Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

282 FRANCIS BACON
tion of this sense seems to point to the verbal teaching of the
Masons.) But the " sight is the noblest of all the senses, the
organ is the masterpiece of Nature's work," and the large
amount of symbols and metaphors which connect themselves
with this sense show the important place which it occupies in
Masonic symbolism. Then, by feeling, we distinguish the different
qualities of bodies (or, it might be added, of S2)irits). They
are hot or cold, hard or soft, rough or
smooth, and have other
qualities which are seen to be connected " by some original principle
of human nature which far transcends our inquiry."
"Hast thou," says Prospero to Ariel
— "hast thou, though a
spirit, some touch, some feeling of their afflictions?" l Shakespeare
makes great use of the metaphor, " The inly touch of
love." "A 2 sweet touch, a quick venue of wit." 3 " The most
bitter touch of sorrow. " 4 " Touched with noble anger," 5 with
pity, etc. No one can doubt that Shakespeare, like Enoch, was
a good Mason.
Surely, too, the eye of the perceptive intellect, the ready ear for
truth (in other words, the Will, which, Bacon says, rules
thought, free as it is), and the tender sympathy which is in touch
with all created nature, are the three senses of hearing, seeing,
and feeling, which are deemed particularly essential amongst
Masons.
Then of smelling, " that sense by which we distinguish odours,
we recall " Ovidius Naso smelling out the odoriferous flowers of
fancy; " 6 the Fool's exposition of " why one's nose stands i' the
middle on 's face, to keep one's eyes of either side 's nose;
that what a man cannot smell out he may spy into,' 1 ' 1
7 with
many other similar figures; of smelling out villainy, 8 at which
" Heaven stops the nose;" 9 of the air and smell of the court; of
calumny; of sin, offence and corruption; of mortality and Heaven's
breath. 10 Ariel's graphic description of the effect produced
l Temp. v. 1. 2 Tw. Gen. Ver. ii. 7. 3 L. L. L. v. 1.
4 All's Well, i. 1. 5 Lear, i. 5. 6 L. L. L. iv. 2.
7 Lear, i. 5. 8 Othello, v. 2. 9 lb. iv. 2.
io There are about fifty passages in Shakespeare alone which illustrate this
one idea.