In Macaria, another imaginary state of the seventeenth century (A description of the famous Kingdoms of Macaria, 1641, by Hartlib), the pursuit of science is not a feature.] It is evident that the predominating interest that moved his imagination was different from that which guided Plato.

While Plato aimed at securing a permanent solid order founded on immutable principles, the design of Bacon was to enable his imaginary community to achieve dominion over nature by progressive discoveries.

The heads of Plato's city are metaphysicians, who regulate the welfare of the people by abstract doctrines established once for all; while the most important feature in the New Atlantis is the college of scientific investigators, who are always discovering new truths which may alter the conditions of life.

Here, though only in a restricted field, an idea of progressive improvement, which is the note of the modern age, comes in to modify the idea of a fixed order which exclusively prevailed in ancient speculation.
On the other hand, we must not ignore the fact that Bacon's ideal society is established by the same kind of agency as the ideal societies of Plato and Aristotle.

It has not developed; it was framed by the wisdom of an original legislator Solamona.