On Bacon's biliteral cipher

Abstract

In the second, revised and expanded edition of the works of Francis Bacon published under the auspices of the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR almost thirty years ago (1977), annoying errors of cryptographic nature were made in Chapter I, Book VI of the treatise On the Advancement of Learning. All of them relate to the biliteral cipher invented by Bacon, according to his own statement, in his youth. These errors (which are of various origin) misrepresent what the English philosopher and statesman, founder of empiricism has to say about “the highest degree of cypher”, known today as Bacon’s cipher (or code). They also deprive of any value the examples carefully chosen by Bacon for this late work. It is worth noting that in the first lifetime edition of this work in Latin (1623) non of the said errors is present, which means that the author was more concerned with the correct reproduction of his text than the philosophical supervisors of an edition which was to be printed more than three hundred and fifty years later. Now the sequence of symbols 0 and 1 (or, in Baconian terms, of the “two letters” a and b) is a binary sequence of the kind which makes possible the operation of all modern computers. It looks like Bacon foresaw a great future for such method of transmitting information: “Neither is it a small matter these Cypher-Characters have, and may perform: For by this Art a way is opened, whereby a man may express and signify the intentions of his mind, at any distance of place, by objects which may be presented to the eye, and accommodated to the ear”. Unfortunately, no one, let alone a philosopher, is immune to mistakes committed against his work by others. The purpose of this article is to trace down such mistakes, typographical errors included, and to suggest the necessary amendments to the Russian text of the respective chapter of the treatise On the Advancement of Learning.