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away, since they were secrets held and communicated as such. By natural process, as
the order declined and actual building ceased, its technical secrets became ritual
secrets, though they must always have had symbolical meanings. Further, while we
have record of only one oath which does not mean that there was only one signs,
tokens, and words are nearly always spoken of in the plural; and if the secrets of a
Fellowcraft were purely technical which some of us do not believe they were at
least accompanied and protected by certain signs, tokens, and passwords. From this it
is clear that the advent of an Apprentice into the ranks of a Fellow was in fact a
degree, or contained the essentials of a degree, including a separate set of signs and
secrets.
When we pass to the second period, and men of wealth and learning who were not
actual architects began to enter the order whether as patrons of the art or as students
and mystics attracted by its symbolism other evidences of change appear. They, of
course, were not required to serve a seven year apprenticeship, and they would
naturally be Fellows, not Masters, because they were in no sense Masters of the craft.
Were these Fellows made acquainted with the secrets of an Apprentice? If so, then the
two degrees were either conferred in one evening, or else what seems to have been
the fact they were welded into one; since we hear of men being made Masons in a
single evening.* Customs differed, no doubt, in different Lodges, some of which were
chiefly operative, or made up of men who had been working Masons, with only a
sprinkling of men not workmen who had been admitted; while others were purely
symbolical Lodges as far back as 1645. Naturally in Lodges of the first kind the two
degrees were kept separate and in the second they were merged the one degree
becoming all the while more elaborate. Gradually the men who had been Operative
Masons became fewer in the Lodges chiefly those of higher position, such as master
builders, architects, and so on until the order became a purely speculative fraternity,
having no longer any trade object in view.
Not only so, but throughout this period of transition, and even earlier, we hear
intimations of "the Master's Part," and those hints increase in number as the office of
Master of the Work lost its practical aspect after the cathedral-building period. What
was the Master's Part? Unfortunately, while the number of degrees may be indicated,
their nature and details cannot be discussed without grave indis cretion; but nothing is
plainer than that "we wed not go outside Masonry itself to find the materials out of
which all three degrees, as they now exist, were developed."* Even the French
Companionage, or Sons of Solomon, had the legend of the Third Degree long before
1717, when some imagine it to have been invented. If little or no mention of it is
found among English Masons before that date, that is no reason for thinking that it
was unknown. "Not until 1841 was it known to have been a secret of the
Companionage in France, so deeply and carefully was it hidden."** Where so much is
dim one may not be dogmatic, but what seems to have taken place in 1717 was, not
the addition of a third degree made out of whole cloth, but the conversion of two
degrees into three.
(* For a single example, the Diary of Elias Ashmole, under date of 1646.)
(* Time out of mind it has been the habit of writers, both within the order and
without, to treat Masonry as though it were a kind of agglomeration of archaic
remains and platitudinous moralizings, made up of the heel-taps of Operative legend
and the fag-ends of Occult lore. Far from it! If this were the fact the presest writer
would be the first to admit it, but it is not the fact. Instead, the idea that an order so
noble, so heroic in its history, so rich in symbolism, so skilfully adjusted, and with so
many traces of remote antiquity, was the creation of pious fraud, or else of an
ingenious conviviality, passes the bounds of credulity and enters the domain of the
absurd. This fact will he further emphasized in the chapter followmg, to which those
are respectfully referred who go every-where else, except to Masonry itself, to learn
what Masonry is and how it came to be.)
(** Livre du Compagnonnage, by Agricol Perdignier, 1841. George Sand's novel, Le
Compagnon du Tour de France, was published the same year. See full account of this
order in Could, History of Masonry, vol. i, chap. v.)
That is to say, Masonry is too great an institution to have been made in a day, much
less by a few men, but was a slow evolution through long time, unfolding its beauty as
it grew. Indeed, it was like one of its own cathedrals upon which one generation of
builders wrought and vanished, and another followed,until, amidst vicissitudes of time
and change, of decline and revival, the order itself became a temple, of Freedom and
Fraternity its history a disclosure of its innermost soul in the natural process of its
transition from actual architecture to its "more noble and glorious purpose." For, since
what was evolved from Masonry must always have been involved in it not
something alien added to it from extraneous sources, as some never tire of trying to
show we need not go outside the order itself to learn what Masonry is, certainly not
to discover its motif and its genius; its later and more elaborate form being only an
expansion and exposition of its inherent nature and teaching. Upon this fact the
present study insists with all emphasis, as over against those who go hunting in every
odd nook and corner to find whence Masonry came, and where it got its symbols and
degrees.
CHAPTER 3
Accepted Masons
The System, as taught in the regular Lodges, may have some Redundancies or
Defects, occasion by the Ignorance or Indolence of the old members. And indeed,
considering through what Obscurity and Darkness the Mystery has been deliver'd
down; the many Centuries it has survived; the many Countries and languages, and
SECTS and PARTES it has run through; we are rather to wonder that it ever arrived
to the present Age, without more Imperfection. It has run long in muddy Streams, and
as it were, under Ground. But notwithstanding the great Rust it may have contracted,
there is much of the OLD FABRICK remaining: the essential Pillars of the Building
may be discov'd through the Rubbish, tho' the Superstructure be overrun with Moss
and Ivy, and the Stones, by Length of Time, be disjointed. And therefore, as the Bust
of an OLD Hero is of great Value among the Curious, tho' it has lost an Eye, the Nose
or the Right Hand; so Masonry with all its Blemishes and Misfortunes, instead of
appearing ridiculous, ought to be receiv'd with some Candor and Esteem, from a
Veneration of its ANTIQUITY.
- Defense of Masonry, 1730
I
Whatever may be dim in the history of Freemasonry, and in the nature of things much
must remain hidden; its symbolism may be traced in unbroken succession through the
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