Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 213
tency of reason for natural philosophy and invention of woorks.
" Also of means to procure ' histories' of all things natural and
mechanical, lists of errors, observations, axioms, &c." Then
follow entries from which we abridge
" Layeing for a place to command wytts and pennes, Westminster,
Eton, Winchester; specially ) Trinity Coll., Cam.; St.
John's, Cam.; Maudlin Coll., Oxford.
" Qu. Of young schollars in ye universities. It must be the
post nati. Giving pensions to four, to compile the two histories,
ut supra. Fouudac : Of a college for inventors, Library, Inginary.
" Qu. Of the order and discipline, the rules and prsescnpts of
their studyes and inquyries, allowances for travailing, intelligence,
and correspondence with ye universities abroad.
" Qu. Of the maner and prescripts touching secresy, traditions,
and publication.
Here we have a complete sketch of the elaborate design which
was to be worked out ; and we wonder — yes, we wonder, with
an astonishment which increases as we approach the matter —
how these remarkable jottings, so pregnant with suggestion,
speaking to us in every line of a vast and deeply-laid scheme,
should have been so lightly (or can it be so purposely) passed
over in every life or biography of Bacon. Here he was laying
his plans to " command wits and pens " in all the great public
schools, and especially in the principal colleges of the universities.
He was endeavouring to secure the services of the cleverest
scholars to assist him in working out a scheme of his own. They
were especially to be young scholars, who should have imbibed,
or who were capable of imbibing, the advanced ideas produced by
the " new birth of time, " which he had himself inaugurated. To
work out new ideas, one must have fresh and supple material; and
minds belonging to bodies which have existed for nearly half a
century are rarely either supple or easily receptive of new ideas.
Bacon, therefore, did not choose, for the main stuff and fibre of
his great reforming society, men of his own age (he was now
forty-seven); he wisely sought out the brightest and freshest of
the sons of the morning, the cream of youthful talent, wherever
it was to be discovered.
Would it not be a pursuit as exciting as profitable to hunt