New Atlantis – Francis Bacon

Bacon’s New Atlantis is an utopic text that clearly defines the role of science in society, showing how beneficial it would be to have it center in society’s concerns and efforts.

In terms of plot, the story starts with a ship that gets lost in a tempest, and fearing for their own safety and already possessing a quantity of sick people, they find the land of Bensalem. This land is inhabited by a society that is insulated, but inhabited by a variety of peoples from previous centuries of exploration. The island, now forgotten, is home to a college called Salomon’s House, which his dedicated to the study and classification of all of God’s works of nature. The rest of the text is pretty much a description of the society, which welcomes strangers but choses to only leave every 12 years to get the most recent scientific inventions and news.

There are interesting markers in here for classification, breeding, propagation of the species, enhancing and transmuting species, mining, and political/religious ramifications.