ROSICRWCIANS, a sect of visionary speculators who existed in Germany about the beginning of the 17th century. They ascribed, indeed, a much higher antiquity to themselves ; but it is probable that if any body of philosophers who adopted this title ever existed in reality, they were the alchemists, fire philosophers, or Paracelsists of the 16th century, who adopted this mode of giving vogue and fashion to their tenets. Germany was inundated with tracts, from 1600 to 1630, purporting to some from supporters or from enemies of this seet, in which their opinions and intentions are canvassed, but generally in a wild and unintelligible manner. From one of these, a Treatise on the Laws of the Rosicrocions, by Ritter von Maier (1618.) we learn that the fraternity had six fundamental laws : —l. That their chief end and object was to cure the sick without fee or reward. 2. That in travelling they were to change their habits and dress, so as to accommo date themselves to those of the countries in which they sojourned. 3. To meet
once a year on a certain day and at a certain place, kept secret from the rest of the world. 4. To fill up vacancies in their body by electing members. 5. To use the letters R C as their common sym bol. 6. That the fraternity re main undivulged for one hundred years from its foundation. It appears proba ble that the device of the rose issuing out of the cross, which was the same with Martin Luther's seal, was adopted for the purpose of attracting the notice of time religious: the rose was explained to represent the blood of Christ. It would appear from these laws that some species of Freemasonry was intended ; and the Rosieruelans have been by some connect ed with the Freemasons ; but there is, in point of fact, no evidence that any such society existed at all, and the name and other circumstances were probably only Eh. device of some alchemists, who usually conveyed their own notions under cover of symbolical language.