Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 325
He is expressing much the same thought about the Queen which
is in the speech of King Philip to Pandulfo, the Pope's legate,
regarding his own recent alliance with the English King:
" This royal hand and mine are newly knit,
And the conjunction of our inward souls
Married in league, coupled and UnFd together
With all religious strength of sacred vows." 1
The wise words of Ulysses, commenting upon the anger of
Ajax because "Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him,"
come often to the mind in reading such Baconian sayings.
" The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.'" 2
Nestor has rejoiced and laughed over the quarrel and consequent
disunion of the two rival parties.
" All the better, their fraction is more our wish than their faction
— but it was strong counsel a fool could disunite
"
!
Bacon furnishes a reply. The wisest of princes, he tells us,
choose true and wise friends " participes curarum, " care-sharers,
for it is that which tieth the knot. 3 Divisions and factions
weaken the state, and " the cord breaketh at last by the weakest
pull. " Those are the strongest whose welfare joineth and knitteth
them in a common cause, * and since religion is, after all,
the chief band of human society, " it is well when church and
state are alike contained within the true band of unity. 5
He is
not so Utopian as to expect that men will ever think all alike,
on any one subject — there are " certain self- pleasing and humorous
minds which are so sensible of every restraint as they go near
to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles " —
yet he gives this advice according to his " small model." " In
veste varietatis sit, scissura nonsit. " Uniformity is not the same
as unity — the bond of peace and of all virtues — and humanity
should be drawn together by the chains of sympathy and mutual
dependence, not rent asunder by hatred, jealousy, and uncharitableness.
1 John iii. 1. 2 Troilusand Cressida, ii. 3.
3 See Essay of Friendship. 4 Ess. Sedition. Of Unity. 5