Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

206 FRANCIS BACON
teen Francis Bacon had run through the whole round of the
arts and sciences at Cambridge, had outstripped his tutors, and
had left Cambridge in disappointment and disgust, finding
nothing more to learn there. He did not wait to pass a degree,
but, practically, it was acknowledged that he had more than
deserved it, for the degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon
him some time afterward.
How he spent the next year is not recorded by his biographer,
but another R. C. document, the Fama Fraternitatis, throws a
side-light upon the matter. In this paper, full as all these
Rosicrucian manifestoes are of Bacon's ideas and peculiarities
of expression, we read that " the high and noble spirit of one
of the fraternity was stirred up to enter into the scheme for a
general reformation, and to travel away to the wise men of
Arabia." This we interpret to mean that, at this time, the
young philosopher was entering his studies of Rhazis, Avenzoar,
Averroes, Avicenna, and other Arabic physicians and
" Hermetic " writers, from whom we find him quoting in his
acknowledged, as well as in his unacknowledged, writings.
At this time, the Fama informs us, this young member was
sixteen years old, and for one year he had pursued his course
alone.
What is this likely to mean but that, having left college, he
was pursuing his advanced studies by himself? It seems almost
a certainty that at this period he was endeavouring, as so many
other ardent minds have done, to get at a knowledge of the first
causes of things. How could he better attempt to achieve this
than by going back to the most ancient philosophies in order to
trace the history of learning and thought from the earliest
recorded period to his own times ?
We shall presently have occasion to show the immense
influence which the study of the occult philosophies of India,
Persia, Arabia, and Egypt had upon the mind and writings of
Francis Bacon, and how he drew from them the most elementary
aud universal symbols and emblems which are the foundations
of Freemason language and hieroglyphics. But there is another
particular which especially links Bacon with the whole system