SOURCE: In The Works of Francis Bacon, Vol. V, James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath, eds., Brown and Taggard, 1862, p. 348.

Rawley, Bacon's secretary, published the unfinished New Atlantis in 1627 at the end of the volume containing Bacon's Sylva Sylarum. In the following note to the reader, Rawley states Bacon's purpose in writing the New Atlantis.

This fable my Lord devised, to the end that he might exhibit therein a model or description of a college instituted for the interpreting of nature and the producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of men, under the name of Salomon's House, or the College of the Six Days' Works. And even so far his Lordship hath proceeded, as to finish that part. Certainly the model is more vast and high than can possibly be imitated in all things; notwithstanding most things therein are within men's power...