The Society Of The Rose Croix.*

well in his writings to repeat , with emphasis , that the true physician obtained all his science from God , ancl that he recommended , above all , in medicine the use of cabalistic means . The Rose Croix , who only developed the thaumaturgic portion of the system of Paracelsus , could not properly invoke for the sick any but religious or moral influences . They asserted , it is true , that they

could cure all maladies by imagination and faith . A true Rose Croix had only to look at a sick pez-son attacked hy the most serious illness , and at the same moment he was cured . * It appears to us , then , that the brother of the Rose Croix in the consultation in which he took part with Doctor Molther , contradicted the principles of his own orderancl it is probably on that account that the woman in question

, died . In the hermetic philosophy the history of the Rose Croix is even less rich in facts , if that be possible . It is then , above all , that the brotherhood appears to us to have worked by imagination , and in imagination . They boasted , nevertheless , of making at discretion silver and gold , ancl in Germany their success in this matter was not doubted . Unfortunately no witness

comes forward to confirm these assertions , ancl the same absence of information is much to be regretted , both as to the place where their " projections " were carried out , as well as to their manner of procedure . Failing other proofs , the riches of the fraternity might have served as a presumption in favour of their hermetic capacity ; but these riches are as invisible as their

persons , and the Ennperor of whom they speak seems never to have received from their hands those masses of gold and silver which they had promised to furnish to him . It might be objected , perhaps , that they might have preserved their goods to consecrate them to the service of the company , and with this lever to influence outside some important action . But we see nowhere any trace of such action . Lastly , if the Rose Croix had divided amongst themselves these treasures of hermetic originthey would have lived in

, magnificence . On the contrary , in the isolated spots where we can trace thensojourn , they are found always poor and ill at ease . IL is , then , altogether gratuitously that people have indulged in faith in the traiismutatory science of the Rose Croix ; all the proofs , all the monuments which attest to-day the skill in hermetic science , are reduced to- some few papers or declarations of writers of . whom the truth is suspected . Of this number wasfor example

, , Michael Potier ( Poterius ) , a man sufficiently vain to pretend to possess the most wonderful secrets of nature , and who complained of being obliged to hide himself to avoid the urgent appeals of princes , all desirous of attachinghim to their court . He boasted of possessing the philosopher ' s stone , and offered , nevertheless , to communicate the " recipe " for a salary , a contradiction as astounding as common among the philosophic makers of gold . Therefore

Michael Potier , by dedicating to the Rose Croix , with many praises of their science , his book ou " Pure Philosophy , " leads us to think , does it not ? that he was only inspired in this act by the desire to make the public believe that he had obtained from this fraternity the secrets he wished to make gain of .

Michael Mayer equally celebrated the Rose Croix in his book entitled " Verum Inventum sen Munera Germaniie ab ipsis primitiis reperta , et toto orbi conimunicata . " t But in this work the author , limiting himself to repeat the words ancl the promises of those whom he extols , is but the simple echo of the manifesto ancl the confession of the fraternity . To these two authorities we can , if we desire it , add a third of the same weight , that of Combach , a peripatetic philosopher , who , to make ridicule of