THE CLUE TO THE LABYRINTH: FRANCIS BACON AND THE DECRYPTION OF NATURE

Abstract

Francis Bacon was among the first to argue that human ingenuity can discover the hidden laws of nature, under the metaphor of solving the encrypted Book of Nature. He was familiar with diplomatic uses of ciphers and presented a novel scheme for encryption; he also read ancient myths as coded messages. Despite the skepticism of his contemporaries, Bacon pointed to new possibilities of decryption both for human texts and the “alphabet of nature.” His concept that nature requires interpretation and his inductive use of tables also parallel emergent cryptanalytic methods.

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