CHAPTER VII.

THE ROSICRUCIANS : THEIR RULES, AIMS, AND METHOD OF
WORKING.
" Woorke when God woorkes/' — Promus.
" To see how God in all His creatures works ! " — 2nd Henry VI.
" Eipening would seem to be the proper work of the sun, . . . which operates by gentle action through long spaces of time, whereas the opera- tions of fire, urged on by the impatience of man, are made to hasten their work." — Novum Organum.
BRIEF and incomplete as are the previous chapters, it is hoped that they may serve their purpose of unsettling the minds of those who suppose that the history, character, aims, and work of Bacon are thoroughly understood, and that all is known that is ever likely to be known concerning him.
The discrepancies of opinion, the tremendous gaps in parts of the story, the unexpected facts which persistent research and collation of passages have continued to unearth, the vast amount of matter of every description which (unless philology be an empty word and the study of it froth and vanity) must, in future years, be ascribed to Bacon, are such as to force the explorer to pause, and seriously to ask himself, Are these things possible ? Could any one man, however gigantic his powers, however long his literary life, have produced all the works which we are forced by evidence, internal and, sometimes, also, external, to believe Bacon's — his in conception, in substance, in diction, even though often apparently paraphrased, interpolated, or altered by other hands ?
The mind of the inquirer turns readily toward the history of the great Secret Societies which were formed during the Middle Ages, and which became, in troublous times of church or state, such tremendous engines for good and evil. A consequent study of these secret societies, their true origin, their aims, and, so far as they can be traced, their leaders, agents, and organs, renders it evident that, although, single-handed, such self-imposed
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 187
labours as Bacon proposed and undertook would be manifestly- impracticable, yet, with the aid of such an organisation as that of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, the thing could be done, for this society, whether in its principles, its objects, its proceedings, or in the very obscurity and mystery which surrounds it, is, of all others, the one best calculated to promote Bacon's aims, its very constitution seeming to be the result of his own scheme and method.
So much interest has lately been roused on the subject of the Rosicrucians, that we shall curtail our own observations as much as possible, trusting that readers will procure the books which, in these later days, have made the study of this formerly obscure and difficult subject so pleasant and easy.*
Is it still needful to say that the Rosicrucians were certainly not, as has been thought, atheists or infidels, alchemists or sorcerers ? So far as we could find, when investigating this subject some years ago (and as seems to be fully confirmed by the recent researches of others), there is no real ground for be- lieving that the society was an ancient one, or that it existed before 1575, or that it issued any publication in its own name before 1580. All the legends concerning the supposititious monk Christian Rosenkreuz, and the still more shadowy stories which pretend that the Rosy Cross Brethren traced their origin to remote antiquity, and to the Indians or Egyptians, melt into thin air, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, dissolve away, when we approach them with spectacles on nose and pen in hand.
" A halo of poetic splendour surrounds the order of the Rosi- crucians ; the magic lights of fancy play round their graceful day-dreams, while the mystery in which they shrouded them- selves lends additional attraction to their history. But their brilliancy was that of a meteor. It just flashed across the realms of imagination and intellect, and vanished forever ; not, however, without leaving behind some permanent and lovely traces of its hasty passage. . . . Poetry and romance are deeply indebted to the Rosicrucians for many a fascinating creation. The literature of every European country contains hundreds of pleasing fictions whose machinery has been borrowed
* See especially The Real History of the Rosicrucians, A. E. Waite, 1887. Redway (Kegan, Paul & Co.). Bacon and the Rosicrucians, 1889, and Francis Bacon, etc., 1890; both by W. F. C. Wigston {Kegan, Paul, Trubner & Co.).
188 FEANCIS BACON
from their system of philosophy, though that itself has passed awayT *
As will be seen, there is strong reason to doubt whether the words which we have rendered in italics are correct. The philosophy, the work of the Eosy Cross Brethren, has never passed away ; it is, we feel sure, still green and growing, and possessing all the earth.
It is only just to readers to whom this subject is new, to say that there is still a wide divergence of opinion concerning the origin and true aims of the secret society of the Eosicrucians. Bailey gives the following account :
"Their chief was a German gentleman, educated in a monastery, where, having learned the languages, he travelled to the Holy Land, anno 1378 ; and, being at Damascus, arid falling sick, he had heard the conversation of some Arabs and other Oriental philosophers, by whom he is supposed to have been initiated into this mysterious art. At his return into Germany he formed a society, and communicated to them the secrets he had brought with him out of the East, and died in 1484.
" They were a sect or cabal of hermetical philosophers, who bound themselves by a solemn secret, which they swore inviolably to observe, and obliged themselves, at their admission into the order, to a strict observance of certain established rules.
" They pretended to know all sciences, and especially medicine, of which they published themselves the restorers ; they also pretended to be masters of abundance of important secrets, and, among others, that of the philosopher's stone ; all which, they affirmed, they had received by tradition from the ancient ^Egyptians, Chaldeans, the Magi, and Gymnosophists.
" They pretended to protract the period of human life by means of certain nostrums, and even to restore youth. They pretended to know all things. They are also called the Invisible Brothers, because they have made no appearance, but have kept themselves incog, for several years." f
As will be seen, we cannot agree with the opinions of Bailey and others, who have claimed for the society a very great antiquity, finding no evidence whatever that the hermetical philosophers last described, the supposed alchemists and
* Heckethorn, " Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries." "I" Bailey's Dictionary — Rosier ucians.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 189
sorcerers, were ever heard of until the end of the sixteenth century. That a secret religious society did exist for mutual protection amongst the Christians of the early church and all through the darkest ages until the stormy times of persecution at the Reformation and Counter-reformation, there can be no doubt. Probably the rude and imperfect organisation of the early religious society waslaken as a basis on which to rear the complete and highly-finished edifice as we find it in the time of James I. But, in honest truth, all statements regarding Rosi- er ucians as a society of men of letters existing before the year 1575 must be regarded as highly doubtful, and the stories of the Rosier ucians themselves, as fictions, or parabolical, " feigned histories," devised in order to puzzle and astonish the un- initiated hearer.
In the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia there is an article on the Rosicrucians which seems in no way to run counter to these opinions. The article begins with the statement that in times long ago there existed men of various races, religions, and climes, who bound themselves by solemn obligations of mutual succour, of impenetrable secrecy, and of humility, to labour for the preservation of human life by the exercise of the healing art. But no date is assigned for the first appearance of this society in any form, or under any name. And the title Rosicrucian was, we know, never given or adopted until after the publication of the Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz, in 1616. The writer in the cyclopaedia seems to acknowledge that the truth about the origin of the Rosicrucian Fraternity is known, though known only to a few, and we have strong reasons for believing that, in Germany at least, a certain select number of the learned members of the " Catholic " (not the Papal) Church are fully aware of how, when, and where this society was formed, which, after awhile, assumed the name of Rosicrucian, but which the initiates in Germany call by its true name — " Baconian." It is very difficult, in all Masonic writings, for the uninitiated to sift the true from the false ; or, rather, fact from disguised history, prosaic statements from figurative language, genuine information from garbled statements framed expressly to mislead. Yet, in spite of these things, which must never be lost sight of, the article in question gives such a good summary of some of the chief facts and theories about the Rosy Cross Brethren, that, for
190 FRANCIS BACON
the benefit of those who cannot easily procure the cyclopaedia, we transcribe some portions :
" Men of the most opposite worldly creeds, of diverse habits, and even of apparently remote ideas, have ever joined together, consciously or unconsciously, to glorify the good, and depise, although with pity, the evil that might he reconciled to the good. But in the centuries of unrest which accompanied the evolution of any kind of civilisation, either ancient or modern, how was this laudable principle to be maintained ? * This was done by a body of the learned, existing in all ages under peculiar restric- tions, and at one time known as the Rosicrucian Fraternity. The Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, unlike the lower orders of Freemasons, seldom had gatherings together. The brethren were isolated from each other, although aware of their mutual existence, and corresponding by secret and mysterious writings, and books, after the introduction of printing. They courted solitude and obscurity, and sought, in the contemplation of the divine qualities of the Creator, that beatitude which the rude outside world despised or feared. In this manner, however, they also became the discoverers and conservators of important physical secrets, which, by slow degrees, they gradually com- municated to the world, with which, in another sense, they had so little to do. It is not, at the same time, to be supposed that these occult philosophers either despised the pleasures or dis- couraged the pursuits of their active contemporaries ; but, as we ever find some innermost sanctuary in each noble and sacred fane, so they retired to constitute a body apart, and more peculiarly devoted to those mystical studies for which the great mass of mankind were unfitted by taste or character. Mildness and beneficence marked such courteous intercourse as their studious habits permitted them to have with their fellow-men ; and in times of danger, in centuries of great physical suffering, they emerged from their retreats with the benevolent object of vanquishing and alleviating the calamities of mankind. In a rude period of turmoil, of battle, and of political change, they placidly pursued their way, the custodians of human learning, and thus acquired the respect, and even the reverence, of their less cultivated contemporaries. . . . The very fact of their limited number led to their further elevation in the public esteem, and there grew up around them somewhat of 'the divinity that doth hedge a king.' . . .
* This, it is seen, was the very question which Francis Bacon, at the age of fifteen, proposed to himself. See Spedding's " Life," I. 3 ; and ante, Chap. IV.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 191
"It is easy at the present day to see that which is held up before every one in the broad light of a tolerant century ; but it was not so in the days of the Rosicrucians and other fraternities. There was a dread, amongst the masses of society in bygone days, of the unseen — a dread, as recent events and phenomena show very clearly, not yet overcome in its entirety. Hence, students of nature and mind were forced into an obscurity not altogether unwelcome or irksome, but in this obscurity they paved the way for a vast revolution in mental science. . . . The patient labours of Trittenheim produced the modern system of diplomatic cipher-writing. Even the apparently aimless wanderings of the monks and friars were associated with practical life, and the numerous missals and books of prayer, carried from camp to camp, conveyed, to the initiated, secret messages and intelligence dangerous to be communicated in other ways. The sphere of human intelligence was thus enlarged, and the freedom of mankind from a pitiless priesthood, or perhaps, rather, a system of tyranny under which that priest- hood equally suffered, was ensured.
" It was a fact not even disputed by Roman Catholic writers of the most Papal ideas, that the evils of society, ecclesiastical and lay, were materially increased by the growing worldliness of each successive pontiff. Hence we may see why the origin of Rosicrucianism was veiled by symbols, and even its founder, Andrea, was not the only philosophical romancer — Plato, Apuleius, Heliodorus, Lucian, and others had preceded him in this path.
"It is worthy of remark that one particular century, and that in which the Rosicrucians first showed themselves, is distin- guished in history as the era in which most of these efforts at throwing off the trammels of the past occurred. Hence the opposition of the losing party, and their virulence against any- thing mysterious or unknown. They freely organised pseudo- Rosicrucian and Masonic societies in return, and these societies were instructed to irregularly entrap the weaker brethren of the True and Invisible Order, and then triumphantly betray anything they might be so inconsiderate as to communicate to the superiors of these transitory and unmeaning associations.
" Modern times have eagerly accepted, in the full light of science, the precious inheritance of knowledge bequeathed by the Rosicrucians, and that body has disappeared from the visible knowledge of mankind, and re-entered that invisible fraternity of which mention was made in the opening of this article. . . . It is not desirable, in a work of this kind, to make disclosures of an indiscreet nature. The Brethren of the Rosy Cross will never, and should not, at peril and under alarm, give up their secrets.
192 FRANCIS BACON
This ancient body has apparently disappeared from the field of human activity, but its labours are being carried on with alacrity, and with a sure delight in an ultimate success."*
Although, during our search for information, experience has made us increasingly cautious about believing anything which we read in printed books concerning the Rosicrucians or the Freemasons, still it seems almost impossible to discredit the statements which have just been quoted ; at least it will be granted that the writer is intending to tell the truth. He seems also to speak with knowledge, if not with authority, and such a passage as has been last quoted must, we think, shake the opinion of those who would maintain that the Rosicrucians, if ever they really existed and worked for any good purpose, have certainly disappeared, and that there is no such secret organisa- tion at the present time. The facts of the case, so far as we have been able to trace them, are entirely in accordance with the assertion that the non-existence of the Rosicrucian Society is only apparent ; true, they work quietly and unrecognised, but their labours are unremitting, and the beneficial results patent in our very midst.
A great light has been shed upon our subject by the publica- tion in 1887 of Mr. Waite's remarkable little book, which has, for the first time, laid before the public several tracts and manu- scripts whose existence, if known to previous investigators, had certainly been ignored, including different copies and accounts of the " Universal Reformation of the Whole Wide World " (the title of one of the chief Rosicrucian documents), as well as original editions of the " Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosy Cross," which are not in the Library Catalogue.^ It is true, as Mr. Waite says, that he is thus enabled to offer for the first time in the literature of the subject the Rosicrucians represented by themselves. J
This invaluable book should be read in connection with another
* From the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, edited by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, IX°, pub. Bro. John Hogg, 1877.
| Note how often this is found to be the case where particulars throwing fresh light on Bacon or on matters connected with him are found in old books or libraries.
X See The Real History of the Rosicrucians, by A. S. Waite, London, Redway, 1887.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 193
important volume which has since been published, and which follows the subject into recesses whither it is impossible now to attempt to penetrate.* Mr. Wigston enters boldly and learnedly upon the connection perceivable between Bacon's philosophy and Rosicrucianism, and the whole book goes to prove, on very substantial grounds, that I^acon was probably the founder and certainly the mainstay of the society.
For those who have not time or opportunity for much reading, it may be well again, briefly, to summarise the aims of the Rosicrucians, as shown by their professed publications, and the rules and system of work by which they hoped to secure those aims.f We gather from the evidence collected that the objects of the fraternity were threefold :
1. To purify religion and to stimulate unity and reform in the Church.
2. To promote and advance learning and science.
3. To mitigate the miseries of humanity, and to restore man to the original state of purity and happiness from which, by sin, he has fallen.
On comparing utterances of the supposed authors of the Rosicrucian manifestoes with Bacon's reiterated statements as to his own views and aspirations, we find them identical in thought and sentiment, sometimes identical in expression. It is only necessary to refer to the eloquent and beautiful chapter with which Spedding opens his Letters and Life of Bacon, and from which some portions have been already quoted, in order to perceive how striking is the general resemblance in aim, how early the aspirations of Bacon formed themselves into a project, and with what rapidity the project became a great fact.
"Assuming, then," concludes the biographer, " that a deep interest in these three causes — the cause of reformed religion, of his native country, and of the human race through all their generations— was thus early implanted in that vigorous and vigin soil, we must leave it to struggle up as it may, according to the accidents of time and weather. ... Of Bacon's life I
* Bacon, Shakespeare, and the Rosicrucians, by W. F. C. Wigston, London, Redway, 1889.
t The following is chiefly extracted from an article in the Bacon Journal, January, 1889 (Redway).
194 FRANCIS BACON
am persuaded that no man will ever form a correct idea, unless he bear in mind that from very early youth his heart was divided by these three objects, distinct, but not discordant."
Francis, as we have seen, was not fifteen years old when he conceived the thought of founding a new system for the advance- ment of knowledge, and for the benefit of humanity. The Rosi- crucian manifestoes inform us that the founder of the society, and the writer of one of the most important documents, The Chymica.1 Marriage, was a boy of fifteen.
Mr. Waite observes, naturally enough, that the knowledge evinced by the writer of the paper in question, of the practices and purposes of alchemy, must be impossible to the most pre- cocious boy. But in mind Francis Bacon never was a boy. Some men, he said, were always boys, their minds never grew with their bodies, but he reflected (evidently thinking of him- self in relation to others) that " All is not in yeares, somewhat also is in houres well spent* Never had he been " idle truant, omitting the sweet benefit of time,1' but rather had, like Proteus, " for that's his name"
" Made use and fair advantage of his days, His years but young, but his experience old ; His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe ! "f
Wonderful as it is, improbable as it would appear, did we not know it to be the case, the fact remains, that at the age of fifteen Francis Bacon had run through the whole round of the arts and sciences at Cambridge, had outstripped his tutors, and had left Cambridge in disappointment and disgust, finding nothing more to learn there. He did not wait to pass a degree, but, practically, it was acknowledged that he had more than deserved it, for the degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him some time afterwards.
How he spent the next year is not recorded by his biographer, but another R. C. document, the Fama Fratemitatis, throws a side-light upon the matter. In this paper, full (as all these Rosicrucian manifestoes are) of Bacon's ideas and peculiarities of expression, we read that " the high and noble spirit of one of the fraternity was stirred up to enter into the scheme for a
* Promus. | Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. 4.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 195
general reformation, and to travel away to the wise men of Arabia." This we interpret to mean that, at this time, the young philosopher was entering his studies of Rhazis, Aven- zoar, Averroes, Avicenna, and other Arabic physicians and " Hermetic " writers, from whom we find him quoting in his acknowledged, as well as in his unacknowledged, writings.
At this time, the Fama informs us, this young member was sixteen years old, and for one year he had pursued his course alone.
What is this likely to mean but that, having left college, he was pursuing his advanced studies by himself ? It seems almost a certainty that at this period he was endeavouring, as so many other ardent minds have done, to get at a knowledge of the first causes of things. How could he better attempt to achieve this than by going back to the most ancient philosophies in order to trace the history of learning and thought from the earliest recorded period to his own times ?
We shall presently have occasion to show the immense influence which the study of the occult philosophies of India, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt had upon the mind and writings of Francis Bacon, and how he drew from them the universal symbols and emblems which are the founda- tions of Freemason language and hieroglyphics. Another particular especially links Bacon with the whole system of Eosicrucianism, and this is that very matter of making collections or dictionaries spoken of in the last chapter. Now, this was not only one of the ostensible objects of the fraternity, but also the ostensible object of Francis Bacon. He claims the idea as his own, and declares that neither Aristotle nor Theophrastus, Dioscorides or Pliny, and much less any of the modern writers, have hitherto proposed such a thing to themselves. Spedding says Bacon would have found that such a dictionary or index of nature as he contemplated in the Novum Organum must be nearly as voluminous as nature herself, and he gives the impression that such a dictionary was not attempted by Bacon. Here, as will be seen, we differ from this admirable biographer, and believe that Bacon did organise, and himself commence, such a system of note-taking, alphabetising, collating, " transporting," etc., as by the help of " his twenty
196 FEANCIS BACCW
young gentlemen," his able pens, devoted friends in every corner of the civilised world, and especially from the Illuminati, Rosy Cross brethren, and skilled Freemasons, to produce, within a few years, that truly cyclopedian mass of books of reference, which later writers have merely digested or added to.
Bacon claims as his own the method by which this great deficiency is to be supplied.
Behold, then, the author of the Fama Fraternitatis making a precisely similar claim :
"After this manner began the Fraternity of the Rosie Cross — first by four persons only, and by them was made the Magical Lannage and Writing with a large Dictionary."
May not the sentence just quoted help somewhat to account for the extraordinary likeness, not only in ideas, but in words, of books, scientific and historical, which appeared before the publication of the great collections ? Is it possible that copies or transcripts may have been made from Bacon's great manu- script distionaries by those who would, with his ever-ready help, proceed to " make " or " produce " a book ? Were such budding authors (Rosicrucians) allowed to come under his roof to write their books, and use his library and his brains ? — questions at present unanswerable, but to be answered. Visions of Ben Jonson writing his "Apology for Bartholomew Fair at the house of my Lord St. Albans ; " of Bacon visiting Raleigh in prison ; of the young Hobbes pacing the alleys at Gorhambury with the Sage of Verulam — these and many other suggestive images rise and dissolve before the eyes of one who has tried to live in imagination the life of Francis Bacon, and to realise the way in which his faithful followers endeavoured to fulfil his wishes.
Dictionary is a dry, prosaic word to modern ears ; the very idea of having to use one damps enthusiasm, and drops us " when several yards above the earth " into the study or the
class-room. But
" It so falls out That what we have, we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it ; but being lacked and lost, Why, then, we rack the value." *
Now think, if we had no dictionaries, how we should lack * M. Ado, IV. 1.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 197
them, and having made even one poor little note-book on any- subject which closely concerns us, how we prize it, and rack its value ! So did Bacon. The making of dictionaries was to him a sacred duty, one of the first and most needful steps toward the accomplishment of his great ends.
" I want this primary Jwstory to be compiled with a religious care, as if every particular were stated on oath ; seeing that it is the hook of God's works, and (so far as the majesty of the heavenly may be compared with the humbleness of earthly things) a kind of second Scripture."
He sees that such a vast and difficult work is only to be accomplished by means of co-operation, and by co-operation on a methodical plan. These convictions are expressed in Bacon's most Rosicrucian works, the New Atlantis, Parasceve, Natural and Experimental History, and other " fragmentary " pieces. " If," he says, " all the wits of all ages, which hitherto have been, or hereafter shall be, were clubbed together ; if all mankind had given, or should hereafter give, their minds wholly to philosophy, and if the whole world were, or should be, com- posed of nothing but academies, colleges, and schools of learned men ; yet, without such a natural and experimental history as we shall now prescribe, we deny that there could be, or can be, any progress in philosophy and other sciences worthy of man- kind."
The author of Fama reflects in precisely the same fashion, writing the thought of the sacred nature of such a work, and the thought that it is a kind of second Scripture, with that other most important reflection as to the necessity for unity, and a combination of wits, if real progress is to be made and a book of nature or a perfect method of all arts achieved.
" Seeing the only wise and merciful God in these latter days hath poured so richly His mercy and goodness to mankind, whereby we do attain more and more to the knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ, and of nature, ... He hath also made mani- fest unto us many wonderful and never-heretofore-seen works and creatures of nature ; ... so that finally man might thereby understand his own nobleness and worth, and why he is called Microcosmus, and how far his knowledge extendeth in nature.
"Although the rude world herewith will be but little pleased, but rather smile and scoff thereat ; also the pride and covetous-
198 FRANCIS BACON
ness of the learned is so great, it will not suffer them to agree together ; but were they united, they might, out of all those things which in this our age God doth so richly bestow upon us, collect Librum Naturae, or a perfect method of all arts*
" The College of the Six Days," which Bacon described, is, we know, the College of the Rosicrucians, who accept the New Atlantis, in its old form, as a Rosicrucian document, and allow it to be circulated under a changed title.
The hopelessness of attempting to perform single-handed all that his enthusiasm for humanity prompted, all that his prophetic soul foresaw for distant ages, often oppressed his mind ; as often he summoned his energies, his philosophy, and his faith in God, to comfort and encourage him to the work. This is all very distinctly traceable in the Promus notes, so frequently quoted in the Shakespeare plays. Amongst the early entries, in the sprawling Anglo-Saxon handwriting of his youth, he records his intention to use " Ingenuous honesty, and yet with opposition and strength. Good means against badd, homes to crosses." f " The ungodly," he reflects, " walk around on every side." " I was silent from good words, and my grief was renewed," but " I believed and therefore have I spoken." He is resolute in trying to do what he feels to be his duty, for " The memory of the just lives with praise, but the name of the wicked shall rot." Here we find him registering his resolves to do good to others, regardless of private advantage or profit. This, it will be seen, is one of the cardinal rules of the Rosy Cross Brethren. They were " to cure the sick gratis" to seek for no pecuniary profit or reward for the works which they produced for the benefit of others. " Buy the truth," say Bacon's notes, " and sell it not." " He who hasteth to be rich shall not be innocent," but " Give not that which is holy unto dogs." He foresaw, or had already experienced in his own short life, the manner in which the " dogs " or cynics of public opinion and of common ignorance would quarrel over and tear to pieces every scrap of new knowledge which he presented to them. " The devil," he says further on, " hath cast a bone to set strife."
* Fama Fraternitatis — Real History of the Rosicrucians ; A. S. Waite.
| See in the chapter on Paper Marks the Symbols of Horns and Crosses, to which, perhaps, the entry alludes.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 199
But this should not hinder him. " We ought to obey God rather than man," "and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is ; " " for we can do nothing against the truth, but much for the truth." And then he seems to prepare his mind to suffer on account of the efforts which he was making on mankind's behalf. He remembers that our Blessed Lord Him- self suffered in the same way, and writes a memorandum from this verse : " Many good work have I showed you of My Father ; for which of those works do ye stone Me ? " Whatever might be the judgment upon him and his works, he would rest in the assurance of St. Paul : " I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." We hardly think that he stopped here in the quotation. Although he does not write down the other half of the passage, his ardent soul treasured, and his works reflect in a thousand different ways the inspiring and triumphant hope of recognition in that future life to which he was always looking : " Henceforward there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but to all that love His appearing."*
But meanwhile, how to do all that he felt and knew to be necessary, and yet which could only be done by himself, we see him again in the notes reflecting that victory can be gained by means of numbers ; that " things united are more powerful or better than things not united ; " that " two eyes are better than one;" "So many heades so many wits;" "Friends have all things in common ; " " Many things taken together are helpful, which taken singly are of no use ; " " One must take men as they are, and times as they are ; " but, on the whole, he seems to think that most men are serviceable for something, that every properly instructed tongue may be made to bear witness, and that it must be one part of his work to draw together so great a cloud of witnesses as may perform the part of a chorus, endorsing, echoing, or capping the doctrines of the new philo- sophy as they were uttered, and giving a support, as of public opinion, both at home and abroad.
We now know that many of Bacon's works were transmitted "beyond the seas," to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and
* 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.
200 FRANCIS BACON
Holland, where they were translated and surreptitiously pub- lished, usually under [other names than his own. There are, when we come to collect them, many indications in the Promns of a secret to be kept, and of a system planned for the keeping of it.
" The glory of God" we read, is " to conceal a thing " — and there are many " secrets of God." " Woorke as God Woorkes " — quietly, persistently, secretly — unheeded, except by those who read in His infinite book of secrecy. " Plutoe's helmet " is said to have produced " invisibility." " The gods have woollen feet *' — i.e., steal on us unawares. " Triceps Mercurius, great runy- ing," alludes, perhaps, to the little anonymous book of cipher called " Mercury, the Secret and Swift Messenger," which repro- duces so accurately (and without acknowledging him) Bacon's biliteral cipher, and other particulars told so precisely after his manner, that we believe it to be the brief summary of some much larger works. But he also notes that " a Mercury cannot be made of every wood," that is, a dull fellow will never be made a clever one ; nevertheless " a true servant may be made of an unlikely piece of wood,"* and he had a faculty for attach- ing people to him and bringing out all that was best and most serviceable in their natures.
The next note says that " Princes have a cypher." Was he thinking that he, the prince of writers, would use one for his royal purposes ? A few lines earlier is this entry :
" Iisdem e' Uteris efficitur tragcedia et comedia " (Tragedies and comedies are made of one alphabet),
which we now know refers to the cipher narrative for which the pass-word was the alphabet, and which is found running through the Shakespeare tragedies and comedies. f
* See letter to Lord Pickering, 1594.
t "I have sent you some copies of the Advancement, which you desired ; and a little work of my recreation, which you desired not. Mylnstauration I reserve for our conference— it sleeps not. Those works of the alphabet are, in my opinion, of less use to you where you are now, than at Paris, and, therefore, I conceived that you had sent me a kind of tacit countermand of your former request. But in regard that some friends of yours have still insisted here, I send them to you ; and for my part I value your own reading more than your publishing them to others. Thus, in extreme haste, I have scribbled to you I know not what." — (Letter from Bacon to Sir Tobie Matthew, 1609).
" What these works of the alphabet may have been, I cannot guess ;
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 201
Such entries as these, suggestive of some mystery, are in- teresting when taken in connection with other evidence derivable from Bacon's manuscript books, where the jottings have been more methodised or reduced from other notes. In the Com- mentaries or Transport'ata, which can be seen in MS. at the British Museum, we find him maturing his plans for depreciating " the philosophy of the Grecians, with some better respect to ye iEgiptians, Persians, and Chaldees, and the utmost antiquity, and the mysteries of the poets." " To consyder what opynions are fitt to nourish Tanquam Ansce, so as to graft the new upon the old, ut religiones solent" of the " ordinary cours of incom- petency of reason for natural philosophy and invention of woorks." " Also of means to procure ' histories ' of all things natural and mechanical, lists of errors, observations, axioms, &c." Then follow entries from which we abridge :
" Layeing for a place to command wytts and pennes, West- minster, Eton, Wynchester ; spec(ially) Trinity Coll., Cam. ; St. John's, Cam. ; Maudlin Coll., Oxford.
" Qu. Of young schollars in ye universities. It must be the post nati. Giving pensions to four, to compile the two histories, ut supra. Foundac : Of a college for inventors, Library, Inginary.
M Qu. Of the order and discipline, the rules and prescripts of their studyes and inquyries, allowances for travailing, intelli- gence, and correspondence with ye universities abroad.
" Qu. Of the maner and prescripts touching secresy, tradi- tions, and publication."
Here we have a complete sketch of the elaborate design which was to be worked out ; and we wonder — yes, we wonder, with an astonishment which increases as we approach the matter — how these remarkable jottings, so pregnant with suggestion, speaking to us in every line of a vast and deeply-laid scheme, should have been so lightly (or can it be so purposely) passed over in every life or biography of Bacon. Here he was laying his plans to " command wits and pens " in all the great public schools, and especially in the principal colleges of the univer-
unless they related to Bacon's cipher," etc. — (Spedding's comment on the above words, I. 659).
See also the Advancement of Learning, II. ; Spedding, III. 399, where Bacon quotes Aristotle to show that words are the images of cogitations, and letters are the images of words.
0
202 FRANCIS BACON
sities. He was endeavouring to secure the services of the cleverest scholars to assist him in working out a scheme of his own. They were specially to be young scholars, who should have imbibed, or who were capable of imbibing, the advanced ideas produced by the " new birth of time," which he had him- self inaugurated. To work out new ideas, one must have fresh and supple material ; and minds belonging to bodies which have existed for nearly half a century are rarely either supple or easily receptive of new ideas. Bacon, therefore, did not choose, for the main stuff and fibre of his great reforming society, men of his own age (he was now forty-seven) ; he wisely sought out the brightest and freshest of the Sons of the Morning, the cream of youthful talent, wherever it was to be discovered.
Would it not be a pursuit as exciting as profitable to hunt out and track the footsteps of those choice young wits and pens of the new school, of the Temporis Partus Masculus, and Partis Secundo Delineatio, of which Bacon thought and wrote so much, and to see what various aids these " young schollars " were able to afford for his great work ? One line of work is clearly indi- cated ; they were, under his own instructions, to collect materials for compiling " histories " on natural philosophy and on inven- tions in the mechanical arts — as we should now say, the applied sciences. One work is specified, as to its contents and nature. It is to be a " history of marvailes M with " all the popular errors detected." Such a book was published shortly after Bacon's death by a young Oxford man, of whom we shall by-and-by have occasion to speak. Another history is of " Mechanique " ; it is to be compiled with care and diligence, and a school of science is to be established for the special study of the art of invention. " A college, furnished with all necessary scientific apparatus, workshops and materials for experiments." Not only so, but Bacon proposes to give pensions to four of his young men, in order that they might freely devote themselves to scientific or philosophic research. Some were also to have " allowances for travelling,1' which proves that their field of research and for the gleaning of materials was not to be confined only to their own country, but " inquiries and correspondence with ye universities abroad M were to form an important element in the scheme.
The works which were the product of this wise and liberal
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 203
scheme of Bacon's will not be difficult of identification. They belong to the class of which the author said that they did not pretend to originality, but that they were flowers culled from every man's garden and tied together by a thread of his own.
It is clear that the wits and pens of the "young schollars" (who, we learn from the Rosicrucian documents, were to be sixty-three in number) were chartered and secured under the seal of secrecy. The last of the manifestoes in Mr. Waite's