In what follows I accept [James] Spedding's conclusion that while the New Atlantis is incomplete, it seems intended for publication as it stands, that in it Bacon included "as if already known, the things he most wanted to know," and that most probably "the unfinished portions would have dealth with the method of scientific investigation rather than with the general problems of society."

In the New Atlantis the "very eye of the kingdom" of Bensalem is Salomon's House, or the College of the Six Day's Works, an elaborately equipped institute for cooperative pure and applied scientific research, intended "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)." Although this College is said to be "dedicated to the study of the Works and Creatures of God," the book contains no discussion of scientific and religious principles as being interfused. We may, however, observe the ideas suggested by the actions of the leading Atlantic characters. Typically a man of science, after a hard day's work in his laboratory, joined his fellows in "certain hymns and services … of laudand thanks to God for his marvellous works … imploring his aid and blessing for the illumination of our labours and the turning of them into good and holy works." Here may be seen the kind of separation of science from religion that Bacon thought good. As Professor [Basil] Willey said, while Bacon argued that science "leads us directly to God in the end," he desired to separate "religious truth and scientific truth … in the interests of science, not of religion. He wished to keep science pure from religion."

The relationship of science to social progress is touched upon at many points in the New Atlantis. As we have seen, the invariable Utopian practice was to restrict production of material goods and services to what both natural philosophy and history had shown to be naturally "necessary" for personal health, pleasure, and sanity and, in the larger view, to what had been found essential to maintain the health and integrity of the commonwealth. The Utopian criteria were essentially pragmatic: no pleasure which was not definitely known to be socially baneful was prohibited, "For they be much enclyned to this opinion: to thinke no kynde of pleasure forbidden, wherof cummeth no harme." In striking contrast, in the New Atlantis the boldest emphasis is laid on the idea that the main purpose of applied science is to bring forth endless, ever-increasing torrents of usable inventions and luxuries, or "fruits," for the delight of a supposedly insatiable public, perpetually in raptures over the latest, most novel productions of the laboratories and factories. For the improvement of foods and beverages, for instance, no limits are implied except perhaps those the natural flesh is heir to. Hence the plans (puzzling to some of Bacon's editors) for ceaseless scientific multiplication of the varieties of pleasant drinks, of perfumes and precious stones, of delicious fruits and sweetmeats, of beasts and of birds. In the New Atlantis we find therefore a notable early appearance of man considered, not (as with More and as with Hamlet before his disillusionment) as most noble in reason and godlike apprehension, but as a "consumer"—as a sort of belly capable of almost infinite distention.

No doubt Macaulay's antithesis was over-simple; at any rate his praise of Bacon seems inexact. He asserted [in Critical & Historical Essays, ed. A. Grieve, 1910] that "The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants." Clearly in the Utopian state great care was taken to meet men's actual needs. Indeed, as a really thorough-going Elizabethan materialist put it, "If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked!" Bacon elsewhere recognized claims of divine and moral philosophy, and perhaps it is true, as some have conjectured, that if the New Atlantis had been completed, its "tendency would … have appeared less materialistic."

Nevertheless, one of Bacon's distinctive contributions to the idea of utopian progress, as foreshadowed in the New Atlantis, is the concept that science can be responsible for human happiness, not merely through providing the necessary things with which the Utopians, like Thoreau at Walden, sought to satisfy their vulgar wants and to gain leisure for peculiarly human joys such as those born of "the free liberty of the mind and garnishing of the same." In the New Atlantis man's vulgar wants are becoming insatiable, and applied science therefore is turned to increasing without fixed limits the material goods and sensual luxuries available to the people. Yet human history, as the humanist Hythlodaye is aware, and as portrayed in the Scriptures which are known in Bacon's island of Bensalem, proves that such devotion to luxury has regularly tended to generate social corruption and disintegration….

Only one point relating to scientific progress in warfare needs to be mentioned. The Utopians depend mainly on their strong natural defensive position, and are not said to be particularly superior to their neighbors in offensive weapons themselves. While they abhor war as most "beastly" (i.e. contrary to man's uncorrupted "nature"), they take such minimum measures as are deemed necessary for defence, but always they draw their decisive strength from trained men and minds joined by a bond of natural devotion to each other and to the commonwealth. On the other hand, the scientists of Salomon's House, just as they labor incessantly to perfect all knowledge, so they strive to discover all possible poisons, new weapons, and improved techniques of warfare. This implies no scientific or national ill-will toward states near to Bensalem, but represents simply another form of taking all knowledge for one's province—in short, another facet of the Baconian idea of progress….