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Time Left-hand section of the woodblock emblem on the title-page of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, printed together with and as an appendix to Sylva Sylvarum, 1626 and 1627. Time is classically depicted as Saturn (Greek, Cronos), the Lord of Time and Space. He is also equated with Pan and therefore shares the same symbolism. In his Wisdom of the Ancients Bacon describes Pan as ‘an elaborate description of universal nature’ who is, from one point of view, the son of Mercury, the Word of God, and from the other, material point of view, the offspring of Chaos (‘the seeds of things mixed and confused together’). This is a classical depiction of Man, born of the Word of God and matter. His body is represented as biform, the lower half being that of a goat and the upper half being that of a human, with long beard and hair, and with wings. The idea of this symbolism is to denote the evolution of mankind from brute to human to angelic in nature, as also the idea that each person incorporates a natural, a human and an angelic or spiritual nature. It is man, therefore—the ‘mind’ or ego of the human being—that learns to draw truth out from its hidden place, the cave of the heart. Whilst man is the mind or intelligence which knows some things but is ignorant about others, its true soul (Truth) is its illumined aspect which is enlightened and knows the truth, and hence is itself a shining orb of light. By undergoing death and rebirth countless times, represented by the clock face and the hands which go round and round, man gains sufficient experience to gradually discover and know the truth: hence he brings forth Truth from his own heart, the purest and most loving part of himself, and helps draw it out from the hearts of others and all nature. This symbolism is a depiction of Philosophy, the ‘love of wisdom’, which produces Philanthropy. Truth is a naked and open daylight… Truth which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the enquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, and the belief of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. Francis Bacon, Essay Of Truth. Philosophical Time exactly occupies seven of the twelve segments of the zodiacal clock. The number 7 is associated with the seven major musical notes which Pan plays upon his pipes, as well as the seven days of the week and seven Days of Creation. It also denotes the seven main stages or degrees of initiation required to reach illumination, and the seven ages of man stretching from childhood to old age—the infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon and second childishness of Jaques’ vision in As You Like It. © Peter Dawkins, FBRT, 1999 |
