Principles and aims of the New Atlantis Foundation

Part ‘Two °

The New Atlantis was the name Dimitrije Mitrinovié gave to his whole cultural orientation and initiative. This name has three significant meanings or references.

It refers to the ancient continent Atlantis, in which, tradition tells us, mankind lived instinctively and had much intuitive knowledge that has been lost with the predominance of intellectual thinking. Much of this knowledge has been passed down to us in a mythological form as the wisdom of the pre-Christian world. In recent times the truth behind some of it has been rediscovered, and it may be that there is much more to be relearnt. A new method of knowledge may be needed which does not supersede the critical intellectual consciousness we have gained but adds to it a more imaginative and intuitive approach.

The second reference is to the New Atlantis of Francis Bacon, published in 1627, in which he describes his vision of the House of Solomon as ‘the noblest foundation that ever was upon the earth, dedicated to the Study of the Works and creatures of God’, the aim of which was ‘the Knowledge of Causes and Secret Motions of Things, and the enlarging of the bounds of human Empire to the effecting of all things possible’. This suggests that the whole realm of culture — religion, philosophy and science, the arts, education and medicine should exercise its proper influence on the conduct of human affairs, so that the world may also be guided by those who have inherited man’s rich legacy of wisdom and culture, and not only by economic advantage or by political prejudices and passions.

The third reference is to the modern Atlantic world, based as it is on our Christian inheritance and modern science, in which the possibility of creating abundance of physical wealth has been revealed. This meaning of New Atlantis implies a new critical approach to life and knowledge, not rejecting our Christian and European background but reviewing it in the light of more recent developments in Western thought.

Mitrinovié was born in Hercegovina and came to England in 1914, where he lived until his death in 1953. Even as a young student he had taken a leading part in his country’s struggle for independence from Austria and in the creation of a united Yugoslavia. He became in 1907 the effective editor of Bosanska Vila, a progressive literary review. In 1914, while studying the History of Art at Munich University, he became associated with Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky introduced him to a distinguished group of thinkers from several different countries who aimed at establishing a spiritual and cultural leadership. Erich Gutkind and Frederik van Eeden were two initiators of this proposal. But the