Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 345
surmount — pillars of Hercules, bounding and obstructing
liuin an knowledge and aspiration — they are now converted
irito pillars of light, beacons for guidance and encouragement to
distressed and weary travellers. Tbey are lights of truth and
beauty. The divine light of the Holy Spirit and the light of
the human intellect. The light of God's word and the light of
nature. God's " two witnesses, . . . the two candlesticks
standing before the God of the Earth. " 1
In combination with the candlesticks are fleur-de-lis, trefoil,
pearls, and other symbols of the Holy Spirit ; sometimes an
E C or C E ; almost invariably grapes piled in a pyramid or
diamond. . The bunch of grapes, alone, or in combination with
other figures, is the second great mark in Bacon's books ; he
has explained their symbolism
" As wines which flow gently from the first treading of the
grape are sweeter than those that are squeezed out by the winepress,
because these last have some taste of the stones and skin
of the grape ; so those doctrines are very sweet and healthy
which flow from a gentle pressure of the Scripture, and are not
wrested to controversies and commonplaces." 2
Again :
" I find the wisdom of the ancients to be like grapes
ill-trodden : something is squeezed out ; but the best parts are
left behind;" 3 and he likens the laws to " the grapes that, being
too much pressed, yield an hard and unwholesome wine."
His own " method, as wholesome as sweet, " 4 tolerant of other
men's opinions, whilst firm in his own, appears in these words
" I may say, then, of myself (since it marks the distinction so
truly), it cannot be that we should think alike, token one drinks
water and the other wine. . . . Now, other men have, in the
matter of sciences, drunk a crude liquor like water, either flowing
spontaneously from the understanding, or drawn up by
logic, as by wheels from a well. Whereas I pledge mankind in
a liquor pressed from countless grapes — from grapes ripe and
fully seasoned, collected in clusters, and gathered, and then
squeezed in the press, and then, finally, purified and clarified
in the vat." 5
1 En-elatlous, xi. 3, 4. 2 Be Aug. ix. 1, 3 Controversies of the Church,
4 Sam. ii. 2. 5 Nw. Org. i. 123.