Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
that the narrative would need to be a dramatic reenactment of Christian
history—but on Protestant grounds. This explains why Bacon is so careful
to lay out the story of Bensalem's conversion to Christianity before he gets
around to his famous catalogue of its scientific accomplishments. His con-
version narrative recapitulates Christian history by imagining the course
it might have followed had it remained true to those primitive truths that
the Catholic Church had failed to honor. By doing so, Bacon made it eas-
ier for his readers to envision the historical steps by which an unimpeded
providence would spontaneously give rise to science. We discover that the
island's conversion was realized, much as the reformers thought the con-
version of the primitive church had been, solely through the revelation of
the written Bible, without any assistance from tradition or teaching. But
unlike the Christian church of real history, Bacon's feigned Christendom
had remained on the path of providence by virtue of its unwavering faithful-
ness to God's first topic, and this (narratively speaking) accounted for its
spontaneous devotion to God's second topic. In this way, Bacon's feigned
history gives “some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those
points wherein the nature of things doth deny it,” and it does so in a way
that is calculated to bring science into accord with the specific theological
expectations of his readers.
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The story of Bensalem's conversion is told by one of its governors. The
islanders became Christians in the middle of the first century after there
appeared off Bensalem's eastern shore a miraculous sign, a great pillar of
light rising up from the sea into the heavens with “a large cross of light” at
its top. Floating at the pillar's base was a small “ark of cedar.” But when the
island's inhabitants went out in their boats to approach this holy of holies,
a mysterious force blocked their way. The only Bensalemite who is found to
have sufficient purity of heart to pass through this barrier is one of “the wise
men of the society of Salomon's House,” the scientific “eye of this kingdom.”
Having “awhile attentively and devoutly viewed and contemplated this pil-
lar and cross,” this man of science “fell down upon his face; and then raised
himself upon his knees, and lifting his hands to heaven, made his prayers
in this manner:”
“Lord God of Heaven and earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace to
those of our order, to know thy works of creation, and the secrets of them;
and to discern (as far as appertaineth to the generations of men) between
divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illu-
sions of all sorts. I do here acknowledge and testify before this people,
