New Atlantis

Near the end of the unfinished novel, the Father of Salomon’s House requests an audience with the narrator. When the Father arrives in the city, it is with great pomp and circumstance, as he is surrounded by 50 attendants and carried on a chariot. Religious imagery accompanies his arrival; for example, one of his aides carries a crosier, a hooked staff symbolic of the clergy. Moreover, his first words to the narrator are, “God bless thee, my son” (29), which suggests he is a religious leader.

Yet when he goes on to describe the workings of Salomon’s House, it is clear that the institution is a scientific academy, devoted to uncovering “the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible” (29). This seeming contradiction between scientific research and religious study, however, is no contradiction at all in Bacon’s mind. Much of Bacon’s other writings cast the natural sciences as a way to honor God, given that such research constitutes an investigation of His works. Some scholars, however, suggest that the use of religious imagery surrounding the Father of Salomon’s House represents a dynamic in which science supplants religion, rather than complements it.

It is through the Father that Bacon reiterates many of his thoughts on the scientific method and the importance of applied sciences that benefit humanity, given the long list of practical applications found in the research conducted at Salomon’s House.

Of the three interlocutors with whom the narrator converses, Joabin is the only one who does not act in an official capacity on behalf of Bensalem. A Jewish merchant, Joabin relays the moral and social customs of Bensalem to the narrator, paying particular attention to its chastity and probity, especially when compared to Europe. He is named for the biblical Joab, a top general who served King David, King Solomon’s predecessor, thus tying him to the extensive imagery Bacon employs surrounding Solomon. The narrator describes Joabin as “a wise man, and learned, and of great policy, and excellently seen in the laws and customs of that nation” (25).

In an introduction to the 1989 edition of New Atlantis, critic Jerry Weinberger points out that of all the contemporary characters—including the Salomon’s House Father and the Strangers’ House governor—only Joabin is described as “wise,” an adjective that holds great meaning for Bacon given his deep admiration for King Solomon. Thus, Weinberger posits that Joabin may in fact be the leader of Bensalem, operating outside official state, church, or academic institutions (Bacon, Francis and Jerry Weinberger, ed. New Atlantis and The Great Instauration. Wheeling, IL: Crofts Classics. 1989).