More's Utopia, is tolerant and humane; it inculcates the amity of nations, kindness and compassion towards the alien and distressed. One of the sages of the "New Atlantis," receiving strangers from afar, rejoices to find them not indifferent to religious inquiries. "Ye knit my heart to you," he says, "by asking this question in the first place; for it showeth that you first seek the kingdom of heaven."

In politics we are told the king had "a large heart, inscrutable for good, and was wholly bent to make his kingdom and people happy." The islanders find seclusion from the rest of the world conducive to the public welfare, " doubting novelties and commixture of manners." Their country being an island of large extent, of rare fertility of soil, and extensive shipping, they are comparatively independent of foreigners. Still voyages are undertaken by ambassadors selected for that purpose, to keep the inhabitants of the "New Atlantis" informed of all the discoveries and improvements in foreign lands.

"Solomon's House"* (of the description of which Lord Macaulay says "that there is not to be found in any human composition a passage more eminently

* Some think that in the name of Solomon some flattering allusion is here intended to James I. on his elevation to the throne of England.

distinguished by profound and serene wisdom") is the "lanthorn" of the kingdom; "it is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God." It is a sort of national museum and laboratory for the discovery of "the true nature of things." The main object of its foundation is "the knowledge of causes, and secret motion of things; and the enlarging of the bands of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible." Hence it must contain all instruments for the observation of natural phenomena and new discoveries, in order to the conquest of natural obstacles standing in the way of human happiness. It must furnish, moreover, the means for preserving and prolonging life, and the undisturbed enjoyment of existence. There are observatories, engine-houses, even "wildfires under water" (torpedoes), and there "we imitate the flight of the birds" (balloons). Men are appointed to various offices of research and the collection of facts, as well as "mystery men," for the study of scientific principles and their practical application, pioneers and miners to make new experiments, compilers of statistics and others to "cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life," until we finally come to the class called "interpreters of nature," who codify the results of discovery and observation with axioms and aphorisms for the future guidance of mankind to pro

vide against maladies and misfortunes arising from natural causes.

Nor is the search after “more light" disassociated in the "New Atlantis" from the practice of virtue. As to morality, "it is the virgin of the world. Selfrespect is the spring of their virtue; therefore the reverence of a man's self is next to religion the chiefest bridle of all vices.”

Further, this search after goodness and truth does not interfere with a joyous mode of living our life here below. On the contrary, the simplicity and serenity of patriarchal life on scientific principles gives completeness to the home, and the cheerfulness of wellregulated households on a large scale is increased by occasional feasts and family gatherings, accompanied by interesting and instructive ceremonies, closing with "music and dances, and other recreations after their manner."

In short, Bacon expects a startling revolution in the course of human affairs in consequence of a wider spread of scientific knowledge; he anticipates a new heaven and a new earth from a wider diffusion of the knowledge of natural laws. More had seen in the revival of classical learning and in the dawn of the Reformation a promise of social improvement among the people. Bacon, a century later, saw in the revival of scientific inquiry, and in the rise of his own

experimental philosophy, the promise of amelioration in the physical and moral condition of mankind.

Thus we see how the mind of man cannot rest satisfied with existing arrangements, but soars after a higher social ideal when it feels itself lifted out of its ordinary level in the lower regions of custom and conventionality. The occasion is given by some mighty current of thought or feeling passing through masses of men periodically. Sometimes it is the outburst of a religious reformation, at other times the revival of the old learning, and then again the renewed spirit of research inquiring into the hidden laws of nature. The movement is set going, and men like Bacon partly describe and partly direct its course, and prophetically point to its goal. Nor are the ideal speculations of Bacon, bold and original as they were, impracticable. "Already," says Macaulay,

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some parts, and not the least startling parts, of the glorious prophecy have been accomplished, even according to the letter, and the whole, construed according to the spirit, is daily accomplishing all around us."

It has been asked, "Could this confident hope in the immense expansions of human power, the grand idea of man's universal conquest over nature and over obstacles placed by himself in the way of his own unlimited increase in well-being and happiness,.

have germinated, grown, and occupied any one's mind entirely in times of discouragement and decay, in times of ecclesiastical and political tyranny, discouraging freedom of thought and intellectual effort?" * No?

The work of Thomas Campanella, entitled the "City of the Sun," is a complete reply to this question. It appeared in 1637, or thirteen years after Bacon's "New Atlantis." Campanella himself was born in Stilo, in Calabria, in the year of the building of the Royal Exchange, in London, by Sir Thomas Gresham, the royal merchant, an event which indicates the commercial prosperity of this country at a time when Italy, "sunk in sloth, priest-ridden, tyrantwhen-Italy, ridden, exhausted with the unparalleled activity of the renaissance, besotted with the vices of slavery and slow corruption, gave no ears to these prophets of the future, the heralds of modern philosophy and modern ideas of freedom.”

Thus it happened that "the dulcet sounds of phantasy" from the pen of the philosopher of Stilo had no charm for his countrymen. Nevertheless, he would not be silent. He took for his motto "Non tacebo," and for his device a bell, to indicate his mission of sounding the alarm in the ears of those who

* Taine's "English Literature," vol. i. p. 218.