clue to the labyrinth: Francis Bacon and the decryption of nature, The

Cryptologia, Jul 2000 by Pesic, Peter

Bacon's publication of the biliteral cipher suggests a more keen and suspicious reading not only of any given text but of any system of "differences" such as Bacon says may be found in anything seen or heard - that is, anywhere in Na tore. This larger goal eclipses the narrower one of improving diplomatic ciphers, for which concealing a new sort of cipher would be the logical step, rather than publishing it. Bacon gives an important sample of his decodings in his retelling of ancient fables. In his dedicatory letter to Of the Wisdom of the Ancients (1609), he relates that "parable has ever been a kind of ark, in which the most precious portions of the science were deposited" (6.689). The outward symbols are "a veil, as it were, of fables, which come in and occupy the middle region that separates what has perished," which he calls "the hidden depths of antiquity," "from what survives" (6.695). He remarks that "religion delights in such veils and shadows, and to take them away would be almost to interdict all communion between divinity and humanity," so deeply are they required for the communion of such diverse and unequal minds. He reminds us of the persistent use of parable in the gospels and notes that "they serve to disguise and veil the meaning, and they serve also to clear and throw light upon it." These parabolic codes both hide and reveal the true sense.

There is a certain simplicity in the code that Bacon discerns in the ancient parables, since he notes a telling resemblance between the plain text and its coded counterpart and often will point out to the reader the fitness of that relation. Indeed, among the most important information he draws from the parables has to do with the exact way the encoding is done. For instance, each detail of the figure of the Egyptian Sphinx has a precise analogy with Science.

In figure and aspect it is represented as many-shaped, in allusion to the immense variety of matter with which it deals. It is said to have the face and voice of a woman, in respect of its beauty and facility of utterance. Wings are added because the sciences and the discoveries of science spread and fly abroad in an instant . . . (6.756).

The sharp claws are an image of the agonizing fascination of scientific questions, which "strangely torment and worry the mind, pulling it first this way and then that, and fairly tearing it to pieces." Bacon goes on to treat many such parables; in the course of his decryption, he remarks that the fables calls attention to their own interpretation and are "a method of teaching." His writings teach his readers a new art of interpretation through the decoding of the ancients; he considers it a model to instruct the "sons of science" how to read the "rhetoric of nature." 24 Bacon also notes that the coded discourse of myths was meant originally "not as a device for shadowing and concealing the meaning, but as a method of making it understood; the understandings of men being then rude and impatient of all subtleties that did not address themselves to the sense" (6.698).