ABSTRACT
IN A BOOK published in Italian in 1957 and in English translation in 1968 (Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science – see above, pp. 60–6), Paolo Rossi drew attention to the millennial aspect of Bacon's philosophy. He showed by quotation that Bacon thought of his ‘Great Instauration’ of learning as an attempt to return to the pure state of Adam before the Fall, when, in close contact with God and nature, he had insight into all truth and power over the created world. This insight and this power were lost by man at the Fall, when sin clouded his perceptions.
