CHAPTER II.

BACON'S NEW ATLANTIS AND CAMPANELLA'S "CITY OF THE SUN."

MORE than a century had passed away since the appearance of More's "Utopia." The religious ferment produced by the Reformation movement had begun to show signs of abatement, when another movement closely connected with it made its appearance almost at the same time in England and Italy, namely, the rise of a new philosophy. A small body of original thinkers rose up, who, breaking loose from the old methods of scientific inquiry, sought out new paths for discovering the laws of nature, and in so doing to ameliorate the social condition of mankind.

Lord Bacon and the Dominican friar Campanella were both deeply interested in this powerful intellectual movement; they were both influenced by the

teachings of a common master, Teleso, one of the "novi homines" whose avowed aim it was to destroy, the authority of Aristotle, the "tyrant of souls,” and to free the human mind from intellectual shackles, just as the Reformers had endeavoured to free mankind from spiritual thraldom.

By education and early associations, as well as in their subsequent experiences, no two men could differ from each other more widely than Lord Bacon and Thomas Campanella. Whilst the latter was wasting his early life in a cloister, the former was qualifying for a successful career at the bar; whilst the Italian was in prison for the next twenty-seven years of his life on account of his political and religious convictions, the Englishman was gradually rising into fame and political power; and whereas Campanella died at last in comparative obscurity, scarcely remembered in our own day, though once the forerunner of a great scientific revolution, Lord Bacon is still revered as the man whose appearance marked an epoch in scientific history. Yet both these men, in spite of these differences of position and fortune, were inspired by the same ideas, they both expected identical results of a stupendous nature from the progress of natural science in the improvement of our race.

The social surroundings of the Calabrian monk were by no means of an encouraging character. He

lived among a people enervated by political corruption and in the last stage of national decrepitude.

The people is a beast of muddy brain,

he says, in one of his celebrated sonnets, disgusted as he was with their apathy for social improvement and their impervious indifference to new ideas. No small amount of faith in his own mission was, therefore, necessary for Campanella to take upon himself the "Philosophical and Social Apostolate," and, in spite of persecution, imprisonment, and torture, to persevere in his belief in the final triumph of good, and a golden age to be brought about by equality and brotherly love.

Bacon was more fortunate in his personal experiences. Living in one of the most flourishing periods of English history, in the midst of national prosperity and intellectual progress, he was buoyed up not only by an inner consciousness of power, but by external surroundings. The unparalleled triumphs of the age of Elizabeth gave an impulse to the sanguine hopes in the progress of mankind contained in the "New Atlantis."

There was one point in which the history of these two great men coincided. They both were born in an age of discovery. The invention of printing, with its wider diffusion of knowledge and culture; the

discovery of America and a new passage to the East Indies, with the consequent influx of wealth and luxury; the further spread of commerce, exciting the spirit of inquiry and adventure, and with it unbounded desires and longings: all these aided in opening new prospects to aspiring humanity, and could not fail to produce profound impressions on such minds as that of Bacon, "the most sagacious of mankind," and that of Campanella, the friend of Galileo. Both were gifted with scientific tact along with imaginative genius, both were inspired with the enthusiasm of scientific reform and social ideals, hence both produced similar Utopias.

The scheme for social improvement as conceived in the brain of the Dominican friar differs in many respects from that of the eminent Englishman, but the "New Atlantis," as well as the "Civitas solis," may be called prophecies of social improvement, as the effects of the advancement of learning, the one under an enlightened hierarchy, the other under perfect monarchical institutions.

Of Lord Bacon, it has been said that he thought in the manner of artists and poets, and speaks after the manner of prophets and seers. We may see this verified in the "New Atlantis," which we must now proceed to consider in its general outlines.

In this fragment of Bacon's social philosophy we

C

have indications of the manner in which he thought it possible to improve the social condition of our race by means of enriching mankind with new discoveries and additional resources, and by means of which he sought to promote the contentment and happiness of man by fitting him out with a complete equipment of instruments and powers for the entire conquest of

nature.

The "New Atlantis" was written in its present incomplete form in 1624, and published three years later, with the author's approbation. It embodies Bacon's visions of the future, and is remarkable not only as a philosophical speculation or scientific romance, but as being the outcome of sane reflection, containing but few, if any, of those chimerical extravagancies to be found in other Utopias. In the description of the conditions of mankind here we have nothing but the practical results he anticipated from a diligent and systematic study of nature according to his own principles.* In the prospect opened in the "New Atlantis" there is nothing impossible to Bacon's own mind, and what he there describes in the "House of Solomon" he believes to be realisable at no very distant future.

The religion of this imaginary island, like that of

* See Hallam's "Lit. History," vol. iii. p. 103.