240 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING
Do what you will, because people who are free, well-born, well-
bred, and easy in honest company have a natural instinct that
drives them to virtuous deeds and deflects them from vice—and
this they call honour. When these same men are depressed and
enslaved by vile constraint and subjection, they use this noble qual-
ity, which once impelled them freely towards virtue, to throw off
and break this yoke of slavery. For we always strive after things
forbidden and covet what is denied us.^8Johan Valentin Andrea (1586-1654), abbot of Adesberg, was the
unintentional founder of the Rosicrucians. In 1610, he published Fama
fraternitis, or Discovery of the Honorable Order of the Rosy Cross, a
work inspired entirely by his imagination. In this fictional work, he
recounts the fabulous story of a certain Christian Rosenkreuz who dis-
covered a secret, concealed for centuries, that could ensure the happi-
ness of humanity. To enable the success of his propaganda, he founded
a secret college (lodge) whose purpose was doing charitable works and
promoting internationalism and the advancement of true morality and
religion. The members of this society were required to swear to the
strictest discretion. The book enjoyed great success and its readers, par-
ticularly in England, believed the Order of the Rosy Cross genuinely
existed. Andrea followed up his first work with others, notably The
Universal Reformation of the Entire World (1614) and The Chemical
Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz (1616).
Robert Fludd (1547-1637), whose works enjoyed considerable suc-
cess, established himself as a defender of the Rosicrucian Order.
Rosicrucian societies were formed in London under his influence and
adopted his philosophical doctrines. These ideas were inspired by those
of Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, and Jacob Boheme and
consisted of a synthesis of alchemy, the Kabbalah, and Neoplatonic and
Hebraic traditions collected from the writings of Hermes Trismegistus
mixed with the ambitions and mysticim of the Rosicrucians.
Francis Bacon (1560-1626) chancellor of James I, is the famous
author of La Nova Atlantis. In this fictional work, Bacon depicts a
republic headed by a secret society consisting entirely of intellectuals
from the fields of both letters and sciences. The members of this order,