Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECUE T SOCIETY. 285
into the bowels of the earth he finds . . . that every gem and
pebble proclaims the handiwork of an Almighty Creator."
In the sixth section of the second degree, previous utterances,
suggestions, and lessons are repeated, still in diluted Baconian
terms. Evaporating a little superfluous phraseology, we again
come upon familiar exhortations to temperance, fortitude,
prudence, and justice. Temperance, which governs the passions.
Fortitude, which he who possesses is seldom shaken, and never
overthrown by the storms that surround him. Prudence, the chief
jewel of the human frame.
Justice, the bound of right, the cement
of civil society, which, in a great measure, constitutes real goodness,
and which should be the perpetual study of the good
Mason. Virtue, true nobility. Wisdom, the channel through
which virtue is directed and conveyed. The mind, the noblest
subject of our studies. Observation and experiment, the one way
to the knowledge of nature's works.
Masonry, we are repeatedly told, is a progressive science,
including almost every branch of polite learning. The omission
implied consists, apparently, in all matters connected with
Christianity and the church of Christ; in fact, if, as we think,
Bacon framed these rules, we see that this must be so. For,
after a dissertation (still in Baconian language paraphrased),
upon " geometry, the noblest of the sciences; "... upon the
" numberless worlds framed by the same Divine Artist, which
roll through the vast expanse, conducted by the unerring laws
of nature," and of the "progress made in architecture, particularly
in the reign of Solomon, " these instructions finish up
with a short explanation of the liberal arts, which are computed
by the Masons to be seven in number. 1
These arts are grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry,
music, astronomy (which includes the doctrine of the spheres),
geography, navigation, and the arts dependent on them. " Thus
end the different sections of the second lecture," . . . which,
besides a complete theory of philosophy and physics, contains a
1 Seven, that mystical number, which, as we have elsewhere said, is so closely
associated with Masonic symbols and traditions.