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Article ANCIENT WRITERS AND MODERN PRACTICES, Page 1 of 5 →
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Ancient Writers And Modern Practices,
ANCIENT WRITERS AND MODERN" PRACTICES ,
( Conchcded from page 646 . ) The remainder of De Quincey ' s paper is , for the most part , on the origin of Preemasonry in England ; but before entirely dismissing the subject of the Eosicrucian Order , we give a slight notice of Maier ' s " Jocus Severus , " to which allusion was made in a former number ,
together with one or two extracts from another work of his , which are quoted in our writer ' s paper . This work , he says , had been written in England . On the author ' s return . 'to Germany he became acquainted with the fierce controversy on the Rosicrucian sect , and as he firmly believed in the existence of such a sect , he sought to introduce himself to its notice ; but finding this imp set
himself to establish such an order by his own efforts ; and in his subsequentwritings he spoke of it as already existing , and went so far as even to publish its laws . The extracts from his other work to which we have above alluded , are as follow , and are quoted , because it is in this work , says our author , that we meet with the first traces of Masonry .
" Nature / ' says Maier ,. '" is yet hut half unveiled . What we want is chiefly experiment and tentative inquiry . Great , therefore , are our obligations to the Rosicrueians for ' . labouring to supply this want . Their weightiest mystery is an universal medicine . Such a catliolicon lies hid in Nature . It is , however , no simple but a very compound medicine . For out of the meanest pebbles and weeds , medicine and even gold is to be extracted .
" He that doubts the existence of the Rosicrucian Society , should recollect that the Greeks , Egyptians , Arabians , & c , had such secret societies ; where then is the absurdity in their existing in the present day ? Their chief maxims of self-discipline are ' To honour and fear God above all things , to do all the good in their power to their fellow-men , & e . " What is contained in the Fama 5 and 6 Confessio' is true . It is a very childish objection that the brotherhood have promised so much and performed so little . The Masters of the Order hold out the rose as a remote
prize , but they impose the cross upon those who are entering . u Like the Pythagoreans and Egyptians , the Rosicrueians extract vows of silence and secrecy . Ignorant men have treated the whole as a fiction ; hut this has arisen " from the five years' probation to which they subject even well-qualified novices , before they are admitted to the higher mysteries ^ and within this period they are to learn how to govern their own tongues . "
With this , we will , for the present , at any rate , dismiss the question of the foundation of the RosicrucianSociety , merely remarking , that at the head of this quotation , we have merely our author's ipse dixit , and no tmgihle proof for his assertion , cither that Michael Maier founded a society which he called by the name Rosicrucian , or that the society of Rose Oroix did not already exist . We now come to that part of Do Quincey ' a paper which will doubtless be more immediately interesting to the generality of out Jj X / a
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Ancient Writers And Modern Practices,
ANCIENT WRITERS AND MODERN" PRACTICES ,
( Conchcded from page 646 . ) The remainder of De Quincey ' s paper is , for the most part , on the origin of Preemasonry in England ; but before entirely dismissing the subject of the Eosicrucian Order , we give a slight notice of Maier ' s " Jocus Severus , " to which allusion was made in a former number ,
together with one or two extracts from another work of his , which are quoted in our writer ' s paper . This work , he says , had been written in England . On the author ' s return . 'to Germany he became acquainted with the fierce controversy on the Rosicrucian sect , and as he firmly believed in the existence of such a sect , he sought to introduce himself to its notice ; but finding this imp set
himself to establish such an order by his own efforts ; and in his subsequentwritings he spoke of it as already existing , and went so far as even to publish its laws . The extracts from his other work to which we have above alluded , are as follow , and are quoted , because it is in this work , says our author , that we meet with the first traces of Masonry .
" Nature / ' says Maier ,. '" is yet hut half unveiled . What we want is chiefly experiment and tentative inquiry . Great , therefore , are our obligations to the Rosicrueians for ' . labouring to supply this want . Their weightiest mystery is an universal medicine . Such a catliolicon lies hid in Nature . It is , however , no simple but a very compound medicine . For out of the meanest pebbles and weeds , medicine and even gold is to be extracted .
" He that doubts the existence of the Rosicrucian Society , should recollect that the Greeks , Egyptians , Arabians , & c , had such secret societies ; where then is the absurdity in their existing in the present day ? Their chief maxims of self-discipline are ' To honour and fear God above all things , to do all the good in their power to their fellow-men , & e . " What is contained in the Fama 5 and 6 Confessio' is true . It is a very childish objection that the brotherhood have promised so much and performed so little . The Masters of the Order hold out the rose as a remote
prize , but they impose the cross upon those who are entering . u Like the Pythagoreans and Egyptians , the Rosicrueians extract vows of silence and secrecy . Ignorant men have treated the whole as a fiction ; hut this has arisen " from the five years' probation to which they subject even well-qualified novices , before they are admitted to the higher mysteries ^ and within this period they are to learn how to govern their own tongues . "
With this , we will , for the present , at any rate , dismiss the question of the foundation of the RosicrucianSociety , merely remarking , that at the head of this quotation , we have merely our author's ipse dixit , and no tmgihle proof for his assertion , cither that Michael Maier founded a society which he called by the name Rosicrucian , or that the society of Rose Oroix did not already exist . We now come to that part of Do Quincey ' a paper which will doubtless be more immediately interesting to the generality of out Jj X / a