were more scientific discoveries to be made, novel planets to detect, and
ideas to formulate. He could not possibly have dreamed of the invention of
calculus, electricity, or manned flight, but interestingly, he did imagine a
new medicine.
In his final work, New Atlantis, an incomplete masterpiece published in
1627 (the year following his death), Bacon gave “remarkable composition
to scientific utopianism.”^17 He concluded that the great works for human
use consisted of “the prolongation of life, the restitution of youth in some
degree, the retardation of age, the curing of diseases counted incurable,
and the mitigation of pain.”^18 To achieve that, microscopy would have to
be developed, germs understood, chemistry refined, and epidemiology
conceived. Vaccination and prevention would have profound affects in the
coming centuries, but to achieve “restitution of youth ... and the
mitigation of pain” mankind would need a series of breakthroughs to
create the implant revolution.
Bacon predicted, remarkably, that in the future our society would be led
by benevolent philosophers, with scientists playing a dominant role. He
dreamed of a new college, which would be a great research institution, “a
scientific establishment endowed with facilities for pursuing far-flung
investigations into the secrets of nature.”^19 In essence, the jurist was
describing the modern research university. In Gorhambury, St. Alban’s, an
immense brick and stone mansion in the faraway reaches of outer London,
warmed by log fire and illuminated by candlelight, Bacon dreamed of a
new academy and a novel way of thinking. Today, Gorhambury lies in
ruins, but its 450-year-old skeleton is accessible via a “permissible path”
on private property. Standing among the ruins, gazing over the undulating,
verdant hills, speckled with sheep and cows and interrupted here and there
with patches of ancient trees, one can only wonder what Bacon would
think of, say, Boston, with Harvard University and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology dominating the land north and south of the Charles
River, with space-age engineering, DNA research, cancer mitigation, and
computer programming and artificial intelligence proceeding at warp
speed.
Francis Bacon proposed a moniker for his intellectual establishment:
Solomon’s House. While it is true that he had indulged in philosophical
debates and legal disputations over the decades, he, like every scholar in
the world, lacked an “establishment ... pursuing ... the secrets of nature.”