26 
FIRST REPORT— 1831 . 
academical fabric of this island’s Solomon’s house, modelled 
in my New Atlantis, and my ends are only to make the world 
my heir, and the learned fathers of my Solomon’s house the 
successive and sworn trustees, in the dispensation of this great 
service, for God’s glory, my prince’s magnificence, this parlia¬ 
ment’s honour, our country’s general good, and the propagation 
of my own memory.’ From this speech it appears that the 
basis of the great Institution, which Bacon meditated, was a 
public provision for the maintenance and promotion of science. 
It was one of the defects noted by him in his masterly survey 
of the state of learning, that science had never possessed a 
whole man ; and he exerted all the influence of his high station 
and commanding talents, to promote the supply of that defect. 
In a letter to the king respecting the foundation of the hospital 
at Dulwich by Allen the actor, he remarked, that though he 
was glad to see him play the last act of life so well, yet he 
thought Sir H. Savile’s endowments of geometrical and astro¬ 
nomical Professorships of much greater necessity and more 
deserving of royal encouragement; and his own last bequest 
was one which, had it been executed, would have endowed two 
similar offices with salaries of two hundred pounds a year. In 
his opinion it was f necessary to the progression of sciences, that 
those who are to generate and propagate them should be placed 
in such a condition as may content the ablest man to appropriate 
his whole labour, and continue his whole age, in that function 
and attendance; ’ and he added, f there will hardly be any main 
proficiency in the disclosing of nature, except there be some 
allowances for expenses about experiments, whether they be 
experiments appertaining to Vulcan or Daedalus, furnace or 
engine, or any other kind; and therefore, as secretaries and 
spials of princes and states bring in bills for intelligence, so you 
must allow the spials and intelligencers of nature to bring in 
their bills, or else you shall be ill advertised.’ 
“These desiderata no means have yet been found of sup¬ 
plying in an adequate degree; and science, even to the pre¬ 
sent day, can scarcely be said to possess more than fractions of 
men. The Royal Society did not attempt to execute this part 
of Bacon’s plan; but in other respects it copied as closely as 
possible, the model of the six days College. It was not then an 
association of individuals throwing their contributions casually 
into a common stock, but a body politic of philosophers acting 
in a corporate capacity and with systematic views, allotting to 
its members their respective tasks, and conjunctively debating 
and consulting for the advancement of knowledge. It had, in 
the figurative language of Bacon, its merchants of light, who 
