Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 321
la the Bible horns are frequently used as emblems of pushing
and conquest. Tbey are, as we see on the Nineveh marbles at
the British Museum, signs of prophet, priest, and king. In many
emblem pictures the idea of omnipotence is so mixed up with
the further god-like attributes of omniscience, omnipresence,
and universal beneficence, that it is often difficult to decide
whether the design is most suggestive of the horns of power, the
rays of spiritual and intellectual light, or the cornucopia) of
Abundance. Sometimes serpents or serpentine lines found in
connection with the bull, the cross, and the anchor are (especially
in connection with wood-cuts) so rendered as to suggest the
same mixed symbolism.
To the mystics in India and Greece, as well as to the ecclesiastics
of the middle ages, and the philosophers of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, the serpent of eternity was the sign
of God, the Holy Spirit. The symbol is retained in the stained
glass of our church windows, and in emblematic designs from
the Apocalypse, where St. John the Divine is distinguished by
the chalice whence issues the serpent, typifying wisdom, or reason
and speech, the gifts of the Spirit.
In the caduceus of Mercury, whilst the symbolism is somewhat
changed, the idea is similar. The rod is said formerly to have
been a scroll or ancient book, and the two serpents entwined round
it typify everlasting wisdom. It is likewise the emblem of peace
for Mercury (according to pagan mythology), finding two serpents
fighting, reconciled them by a touch of his wand, and thenceforward
bore this symbol of reconciliation. This is held to figure
the harmonising force of religion, which can tame even the venomous
and cold-blooded snakes. The same line of thought may
be followed up in Bacon's Essay of Orpheus, and in other places
where he expounded his own views of the best methods for
" tuning discords to a concord."
The old bugle mark, of which innumerable instances are found
in old letters and MS. books, and which is in use at the present day,
seems to have been originally derived from the bull and his horns.
In the first instance, associated with the conception of the Sui