Experiment and Political Philosophy

The four main Modern Political Philosophies are usually considered to be the works of Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, and Rousseau.  They share a general deductive structure, beginning with some principle taken to be self-evidently true, such as the Freedom of the Individual.  Thus, the American Declaration of Independence follows in this Deductive tradition.  But, if so, then America qua "experiment" is not in that tradition.  Instead, its antecedent, as Jefferson notes, is the originator of Modern Experimentalism, whose Political ideas can be found in the constitutions of several colonies, as well as in a speculative called New Atlantis, which pre-dates the recognized works of the era by at least several decades--Francis Bacon.  Like his pioneering formulation of Experimentalism, that project is completely ignored in contemporary academia, leaving Bacon best known as either a namesake of a painter, or a secret Shakespeare.  Perhaps, Experimentalism is as threatening to a status quo as is Revolution.