Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
aggressive overtures toward Bensalem.
24
The old Atlantis, like the worldly
civilization destroyed in the flood, was now buried beneath the sea, while
Bensalem remained. Thus, just as Noah was set apart to save a remnant of
nature by heeding God's command to build the ark, this island's isolation
signals an analogous correlation between Protestant obedience to God's
word and scientific salvation.
This connection between Bensalem's scientific achievements and the
post-diluvian work of Noah also drew science into alliance with the primor-
dial command to Adam that he “bring forth abundantly on the earth and
multiply in it” (Gen 1:28). In this regard, the scope of this scientific work is
no less universal than the mission of the church. This is underlined when
the Bensalemites inform their visitors that the island's scientific institute,
Salomon's House, is also called the “College of the Six Days Work.” It is,
we are told by one of Bensalem's governors, the “noblest foundation (as
we think) that was ever upon the earth; and the lanthorn [lantern] of this
kingdom.” The island's ancient patriarch, the wise King Salomona, having
learned “from the Hebrews that God had created the world and all that
therein is within six days,” gave the college this second name, since it was
instituted “for the finding out of the true nature of all things, (whereby God
might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and men the more
fruit in the use of them).”
25
Like the great temple of Solomon from which it
derives its other name, Salomon's House is an abode of the living God, and
it is thus, in accordance with Mircea Eliade's reading of temple symbolism,
also a prophetic symbol of the earth itself.
26
Just as God's presence in the
inner sanctuary of Solomon's temple signaled Israel's role in making the
word of God universally known, Salomon's House signaled the analogous
destiny of God's works.
Divine election necessarily involves separation from the world, and this
accounts for the self-imposed isolation that was first ordained by Bensalem's
ancestral king and lawgiver in various “interdicts and prohibitions . . . touch-
ing the entrance of strangers.” Bacon makes sure to remind his readers that
this was not a merely political caution to ensure that no future attempts were
made to invade the island; more fundamentally it reflects the island civiliza-
tion's divine calling. Bacon is careful to point out that the policy did not
arise from the kind of xenophobia which had made China “a curious, igno-
rant, fearful, foolish nation.”
27
Bensalem's isolation in fact has the opposite
meaning. It has a universal meaning similar to that performed when God
calls Abram out of pagan Chaldea. The great patriarch's separation, like
Noah's before him and like God's isolated presence within the holy of holies,
