Latest / Daily Classic Sci Fi Books / 05 - The New Atlantis - Sir Francis Bacon
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Section five. The windows likewise were not crowded, but every
- 0:05Speaker 1: one stood in them as if they had been placed.
- 0:10Speaker 1: When the shoe was passed, the Jew said to me,
- 0:12Speaker 1: I shall not be able to attend you as I
- 0:14Speaker 1: would in regard of some charge the city hath laid
- 0:17Speaker 1: upon me for the entertaining of this great person. Three
- 0:22Speaker 1: days after the Jew came to me again and said,
- 0:25Speaker 1: ye are happy men, for the father of Salomon's house
- 0:28Speaker 1: taketh knowledge of your being here, and commandeth me to
- 0:31Speaker 1: tell you that he will admit all your company to
- 0:34Speaker 1: his presence and have private conference with one of you
- 0:37Speaker 1: that ye shall choose. And for this hath appointed the
- 0:40Speaker 1: next day after tomorrow. And because he meaneth to give
- 0:43Speaker 1: you his blessing, he hath appointed it in the forenoon.
- 0:47Speaker 1: We came at our day and hour, and I was
- 0:49Speaker 1: chosen by my fellows for the private access. We found
- 0:52Speaker 1: him in a fair chamber, richly hanged and carpeted under
- 0:55Speaker 1: foot without any degrees to the state. He was set
- 0:59Speaker 1: upon a low throne, richly adorned, and a rich cloth
- 1:02Speaker 1: of state over his head of blue satin embroidered. He
- 1:06Speaker 1: was alone, save that he had two pages of honor
- 1:09Speaker 1: on either hand. One finally attired in white. His under
- 1:14Speaker 1: garments were the like that we saw him wear in
- 1:16Speaker 1: the chariot, but instead of his gown he had on
- 1:19Speaker 1: him a mantle with a cape of the same fine
- 1:22Speaker 1: black fastened about him. When we came in, as we
- 1:25Speaker 1: were taught, we bowed low at our first entrance, And
- 1:29Speaker 1: when we were come near his chair, he stood up,
- 1:31Speaker 1: holding forth his hand ungloved and in posture a blessing,
- 1:35Speaker 1: And we, every one of us stooped down and kissed
- 1:38Speaker 1: the hem of his tippet. That done, the rest departed,
- 1:41Speaker 1: and I remained. Then he warned the pages forth of
- 1:45Speaker 1: the room, and caused me to sit down beside him,
- 1:48Speaker 1: and spake to me thus in the Spanish tongue. God
- 1:51Speaker 1: bless THEE, my son, I will give THEE the greatest
- 1:55Speaker 1: jewel I have, For I will impart unto THEE for
- 1:58Speaker 1: the love of God and men, a relation of the
- 2:00Speaker 1: true state of Salomon's house. Son, to make you know
- 2:04Speaker 1: the true state of Salomon's house, I will keep this order. First,
- 2:08Speaker 1: I will set forth unto you the end of our foundation. Secondly,
- 2:13Speaker 1: the preparations and instruments we have for our works. Thirdly,
- 2:18Speaker 1: the several employments and functions whereto our fellows are assigned,
- 2:23Speaker 1: and fourthly, the ordinances and rights which we observe. The
- 2:28Speaker 1: end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes and
- 2:31Speaker 1: secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds
- 2:34Speaker 1: of human empire to the effecting of all things possible.
- 2:39Speaker 1: The preparations and instruments are these. We have large and
- 2:42Speaker 1: deep caves of several depths. The deepest are sunk six
- 2:46Speaker 1: hundred fathom, and some of them are digged and made
- 2:49Speaker 1: under great hills and mountains, so that if you reckon
- 2:52Speaker 1: together the depth of the hill and the depth of
- 2:54Speaker 1: the cave, they are, some of them above three miles deep.
- 2:59Speaker 1: For we find that the depth of a hill and
- 3:01Speaker 1: the depth of a cave from the flat is the
- 3:03Speaker 1: same thing, both remote alike from the sun and Heaven's beams,
- 3:08Speaker 1: and from the open air. These caves we call the
- 3:12Speaker 1: lower region, and we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations,
- 3:19Speaker 1: and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the
- 3:22Speaker 1: imitation of natural minds, and the producing also of new
- 3:26Speaker 1: artificial metals by compositions and materials which we use and
- 3:30Speaker 1: lay there. For many years. We use them also, sometimes
- 3:34Speaker 1: which may seem strange, for curing of some diseases, and
- 3:38Speaker 1: for prolongation of life in some hermits that choose to
- 3:42Speaker 1: live there well accommodated of all things necessary, and indeed
- 3:46Speaker 1: live very long, by whom also we learn many things.
- 3:51Speaker 1: We have burials in several earths, where we put diverse cements,
- 3:55Speaker 1: as the Chineses do their porcelain, but we have them
- 3:58Speaker 1: in greater variety, and some of them more fine. We
- 4:01Speaker 1: have also a great variety of composts and soils for
- 4:04Speaker 1: the making of the earth fruitful. We have high towers,
- 4:08Speaker 1: the highest about half a mile in height, and some
- 4:12Speaker 1: of them likewise sat upon high mountains, so that the
- 4:15Speaker 1: vantage of the hill with the tower is in the
- 4:17Speaker 1: highest of them three miles at least. And these places
- 4:20Speaker 1: we call the upper region, accounting the air between the
- 4:23Speaker 1: high places and the low as a middle region. We
- 4:27Speaker 1: use these towers, according to their several heights and situations,
- 4:30Speaker 1: for insulation, refrigeration, conservation, and for the view of diverse
- 4:35Speaker 1: meteors as winds, rain, snow, hail, and some of the
- 4:40Speaker 1: fiery meters also, and upon them in some places are
- 4:44Speaker 1: dwellings of hermits, whom we visit sometimes and instruct what
- 4:47Speaker 1: to observe. We have great lakes, both salt and fresh,
- 4:52Speaker 1: whereof we have use for the fish and fowl. We
- 4:55Speaker 1: use them also for burials of some natural bodies, for
- 4:58Speaker 1: we find a difference in things bear in earth or
- 5:00Speaker 1: in air below the earth, and things buried in water.
- 5:04Speaker 1: We have also pools, of which some do strain fresh
- 5:07Speaker 1: water out of salt, and others by art do turn
- 5:10Speaker 1: fresh water into salt. We have also some rocks in
- 5:14Speaker 1: the midst of the sea, and some bays upon the
- 5:16Speaker 1: shore for some works wherein is required the air and
- 5:20Speaker 1: vapor of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts,
- 5:24Speaker 1: which serve us for many motions, and likewise engines for
- 5:28Speaker 1: multiplying and enforcing of winds to set also on going
- 5:32Speaker 1: diverse motions. We have also a number of artificial wells
- 5:38Speaker 1: and fountains made in imitation of the natural sources and
- 5:41Speaker 1: baths as tinked it upon vitriol, sulfur, steel, brass, lead, niter,
- 5:46Speaker 1: and other minerals. And again we have little wells for
- 5:50Speaker 1: infusions of many things, where the waters take the virtue
- 5:53Speaker 1: quicker and better than in vessels or basins, and amongst
- 5:58Speaker 1: them we have a water which we call water of Paradise,
- 6:01Speaker 1: being by that we do to it made very sovereign
- 6:04Speaker 1: for health and prolongation of life. We have also great
- 6:08Speaker 1: and spacious houses where we imitate and demonstrate meteors as snow, hail, rain,
- 6:14Speaker 1: some artificial rains of bodies and not of water, thunders, lightnings,
- 6:19Speaker 1: also generations of bodies in air, as frogs, flies, and
- 6:23Speaker 1: diverse others. We have also certain chambers, which we call
- 6:27Speaker 1: chambers of health, where we qualify the air as we
- 6:30Speaker 1: think good and proper for the cure of divers diseases
- 6:33Speaker 1: and preservation of health. We have also fair and large
- 6:38Speaker 1: baths of several mixtures for the cure of diseases and
- 6:41Speaker 1: the restoring of man's body from our affection, and others
- 6:44Speaker 1: for the confirming of it in strength of sinews, vital parts,
- 6:48Speaker 1: and the very juice and substance of the body. We
- 6:52Speaker 1: have also large and various orchards and gardens wherein we
- 6:56Speaker 1: do not so much respect beauty as variety of ground
- 6:59Speaker 1: and soil proper for diverse trees and herbs, and some
- 7:03Speaker 1: very spacious where trees and berries are set whereof we
- 7:06Speaker 1: make diverse kinds of drinks. Besides the vineyards. In these
- 7:11Speaker 1: we practice likewise all conclusions of grafting and inoculating, as
- 7:15Speaker 1: well of wild trees as fruit trees, which produceth many effects.
- 7:20Speaker 1: And we make by art in the same orchards and gardens,
- 7:23Speaker 1: trees and flowers to come earlier or later than their seasons,
- 7:26Speaker 1: and to come up and bear more speedily than by
- 7:29Speaker 1: their natural course they do. We make them also by
- 7:32Speaker 1: art greater much than their nature, and their fruit greater
- 7:35Speaker 1: and sweeter, and of differing tastes, smell, color, and figure
- 7:39Speaker 1: from their nature. And many of them we so order
- 7:42Speaker 1: as they become of medicinal use. We have also means
- 7:46Speaker 1: to make diverse plants rise by mixtures of Earth's without seeds,
- 7:50Speaker 1: and likewise to make diverse new plants differing from the vulgar,
- 7:54Speaker 1: and to make one tree or plant turn into another.
- 7:58Speaker 1: We have also parks and inclosures of all sorts of
- 8:01Speaker 1: beasts and birds, which we use not only for view
- 8:04Speaker 1: or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials, that thereby
- 8:09Speaker 1: we may take light what may be wrought upon the
- 8:11Speaker 1: body of man. Wherein we find many strange effects as
- 8:15Speaker 1: continuing life in them, though diverse parts which you account vital,
- 8:19Speaker 1: be perished and taken forth, resuscitating of some that seem
- 8:23Speaker 1: dead in appearance, and the like. We try also all
- 8:27Speaker 1: poisons and other medicines upon them, as well of tiburgory,
- 8:31Speaker 1: as physic by art. Likewise, we make them greater or
- 8:35Speaker 1: taller than their kind is, and contrariwise dwarf them and
- 8:39Speaker 1: stay their growth. We make them more fruitful and bearing
- 8:42Speaker 1: than their kind is, and contrariwise barren and not generative.
- 8:47Speaker 1: Also we make them differ in color, shape, activity. Many
- 8:51Speaker 1: ways we find means to make commixtures and copulations of
- 8:55Speaker 1: different kinds, which have produced many new kinds, and them
- 8:59Speaker 1: not barren, as the general opinion is. We make a
- 9:02Speaker 1: number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes of putrefaction,
- 9:07Speaker 1: whereof some are advanced in effect to be perfect creatures
- 9:10Speaker 1: like beasts or birds, and have sexes and do propagate.
- 9:15Speaker 1: Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand
- 9:18Speaker 1: of what matter and commixture what kind of those creatures
- 9:21Speaker 1: will arise. We have also particular pools where we make
- 9:26Speaker 1: trials upon fishes. As we have said before, of beasts
- 9:29Speaker 1: and birds. We have also places for breed and generation
- 9:33Speaker 1: of those kinds of worms and flies which are of
- 9:35Speaker 1: special use, such as are with you your silkworms and bees.
- 9:40Speaker 1: I will not hold you long with recounting of our
- 9:42Speaker 1: brew houses, bake houses, and kitchens, where are made diverse drinks,
- 9:47Speaker 1: breads and meats rare and of special effects. Wines we
- 9:51Speaker 1: have of grapes and drinks of other juice, of fruits,
- 9:54Speaker 1: of grains, and of roots, and of mixtures with honey, sugar, manna,
- 9:58Speaker 1: and fruits dried and decocted, also of the tears or
- 10:02Speaker 1: woundings of trees, and of the pulp of canes. And
- 10:05Speaker 1: these drinks are of several ages, some to the age
- 10:08Speaker 1: or last of forty years. We have drinks also brewed
- 10:12Speaker 1: with several herbs and roots and spices, yea, with several fleshes,
- 10:16Speaker 1: and white meats, whereof some of the drinks are such
- 10:20Speaker 1: as they are in effect meat and drink, both, so
- 10:22Speaker 1: that diverse, especially in age, do desire to live with
- 10:26Speaker 1: them with little or no meat or bread. And above
- 10:29Speaker 1: all we strive to have drink of extreme thin parts
- 10:32Speaker 1: to insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting
- 10:36Speaker 1: sharpness or fretting, insomuch as some of them put upon
- 10:40Speaker 1: the back of your hand, will with a little stay
- 10:43Speaker 1: pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to
- 10:46Speaker 1: the mouth. We have also waters, which we ripen in
- 10:49Speaker 1: that fashion, as they become nourishing, so that they are
- 10:52Speaker 1: indeed excellent drink, and many will use no other. Breads.
- 10:57Speaker 1: We have of several grains, roots and kernels, and some
- 11:00Speaker 1: of flesh and fish dried with diverse kinds of leavenings
- 11:04Speaker 1: and seasonings, so that some do extremely move appetites, some
- 11:08Speaker 1: do nourish, so as divers do live of them without
- 11:11Speaker 1: any other meat, who live very long. So for meats
- 11:15Speaker 1: we have some of them so beaten and made tender
- 11:17Speaker 1: and mortified, yet without all corrupting, as a weak heat
- 11:21Speaker 1: of the stomach will turn them into good kylis, as
- 11:24Speaker 1: well as a strong heat would meet otherwise prepared. We
- 11:27Speaker 1: have some meats also in breads and drinks, which taken
- 11:30Speaker 1: by men enable them to fast long after, And some
- 11:33Speaker 1: other that used make the very flesh of men's bodies
- 11:36Speaker 1: sensibly more hard and tough, and their strength far greater
- 11:40Speaker 1: than otherwise it would be. We have dispensatories or shops
- 11:44Speaker 1: of medicines, wherein you may easily think if we have
- 11:47Speaker 1: such variety of plants and living creatures, more than you
- 11:50Speaker 1: have in Europe. For we know what you have. The
- 11:53Speaker 1: simples drugs and ingredients of medicines must likewise be in
- 11:57Speaker 1: so much the greater variety. We have them, likewise of
- 12:01Speaker 1: diverse ages and long fermentations. And for their preparations we
- 12:05Speaker 1: have not only all manner of exquisite distillations and separations,
- 12:09Speaker 1: and especially by gentle heats and percolations through diverse strainers,
- 12:13Speaker 1: yeay and substances, but also exact forms of composition, whereby
- 12:18Speaker 1: they incorporate almost as they were natural simples. We have
- 12:23Speaker 1: also diverse mechanical arts, which you have not, and stuffs
- 12:26Speaker 1: made by them, as papers, linen, silks, tissues, dainty works
- 12:31Speaker 1: of feathers, of wonderful luster, excellent dyes, and many others
- 12:36Speaker 1: and shops likewise as well, for such as are not
- 12:39Speaker 1: brought into vulgar use amongst us, as for those that are,
- 12:43Speaker 1: for you must know that of the things before we cited,
- 12:45Speaker 1: many of them are grown into use throughout the kingdom.
- 12:49Speaker 1: But yet if they did flow from our invention, we
- 12:52Speaker 1: have of them also for patterns and principles. We have
- 12:55Speaker 1: also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great diverse
- 13:00Speaker 1: of heats, fierce and quick, strong and constant, soft and mild, blown, quiet, dry, moist,
- 13:08Speaker 1: and the like. But above all we have heats in
- 13:11Speaker 1: imitation of the suns and heavenly bodies, heats that pass
- 13:14Speaker 1: diverse inequalities, and as it were, orbs progresses and returns,
- 13:20Speaker 1: whereby we produce admirable effects. Besides, we have heats of dungs,
- 13:25Speaker 1: and of bellies and maws of living creatures, and of
- 13:28Speaker 1: their bloods and bodies, and of haze and herbs laid up, moist,
- 13:32Speaker 1: of lime unquenched, and such like instruments also which generate
- 13:36Speaker 1: heat only by motion, and farther places for strong insulations,
- 13:41Speaker 1: and again places under the earth, which, by nature or art,
- 13:45Speaker 1: yield heat. These diverse heats we use as the nature
- 13:48Speaker 1: of the operation which we intend requireth We have also
- 13:53Speaker 1: perspective houses, where we make demonstrations of all lights and radiations,
- 13:58Speaker 1: and of all colors, and out of things uncolored and transparent,
- 14:02Speaker 1: we can represent unto you all several colors, not in rainbows,
- 14:06Speaker 1: as it is in gems, and prisms, but of themselves single.
- 14:10Speaker 1: We represent also all multiplications of light, which we carry
- 14:13Speaker 1: to great distance and make so sharp as to discern
- 14:16Speaker 1: small points and lines. Also all colorations of light, all
- 14:20Speaker 1: delusions and deceits of the sight, in figures, magnitudes, motions, colors,
- 14:25Speaker 1: all demonstrations of shadows. We find also diverse means, yet
- 14:30Speaker 1: unknown to you, of producing of light originally from diverse bodies.
- 14:35Speaker 1: We procure means of seeing objects afar off as in
- 14:38Speaker 1: the heaven and remote places, and represent things near as
- 14:42Speaker 1: afar off and things afar off as near, making feigned distances.
- 14:47Speaker 1: We have also helps for the sight far above spectacles
- 14:50Speaker 1: and glasses in use. We have also glasses and means
- 14:53Speaker 1: to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly, as
- 14:57Speaker 1: the shapes and colors of small flies and worms, grains
- 15:00Speaker 1: and flaws and gems which cannot otherwise be seen, observations
- 15:05Speaker 1: in urine and blood not otherwise to be seen. We
- 15:08Speaker 1: make artificial rainbows, halos, and circles about light. We represent
- 15:12Speaker 1: also all manner of reflections, refractions, and multiplications of visual
- 15:18Speaker 1: beams of objects. We have also precious stones of all kinds,
- 15:22Speaker 1: many of them of great beauty, and to you unknown
- 15:25Speaker 1: crystals likewise, and glasses of diverse kinds, and amongst them
- 15:29Speaker 1: some of metals vitrificated and other materials, besides those of
- 15:34Speaker 1: which you make glass. Also a number of fossils and
- 15:38Speaker 1: imperfect minerals which you have not likewise load stones of
- 15:43Speaker 1: prodigious virtue, and other rare stones, both natural and artificial.
- 15:50Speaker 1: End of Section five.