, the discovery of useful 

 won 



1 T1 ! -''l 1( . v Itorun. 2 'New Atlantis.' 



