VI. An intimate friend of Andreas, Professor Besoldt,

positively declares that the character of the Rosicrucian
manifesto is plain enough, and considers it a marvellous
and unexplainable circumstance that so many persons had
mistaken that object. From this it is concluded that he
was a repository of the secret concerning their authorship,
and as he was in the confidence of Andreas, that Andreas
was the author.

In this case, the question discussed in the introduction
is, of course, definitely set at rest. The symbolism of the
Rose-Cross is of no high significance as a badge of the
secret society. It does not give expression to the arcana of
the alchemical and celestial Dew of the Wise, nor contain
the secret of the menstruum of the Red Dragon. It is
simply the hereditary device of the founder, and its mean-
ing is to be sought in German heraldry, and not in
mysticism.

Those who accredit Andreas with the authorship of the
Rosicrucian manifestoes interpret his reasons very variously.
According to Arnold, he had already written many satirical
pamphlets upon the corruptions and hypocrisy of the period

THE CASE OFJOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAS. 229

and he considers that the " Fama " and " Confessio " were
penned with the same purpose, namely to lay bare the follies
of men's lives, and to set before them patterns of good and
pious living. He quotes an unmentioned writer as stating
that it was necessary that the brethren should be men of
unblemished lives, and zealous preachers, who, under the
appearance of a society, would try to lead the people to God.
According to Figuier, as we have seen, Andreas established
the order to fulfil certain prophecies of Paracelsus, and
to pursue scientific researches on purely Paracelsian prin-
ciples. But Buhle, with all his shortcomings, and weighted
as he is by an extravagant Masonic hypothesis, is the best
exponent of these views, and it will be necessary to cite his
arguments at considerable length.

" From a close review of his life and opinions, I am not
only satisfied that Andrea wrote the three works which laid
the foundation of Eosicrucianism, but I see clearly ivhy he
wrote them. The evils of Germany were then enormous,
and the necessity of some great reform was universally
admitted. As a young man without experience, Andrea
imagined that this reform would be easily accomplished.
He had the example of Luther before him, the heroic re-
former of the preceding century, whose memory was yet
fresh in Germany, and whose labours seemed on the point
of perishing unless supported by corresponding efforts in
the existing generation. To organise these efforts and
direct them to proper objects, he projected a society com-
posed of the noble, the enlightened, and the learned—
which he hoped to see moving, as under the influence of
one soul, towards the redressing of public evils. Under
this hope it was that he travelled so much : seeking every-
where, no doubt, for the coadjutors and instruments of his

230 HISTORY OF THE ROSICJRUCIANS.

designs. These designs he presented originally in the shape
of a Rosicrucian society ; and in this particular project he
intermingled some features that were at variance with its
gravity and really elevated purposes. Young as he was at
that time, Andrea knew that men of various tempers and
characters could not be brought to co-operate steadily for
any object so purely disinterested as the elevation of human
nature : he therefore addressed them through the common
foible of their age, by holding out promises of occult know-
ledge which should invest its possessor with authority over
the powers of Nature, should lengthen his life, or raise him
from the dust of poverty to wealth and high station. In
an age of Theosophy, Oabbalism, and Alchemy, he knew
that the popular ear would be caught by an account, issuing
nobody knew whence, of a great society that professed to
be the depository of Oriental mysteries, and to have lasted
two centuries. Many would seek to connect themselves
with such a society : from these candidates he might gradu-
ally select the members of the real society which he pro-
jected. The pretensions of the ostensible society were in-
deed illusions ; but before they could be detected as such
by the new proselytes, those proselytes would become con-
nected with himself, and (as he hoped) moulded to nobler
aspirations. On this view of Andrea's real intentions, we
understand at once the ground of the contradictory lan-
guage which he held about astrology and the transmutation
of metals : his satirical works show that he looked through
the follies of his age with a penetrating eye. He speaks
with toleration then of these follies — as an exoteric conces-
sion to the age ; he condemns them in his own esoteric
character as a religious philosopher. Wishing to conciliate
prejudices, he does not'forbear to bait his scheme with these

THE CASE OFJOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAS. 231

delusions : but he is careful to let us know that they are
with his society mere vapspya or collateral pursuits, the
direct and main one being true philosophy and religion."

I fully concede the almost overwhelming force of some of
the arguments I have enumerated, but, as a partisan of no
particular theory, it is my duty to set before my readers a
plain statement of certain grave difficulties.