The Mirror Book

(Title-page to the 1645 edition of Francis Bacon’s De Dignitate & Augmentis Scientiarum.)

Held out in front of the bacchant, in both his hands, is a clasped book with the symbol of a mirror on its cover. The book is like a note-book, whilst the mirror is a symbol of the mind and of reflections. A note book is a book of reflections, and since it is being carried by the actor it is presumably for the noting down of ideas or observations drawn from the experience of acting out the mysteries of life, whether in the theatre or on the stage of the world. This seems to illustrate nicely the real meaning of Bacon’s fifth part of the Great Instauration, which follows on from the theatrical fourth part.

Part V of the Great Instauration is named by Bacon, ‘Anticipations of the Second Philosophy’. This is comprised of speculative notes of a temporary nature, which are necessary prior to the forming of genuine axioms (i.e. ‘generally accepted propositions or principles discovered and sanctioned by experience’—Collins English Dictionary) which form Part VI of the Great Instauration.

© Peter Dawkins, FBRT, 1999