Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

CHAPTER X.
PAPEE-HAEKS USED UNTIL THE TIME OF SIE NICHOLAS
BACON.
AMONGST
the helps to the understanding in the Interpretation
of Nature, Bacon " puts in the tenth place instances of
power, or the fasces, which, also, I call instances of the wit or hands
of man. These are the noblest and most consummate works in
each art, exhibiting the ultimate perfection of it." Such works
should, he says, " be noted and enumerated, especially such as
are the most complete and perfect ; because, starting from them,
we shall find an easier and nearer passage to neiv ivorks hitherto
unattcmpted. . . . What we have to do is simply this, to seek
out and thoroughly inspect all mechanical arts, and all liberal,
too, as far as they deal with works, and make therefrom a collection
or particular history of the great and masterly and most
perfect works in every one of them, together with the mode of
their production and operation. And yet, I do not tie down the
diligence that should be used in such a collection, to those works
only which are esteemed the masterpieces and mysteries of an
art, and which excite wonder. For Wonder is the child of
Rarity
1
; and if a thing be rare, though in kind it be no way
extraordinary, yet it is wondered at. . . . For instance, a singular
instance of art is paper, a thing exceedingly common.
He proceeds to describe the nature and qualities of paper,
" as a tenacious substance, that may be cut or torn, " and that,
in its resemblance to the skin of an animal, and to
the leaf of a
vegetable, imitates Nature's workmanship; and he winds up as
he began, by pronouncing paper to be " altogether singular. 71
Then, as it would at first seem, going off at a tangent from
l Miranda : "0 brave new world that hath such creatures in it !
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