VIII. These, we believe, were the latest and least frequent of

the three, being used in the double form only in editions of Bacon's works published after his death. They are placed first because their meaning is, perhaps, the deepest of any, and the most far-reaching, being intimately connected with many of Bacon's greatest thoughts and " fixed ideas " ; consequently, with a large section of his philosophy, to which the opening verses of the Bible are the text and the key-note :
" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light : and there teas light."
These words are also the key-note to Rosicrucianism. In the Fama Fraternitatis we read :
" Our axiomata shall immovably remain unto the world's end,
* Sotheby says that grapes occur in books printed at Mentz, Strasburg, Nuremberg, Basle, and Cologne, and that they were produced by Caxton, but are not in any book printed in the Netherlands.
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and also the world in her highest and last age shall not attain to see anything else ; for our ROTA takes her beginning from that day when God spake FIAT, and shall end when He shall speak PEREAT."
Another Rosicrucian work thus expresses the same ideas : " In respect that God Almighty is the only immediate agent which actuates the matter (of the world), it will not be amiss to speak something of Him, that we may know the cause by His creatures, and the creatures by their cause.'' Then follow some verses in which the poet compares his soul to a mole, " im- prisoned in black entrenchments, . . . heaving the earth to take in air,1' and " mewed from the light of day." He prays :
" Lord, guide her out of this sad night, And say once more, Let there be light."
The same writer says, in another place :
" We read that darknesse was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Here you are to observe that, notwithstanding this processe of the Third Person, yet there was no light, but darknesse on the face of the deepe, illumination being the office of the Second (Person). Wherefore God also, when the matter was prepared by love for light, gives out his FIAT LUX, which was no creation, as most think, but an Emanation of the Word, in whom was life, and that life is the light of men. This is the light whereof St. John speaks, that it shines in the darknesse, and the darknesse comprehendeth it not." *
That he "may not be singular on this point," the author quotes Pimandrus, who, in the Book of the Creation, informs Trismegistus : "I am that Light, the Pure Intelligence, thy God." In another work the same Eugenius argues that, "to come to the point, these invisible, central artists are lights, seeded by the First Light in that primitive emanation, or SIT LUX — Let there be light — which some falsely render FIAT LUX — Let light be made. For nature is the voice of God, not a mere sound or command, but a substantial, active breath,
* Anthroposophia Theomagica. "Eugenius Philalethes." Published later as the work of Thomas Vaughan. See " Vaughan's Magical Writings," reprinted and edited by E. A. Waite, 1888. Redway (Kegan, Paul, Trubner & Co.)
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 321
proceeding from the Creator, and penetrating all things." * In the Lumen di Lumine the same author describes " The New Magical f Light Discovered and Communicated to the World." Here we read of " a phantastic circle, within which stands a lamp typifying the light of nature, the secret candle of God, which he hath tinned in the elementsr It burns but is not seen, shining in a dark place. Every naturall body is a kind of black lanthorne ; it carries this candle within it : but the light appears not ; it is eclipsed by the grossness of the matter. The effect of this light is apparent in all things, but the light itself is denied, or else not followed. The great world hath the sun for his life and candle. According to the absence or presence of this fire, all things in the world flourish or wither."
In the " Fasciculus Chemicus, or Chymical Collections made English by James Hasolle," $ there is a prayer for the Intellectual Light strongly resembling well-known prayers of Bacon, and on the hieroglyphical frontispiece to this curious book is another allusion to the mole as a type of the soul struggling towards Light and Freedom. § Amongst many other emblems there is an
* Anima Magica Abscondita. " Eugenius Philalethes." Ed. A. E. Waite. Redway.
| We must not allow ourselves to be puzzled or misled by the use of language purposely adopted by the professors of the New Philosophy in order outwardly to accord in some degree with the jargon of the alchemists. Bacon explains very clearly his view of magic in the true sense. " The chief business of the Persian magic (so much celebrated) was to watch the correspondences between the architectures and fabrics of things natural and things civil. , . . Neither are these all similitudes, but plainly the footsteps of nature treading or printing upon different subjects and matters. ... A thing of excellent use for displaying the unity of nature, which is supposed to be the office of Primitive Philosophy." — (De Aug. III. 1.)
" I must stipulate that magic, which has long been used in a bad sense, be again restored to its ancient and honourable meaning. For among the Persians magic was taken for a sublime wisdom, and the knowledge of the universal consents of things, and so the three kings who came from the East to worship Christ were called by the names of the Magi. I, however, understand it as the science of hidden forms (inherent natures) to the production of wonderful operations ; and by uniting (as they say) actives with passives, displays the wonderful works of nature." — (lb. III. 5). Natural magic, in short, displays not only the unity of nature, but also the universal harmony of things; the mingling of heaven and earth — Bacon's prime object.
X An anagram for the name of Elias Ashmole, the celebrated Freemason and Rosicrucian antiquarian and historian, born, Lichfield, 1617.
§ Frequent allusions of this sort remind us of Hamlet comparing the Ghost (or Soul) of his father to " an old mole " working in the ground
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ash-tree, from which rises a scroll, surmounted by a square (or " Templar ") cross, a sun and a moon. On the scroll is written : " Quod est superior est sicut inferius." Beneath the tree is seen a mole digging, and the motto : " Praximus in Sihis pulcherima, Talpa in Terns operissima.""
In the lower margin of the picture the device is thus ex- pounded :
" These Hieroglyphics vaile the vigorous Beames Of an unbounded Soul : The Scrowle and Schemes The full interpreter : But now's concealed, Who through (Enigmas lookes, is so reveald."
In the New Atlantis (which so-called fragment of Bacon's is the same as the Journey to the Land of the Rosicrucians), * we read of a great pillar of light rising from the sea a great way towards heaven ; and on the top of it, a large cross of light, which was regarded as a heavenly sign. " One of the wise men (of the society of the Rosier ucians), after offering up prayer to God for his grace in showing him this miracle, causes his boat to be softly rowed towards the pillar, but ere he came near, the pillar and cross of light brake up, and cast itself abroad into a firmament of many stars, which also soon vanished.1' The wise man presently informs the travellers to his land : " You see we maintain a trade, not for gold, silver or jewels, nor for any com- modity of matter, but only for God's first creature, which was light, to have light, I say, of the growth of all parts of the world."
The merchants whom the Atlanteans or Rosicrucians send forth they call " Merchants of Light," and in " certain hymns and services of laud and thanks to God for his marvellous works," there are, they say, forms of prayers invoking His aid and blessing, " for the illumination of our labours, and the turning them into good and holy uses."
Can we read these words without recalling one of Bacon's
(Hamlet, 1. 5), and of the " blind mole casting copped hills to heaven " in his efforts toward air and light (See Pericles I. 1, 98 — 102).
* This last, though published twenty years later than the New Atlantis, appears from its language to be the first edition. The Atlantis was, by Bacon's order, published after his death by his secretary, Dr. Rawley. It is inserted without date, though with separate title-page, between the Sylva Sylvarvm, 1640, and the Hist, Life and Death.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 323
most beautiful prayers, part of which concludes the " Plan " of the Novum Organum ? *
" Thou, 0 Father ! who gavest the visible light as the first- born of Thy creatures, and didst pour into man the intellectual light as the top and consummation of Thy workmanship, be pleased to protect and gove"rn this work, which, coming from Thy goodness, returneth to Thy glory."
In another prayer, we find the great student earnestly entreat- ing that
" Human things may not prejudice such as are divine ; neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything of incredulity or intellectual night may arise in our minds towards the divine mysteries." "
Bacon is never weary of finding analogies between the bright- ness of heaven and the light of truth, knowledge, heavenly thoughts, " heaven-born poesy." In the dullest minds some spark, some glimmer of intelligence may, he thinks, be kindled, and the faintest rays will penetrate into darkest places.
" How far that little candle sheds its beams ! So shines a good deed in a naughty world."
It would be a grand thing, he said, " if a man could succeed in kindling a light in nature— a light that should, by its very rising, touch and illuminate knowledge ; " and he describes the ancient churches as " torches in the dark." In the Wisdom of the Ancients, suggestive metaphors are used, or fables expounded of Vulcan and the efficacy of fire, and of the games of the torch instituted to Prometheus, in which the object is to keep the torch alight and in motion. The torch is like the candlestick, the means by which the light is maintained and transmitted ; it usually symbolises the mind of man, his " pure intelligence." " Solomon," Bacon says, " was one of the clearest burning lamps whereof he himself speaketh . . . when he saith, the spirit of man is the lamp of God wherewith He searcheth all inwardness.'*
There are men whom fortune has " set on a hill " ; they have
* Published after his death in Baconiana, by his friend, Dr. Tenison.and by him entitled "The Writers Prayer." See Spedding, Works, VII., p. 259.
t " The Student's Prayer/' lb.
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position, perhaps, as well as powers of mind ; wealth as well as ability. These must act as beacons, * to guide the traveller from afar ; others may perform the humbler but still useful offices of lamps, lanterns, tapers, candles. The slightest efforts, well directed, should not be despised, and we cannot dispense with even the soft radiance of the " watch candle,1' or the shy, retiring helper, who never will assert himself, and prefers to work un- recognised—
" Like the glowworm in the night, The which hath fire in darkness, none in light.11 1
There are those who, though incapable of emitting the light of original thought from themselves, can yet afford mechanical help to others. Such lowly but willing spirits are compared to " candle-holders," or torch-bearers, who do not merely look on whilst others labour, but who shed light from the torch which has been put into their hand. There were and are a multitude of such candle-holders in the society of which we speak.
In collating the Baconian and Rosicrucian works, no one can fail to observe the noble spirit of self-sacrifice, and disregard of personal interest, which pervades them.
" Be not as a lamp that shineth to others, and yet seeth not itself, but as the Eye of the World, that both carrieth and useth light." J " For," says Bacon, in another place, " the sense is God's lamp," § and he gives the King credit for being that which he desired him to be, " a clear-burning lamp."
In the Novum Organum, unwise experiments are compared to a " mere groping in the dark," but the true method of experience first lights a candle, and then, by means of the candle, shows the way. fl The communication of knowledge is described as that " of one candle with another, which lights up
* It is worthy of notice that the Bacon family in early times spelt their name Becon or Beacon. Some of them seem to have written under this name, and there is a work by Thomas Becon, 1563-4, in which, on the title-page of the second volume, his name changes from Becon to Beacon. Francis Bacon, " who could not pass by a jest," cannot have failed to see this oppor- tunity for a quibble.
f Pericles, II. 3.
X Gesta Grayorum. Comp. Part II. Tamburlaine the Great IV. 3 ;