Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

322 FBA NCIS E>A CON
preme Being and His universal power, wisdom, and goodness, it
became, after a time, the bugle or trumpet which was to call
forth men to their duties — the Ecclesia — called out to do
especial service for God and for Humanity. 1
Bacon and his friends adopted this bugle or trumpet, and, giving
it an additional or secondary significance,
assimilated it in
their hieroglyphic pictures and their parabolic phraseology.
Bacon is about to treat of the " Division of the Doctrine concerning
Man into the Philosophy of Humanity and Philosophy
Civil. " He shows throughout this chapter, as elsewhere, that
" The proper study of mankind is man,"
and this is his*prologue :
" If any one should aim a blow at me (excellent King) for
anything I have said, or shall hereafter say in this matter (besides
that I am within the protection of your Majesty), let me
tell him that he is acting contrary to the rules and. practices of
warfare; for I am a trumpeter, not a combatant; one, perhaps,
of those of whom Homer speaks:
'Hail, heralds, messengers of Jove and men! '2
and such men might go to and fro everywhere unhurt, between
the fiercest and bitterest enemies. Nor is mine a trumpet
which summons and excites men to cut each other to pieces
with mutual contradictions, or to quarrel and fight with one another
; but, rather,to make peace between themselves, and, turning
with united forces against the nature of things, to storm and
occupy her castles and strongholds, and extend the bounds of
human empire as far as God Almighty in his goodness may
permit." 3
In the 1658 edition of the History of Life and Death, you may
see a fine example of the bugle with the SS in a shield -frame of
olive, surmounted by the usual crown, with pearls, horns, and
fleur-de-lis. 4 The olive, commoner, even, in the hieroglyphic
1 Until recently, when the assizes were being held in country towns in England,
thejudges and council (barristers, etc.) were thus, when the court was to
begin business, called out from their lodgings by the sound of a bugle or horn.
2 Horn. i. 334.
3 De Aug. iv. 1.
4 Observe also the distinct form of a pot in the outline of the shield or
wreath.