Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

198 FRANCIS BACON
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
labours as Bacon proposed and undertook would be manifestly
impracticable, yet, with the aid of such an organisation as that
of tbe 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 bis 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. 1
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 (aud as seems to be fully confirmed by the
recent researches of others), there is no real ground for believing
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 Rosicrucians;
the magic lights of fancy play round their graceful
day-dreams, while the mystery in which they shrouded themselves
lends additional attraction to their history. But their
brilliancy was that of a meteor. It just flashed across the
l 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. Wigstou (Kegan, Paid, Trubner