The Latin word instauratio has two main meanings. One is the same as the more common restauratio, or ‘restoration’. If this is what Bacon means, it gives rise to two questions:

1. Why did he not use the more normal word restauratio? An answer might be that Bacon’s use of Latin was highly idiosyncratic and metaphorical, and he often used strange words in strange ways.

2. What were the sciences to be restored to? The implication might be that Bacon envisaged a renaissance of science, parallel to the ongoing renaissance in art, architecture, literature, and so on — in other words, a return to the glories of ancient Greece and Rome.

The trouble with this interpretation is that Bacon believed that the ancients had achieved almost nothing in science, because they didn’t have the right methodology. The only solution would be that Bacon wanted to restore humanity to the state of perfect knowledge which Adam had before the Fall. This is possible in the religious context of the time; but unlikely in Bacon’s case, because of his stress on the link between science and technology. I don’t think he believed that Adam constructed clocks, compasses, surgical implements, bridges, and so on. (Though I have to say that a Greek Jehovah’s Witness once told me, when I asked him why his book portrayed Adam without a beard, that since he had perfect knowledge, he must have been able to make a razor! In fact the correct answer is that Adam only grew a beard after the Fall, since the beard is ‘the sign of the goat’, or unbridled male sexuality.)

I think the better solution is to take the other sense of instauratio, which is that of starting afresh — in particular, re-doing a religious ceremony which was wrongly performed. So, for Bacon, science has never been done right. We must forget how it has been done since the time of the Greeks and the Romans, and start again from completely new foundations. A more faithful translation of Instauratio Magna would be ‘The Great New Start.’

As for ‘increase’, the full title should strictly be ‘On the Dignity and Increases of the Sciences.’ I’m not here concerned with the oddity of the plural ‘increases’. The important point is that it picks up the verb augere, or ‘to increase’, in a biblical text which was in effect Bacon’s personal motto. It should be familiar to you, since it is the motto of the University of Leeds: et augebitur scientia (‘and science will be increased’)

In fact the first edition of the Increase of the Sciences did not include this title on the title page. This consisted of an engraving showing a ship sailing out into the Atlantic between the Pillars of Hercules (i.e. the Straight of Gibraltar). Apart from the date and publisher’s details, the only wording (in progressively smaller type) was ‘Of Francis of St. Albans, the High Chancellor of England, the Great Restoration,’ and in a tiny scroll at the bottom: ‘Many will pass through, and science will be increased.’

For further details, you might like to go to a joky article I had published in the Leeds University Reporter a few years ago.

Reporter Article
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