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240 HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS.
and imposture with which alchemy was then surrounded,
and by which it has been indelibly disgraced, and it is not
unreasonable to suppose that he may have attempted to
reform the science by means of a secret society, whose
manifestoes are directed against those very abuses. But in
spite of the statement of Louis Figuier,
I can find no
warrant in the life or writings of Andreas for supposing
that he was a profound, student, much less a fanatical
partisan of Paracelsus, and it is clear from his "Tunis
Babel," " Mythologia Christiana," and other works,
that he
considered the Eosicrucian manifestoes a reprehensible hoax.
In the twenty-fifth chapter of the first of these books, the
author proposes to supply the place of the fabulous Eosi-
crucian Society by his own Christian Fraternity. Indeed,
wherever he speaks of it in his known writings, it is either
with contempt or condemnation. Niliil cum hac Fraternitatt
commune habeo, says Truth in the " Mythologia Christiana."
" Listen, ye mortals," cries Fama in the " Turris Babel,"
" you need not wait any longer for any brotherhood ; the
comedy is played out ; Fama has put it up, and now
destroys it. Fama has said Yes,
My readers are now in possession
and now utters No."
of the facts of the
case, and must draw their own iConclusions. If in spite of
the difficulties which I have impartially stated, Andreas
has any claim upon the authorship of the Eosicrucian
Accord-
manifestoes, it must be viewed in a different light.
was to make the secret societies
ing to Herder, his purpose
of his time reconsider their position, and to shew them
how much of their aims and movements was ridiculous, but
not to found any society himself. According to Figuier, he
really founded the Eosicrucian Society, but ended by entire
disapproval of its methods, and therefore started his