Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND MIS SECRET SOCIETY. 11
works are superior to others, as are the first efforts of a clever
boy to the compositions of his mature manhood—still, a very
decided resemblance in thought, opinion, knowledge, and diction
is perceptible, when the works of the time are exhaustively
compared.
This likeness extends even to foreign works, especially when
they are divested of their Latin, French, German, Italian, or
Spanish mantles, and appear as " translations" in very Baconian
diction. In many cases the translations appear to be the originals.
3. It is manifestly impossible that any one man, however
gigantic his power, could have performed, single-handed, all
that we believe to have been done and written by Francis Bacon.
But many entries in his private notes, many hints in his letters
and acknowledged works, indicate his faith in the efficacy
of united efforts, and that, besides the mystery which surrounded
himself, there was also a mystery concerning many of his nearest
relations and friends, who seemed to have worked for the
same ends as he did, and perfectly to have understood the ambiguous
language in which he expressed himself. Secret societies
were common in the Middle Ages, and Bacon, we believe,
was the centre of a secret league for the advancement of learning.
This revival of learning was the " New Birth of Time"—
the " Renaissance."
4. Examination into the history of the secret societies of the
Middle Ages shows the Rosicrucian fraternity as the one of all
others which would have been best fitted to promote Bacon's
lofty aims; its very constitution and mode of procedure seeming
to be the result of his own scheme or " method."
5. It further appears that no sharply defined line could be
drawn between the method and objects of the Rosicrucians and
those of the Freemasons; and that,
in fact, although the prophetic
imagination of Bacon carried him into the highest flights
of poetic and religious aspiration, and into the sublimest regions
whither the Rosicruciau brethren strove to follow him, yet he was
observant and practical enough to see that there were things in
heaven and earth unheard of in ordinary philosophy; that only