Francis Bacon Research Trust

The Rosicrucians

(Title-page to the 1642 Latin edition of Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of Henry VII)

Standing beneath Fortune’s right hand are two figures who seem to be helping to both steady and manipulate the goddess: a knight in full armour who holds her hips with both hands, and a bearded nobleman with roses on his shoes and a cap of estate on his head who is holding Fortune’s thighs. (The velvet cap of estate was worn either on its own or beneath the coronet of a nobleman and the crown of a prince or king—a custom first introduced by Henry VII.) The nobleman with his robes and roses is almost certainly intended to be Francis Bacon, who was created Viscount St Alban in 1621 and whose memorial statue at St. Michael’s Church, Gorhambury, St. Albans, portrays him with identical shoes and roses on his feet. The whole group—the two men plus the goddess and the globe—are raised on a dais or stage.

The symbolic inference is that these two men are Rosicrucians—the Master and the knight companion.

In addition, there is almost certainly significance in the positions of the hands of the two men. The knight holds the goddess on her hips, whilst Bacon has his hands on her thighs, just above the knees. Astrologically the hips are governed by the zodiacal sign of Libra, the Scales, whilst the thighs are ruled by the sign of Sagittarius, the Archer. Sagittarius rules the motor-nerve system and has a reference to Cupid, or Love, the divine Archer and motivating force of the universe. The thighs are associated with motivation or movement, and help the heart to pump its blood around the body. Libra, on the other hand, is the sign of balance or harmony, and rules the glandular system of the body. Together, therefore, the two Rosicrucians are discovering and assisting Fortune in terms of balance and motivation, or harmony and love.

Still therefore it is Nature which governs everything: but under Nature are included these three; the course of Nature, the wanderings of Nature, and Art—which is Nature with man to help.

Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623).

The controlling of the goddess Fortune, by helping her keep her balance on the globe of the world, is a good illustration of the inner workings and purpose of Bacon’s scheme, which is to discover the divine forms (i.e. the archetypes or laws) that underlie and govern nature, and learn how to work with them for the betterment of the world as a whole. The goddess Fortune is a personification of the law which governs what is known as the astral realm of life—the mortal, changeable world of consciousness that constitutes our psyche and that of nature. It is this law which turns the wheel of life that determines the fortunes of our incarnate lives in the physical world. This sphere of consciousness is often inharmonious and, as is said of the goddess Fortune, fickle. However, as with anything, to discover the law or cause of anything is the first step in learning how to use that law to make life better for oneself and others. Bacon’s idea of this is as a kind of partnership—the human mind or soul working in co-operation with the laws of life so as to make life better and more harmonious for everyone.

Upon a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures is the work and aim of human power. To discover the Form of a given nature, or its true difference, or its causal nature, or fount of its emanation...this is the work and aim of human knowledge.

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Bk II, Aph. 1.

It is rightly laid down that ‘true knowledge is knowledge by causes’.

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Bk II, Aph.3.

And when we have cleared these points, and made it plain what is the Nature of Things, and what that of the Mind, then we think we shall have prepared and decked the marriage bed for the Mind and the Universe, under the eye of Divine Goodness. Let the prayer of our bridal song be, that from this marriage may spring aids for mankind, and progeny of Inventions, which shall overcome, to some extent, and subdue our needs and miseries.

Francis Bacon, Distributio Operis, Instauratio Magna (1623).

This group also appear to portray symbolically Parts I, II and III of Bacon’s Great Instauration. For instance, the survey of the state of knowledge represented by Francis Bacon’s Advancement of Learning is conveyed by the fact that the Rosicrucians are raised on a dais overlooking not just the world but also the goddess. The ideas and axioms laid down in Bacon’s New Method are a declaration of the laws he has discovered, which he puts to work in order to found the Great Instauration, and which he hopes others will use in order to discover and know the laws of life. Moreover, the goddess, who signifies a certain key law of life, has clearly been discovered by the two Rosicrucians, who are observing, touching and collecting facts about her, so as to create a Natural History that will form the basis for a further understanding and knowledge of her to be developed.