Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 299
his subject, he says: " Again, as instances of the wit and hand of
man, we must not altogether condemn juggling and conjuring
tricks. For some of them, though, in use, trivial and ludicrous,
yet, in regard to the information they give, mag be of much
value." 1
The chain of ideas in this passage — helps to the understanding;
many particulars united; by the wit and hands of man; — these
helps illustrated by the masterpieces and mysteries of the art of
paper-making; and these arts, again, connected with juggling
and tricks, suggested to the present writer the idea of examining
the paper on which those books are printed, and which had
already been specially noted on account of their " Baconian "
matter and style; books which also contain the numberless unaccountable
typographical peculiarities which seem to have
some relation to a system of cipher, to be discussed in another
part of this work.
A few hours of study were sufficient to prove that the very same
"method of tradition," or system of secret communication,
which is perceptible in the hieroglyphic pictures and wood-cuts,
hereafter to bs described, prevails, though in a simpler and
rougher form, throughout the so-called " water-marks" or
paper-marks of the Baconian books, pamphlets and manuscripts.
It was also found that the use and aim of these paper-marks,
and their interpretation, are to be most easily reached by means
of the metaphorical and parabolical language devised and taught
by Bacon himself, and which continues to be used, whether consciously
or unconsciously, not only by his acknowledged followers,
but by the whole civilised world. These symbols were
introduced with a purpose higher than that of mere decoration
they were, in the first instance, used not only as a means of mutual
recognition, but also for covertly instilling or asserting truths
and doctrines, in days when bigotry, ignorance, and persecution
prevented the free ventilation of opinions and beliefs. But the
secret language of the Renaissance philosophers requires a full
volume for its elucidation, so, for the present, we must be con-
1 Nov. Org. xxxi.