CHAPTER XXV
	
THE MARK DEGREE


THERE is no stronger or more convincing proof of the connection between
the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages and those of the present
day, and of the regular descent of the one from the other, than that
furnished by the existence in the modern rituals of a degree the ceremonies
of which have been evidently founded on the system of proprietary marks
which prevailed among the Stonemasons of Germany, and which passed
from them into all the other countries of Europe.

If all the other authentic testimonies of the fact that about the beginning of
the 18th century there was a transmutation of an Operative Art into a
Speculative Science, were expunged from the record, the apparently
extraordinary phenomenon that there exists in the latter, and in the latter
only, a peculiar and extraordinary system, which also prevailed in the
former, and in the former only, would be sufficient to warrant the conclusion
that there must have been a very intimate relation between the two
associations with which this system was connected.

Therefore, as a connecting link of that great chain which, beginning with
the Roman Colleges of Artificers, extended to the early Masons of Gaul and
Britain to the Travelling Freemasons of Lombardy and Germany, and finally
terminated in the Free and Accepted Masons of modern
times, a thorough consideration of the rise and progress of the Mark
degree must be deemed essential to the completeness of any work on
the history of Freemasonry.

In pursuing this investigation it will be necessary to inquire, firstly, what
is the position of the Mark degree in the modern rituals; secondly, what
is its character and legendary history; and, thirdly, what was its real
historical origin as distinguished from the mythical account of its
fabrication, as it is given in its legends.

To an investigation of these important and, to the student of Masonic
Antiquities, interesting, points, the present chapter will be devoted.

The Mark degree, or to define it more accurately according to the
received phraseology, the degree of Mark Master, constitutes the fourth
degree or the first of what are called the capitular degrees in the
American Rite as it is practiced in the United States.  In Scotland and
Ireland it is a degree recognized under the jurisdiction of the Grand
Chapter.  In England it is not recognized by the Grand Lodge.  The
articles of Union, adopted in 1813, defined Ancient Craft Masonry to
consist only of the first three degrees, including the Royal Arch.  Hence,
there being no place provided for the Mark degree, it was ignored in
English Masonry until its introduction a few years ago, when it was
placed under an independent jurisdiction called the Mark Grand Lodge,
a body which was established in 1856.

On the Continent of Europe and in all countries the Freemasonry of
which is not delved immediately from and is in intimate connection with
the Masonry of England and America, the Mark degree is entirely
unknown.  There is not in any of the German, French, Italian, or Spanish
rituals the slightest allusion to it.

In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite the Mark degree at one time
held a distinct position, though it has ever since the beginning of this
century or the close of the last, been stricken from its ritual.  Of this fact
there is undeniable proof.

I have in my possession an original Warrant or charter, granted in the
year 1804 by the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem to American
Eagle Master Mark Masons' Lodge No. 1, in Charleston, South Carolina,
and there is in the archives of the Supreme Council for the Southern
Jurisdiction of the United States, the ritual of the degree as at the time
conferred, which appears to have been only on Past Master Masons of
the Scottish Rite who were recognized by the possession of Scottish
degrees as Past Masters. (1)

There is no evidence, however, that other lodges were established


(1) That is, on Master Masons who had received the preliminary degrees
of the Scottish Rite, who were assumed in their own Rite to be Past
Masters.  In the Circular of the Charleston Supreme Council, issued in
1802, it is said that "throughout the Continent of Europe, England,
Ireland, and the West indies, every Sublime Mason is recognized as a
lawful Past Master."


by the same authority.  At least no other Charters have to my knowledge
been discovered. (1)

At the time of the establishment of the Supreme Council at Charleston, in
1801, the jurisdiction over the degree had probably been assumed by
the Scottish Rite Masons, for the Warrant just mentioned was granted by
the Council of Princes of Jerusalem, which was a body subordinate to
the Supreme Council.

At the present time the Mark degree constitutes a part of the Rite
practiced in the United States, and is under the jurisdiction of the Grand
Chapter, being the fourth of the capitular degrees.

Up to nearly the middle of the present century the degree was conferred
sometimes in a lodge working under the Warrant granted by the Grand
Chapter to a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, and sometimes in a Mark
Masters' lodge working under a special and distinct charter from the
Grand Chapter.  But in 1853 this system was abolished by the General
Grand Chapter, and independent Mark Masters' lodges no longer exist
in America.

In Scotland, after the transition of Operative into Speculative Masonry,
the Mark degree was worked originally by a few lodges under their Craft
Warrant, and it was then conferred as an appendage to the Fellow-Craft
degree.  This was done as late as 1860, by a lodge at Glasgow, which
action, however, attracted the notice of the Grand Chapter, and having in
conference with the Grand Lodge thoroughly investigated the subject,
the following report was made, which as giving a summary of the rise
and progress of the degree in Scotland, and of the changes of position
to which it was subjected, is well worthy of quotation.

In this report it was unanimously agreed by the Committee of
Conference "that what is generally known under the name of the Mark
Master's degree was wrought by the Operative lodges of St. John's
Masonry (2) in connection with the Fellow-Craft degree before the
institution of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.  That since that date it has
continued to be wrought in the Old Operative lodges, but in what may
be called the Speculative lodges, it was never worked at all - or at all
events only in a very few.  That this


(1) The American Eagle Master Mark Masons' Lodge was in existence at
least as late as 1807, and a list of its officers is given in the register
published in that year by J.J. Negrin, and appended to his "Free
Masons' Vocal Assistant," page 25.
(2) By St. John's Masonry is meant in Scotland the three symbolic
degrees.


degree being, with the exception of the Old Operative lodges above
mentioned, entirely abandoned by the lodges of St. John's Masonry, the
Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter assumed the management of it as
the Fourth degree of Masonry, in order to complete the instruction of
their candidates in the preliminary degrees, before admitting them to the
Royal Arch.  And, finally, that this degree, whether viewed as a second
part of the Fellow-Craft degree or as a separate degree, has never been
recognized or worked in England, Ireland, or the Continent, or in
America, as a part of St. John's Masonry."

It was also stated by a delegate of the Grand Lodge of Scotland at a
conference on the subject of the Mark degree, held at London in 1871,
that long anterior to the institution of the Grand Lodge of Scotland two
classes of lodges existed in that kingdom; namely, those which worked
only the First and Second degrees and of which the Mark Master or
Overseer was Master, and those which worked the First, Second, and
Third degrees, over which the Master Mason presided.

In both of these statements there are errors in respect to the Mark
degree, which have been corrected by subsequent investigations.  Bro.
Lyon, whose authority on this subject is unquestionable, says that the
statements in regard to an organization for conferring the Mark under
Mark Masters or Overseers are unsupported by any existing records. 
The lodges previous to the 18th century "knew nothing of the degrees of
Mark Men, Mark Master, or Master Mason." (1)

As a degree of Masonry, in the sense which we give to the word degree,
the system of Mark Masonry was wholly unknown to the Operative
Masons of the Middle Ages.  It has been shown that in Germany every
Apprentice who had served his time, on being admitted as a Fellow Craft
received a Mark, which was to be his unchangeably during his life.  The
reception of this was generally accompanied by a banquet, furnished to
a certain extent of expenditure by the lodge which admitted him; but
there is not the slightest allusion in any document extant to the fact that
the bestowal of the mark was accompanied by esoteric ceremonies
which would give it the slightest resemblance to a degree.


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 71.

In Scotland the Statutes of William Schaw required all Fellows and
sometimes Apprentices, to select their marks, which were to be
recorded, and a fee was paid for their registration; but as Bro.  Lyon
says, there is not anything in the records of the period which points to a
special ceremony in connection with their adoption.

In England preceding the middle of the 18th century we have nothing in
reference to marks in the Old Charges or to the Mark degree in the
minutes of lodges, either in Operative or Speculative Masonry.

We are indebted to Bro. Hughan, that indefatigable investigator, for the
earliest authentic record we possess of the existence of the Mark degree
in Scotland.  It is contained in an extract from the minutes of the
Operative lodge at Banff, the date of which is January 7, 1778.  The
minute is in the following words:

"That in time coming all members that shall hereafter raise to the degree
of Mark Mason, shall pay one mark Scots, but not to obtain the degree
of Mark Mason before they are passed Fellow-Craft.  And those that shall
take the degree of Mark Master Masons shall pay one shilling and
sixpence sterling into the Treasurer for behoofe of the lodge.  None to
attain to the degree of Mark Master Mason until they are raised Master."

From this record we learn that at that time there were two degrees in
connection with the mark-one called "Mark Mason," probably the same
which was distinguished elsewhere as "Mark Man," to which degree
Fellows were eligible, and another called "Mark Master Mason," which
was conferred only on Master Masons.

We are not, however, to ascribe the year 1778, the date of the record, as
the date of the institution of either of the degrees.  The minutes only
prove that the degrees were then in existence, and show the regulation
by which they were governed.

Their fabrication must have taken place at an earlier period, but how
much earlier we are unable to say.  But I imagine that we would be safe
in saying that neither of the degrees was fabricated anterior to the
middle of the 18th century.  If earlier, some notice of them would occur
in the minutes of the Lodges of Mary's Chapel and Kilwinning.  But those
minutes have been thoroughly digested by Bro. Lyon, and no such
notice has been met with.

The earliest mention of the two Mark degrees in England is found in the
Minute Books of St. Thomas Lodge No. 142 in London.

The minutes of the lodge in connection with this subject were
transcribed by Bro. H.C. Levander, Secretary of the lodge, and are
contained in a letter from Bro. T.B. Whytehead, Past Master of York Mark
Lodge, which was inserted in the Report of the Committee on
Correspondence to the Grand Chapter of Pennsylvania, and published in
the proceedings of that body for the year 1879.  From the minutes of the
lodge, of August 14, 1777, we are put in possession of important facts
bearing on this subject.  The minute is as follows:

"August 14, 1777.
"Regular Lodge night, the W.M., the Wardens, the Secretary, and
Treasurer present worked in the First and Second degrees, made the
following brothers Mark Masons and also Mark Master Masons, opened
at 6 o'clock."

From this and from other minutes of the lodge of subsequent date but of
the same purport, we glean the facts that in 1777, and no doubt earlier
(the lodge was warranted in 1775), the two degrees of Mark Man and
Mark Master were worked in the South of England as an appendage to
the Fellow-Craft's degree.

The Lodge of St. Thomas received its Warrant from the Grand Lodge of
"Ancients," or Athol Grand Lodge, which held close and amicable
relations with the Grand Lodge of Scotland.  But there is also evidence
that at a later period, the Mark degree was worked by an English lodge
holding its Warrant from the Grand Lodge of "Moderns," or the legitimate
Grand Lodge of England, though that body religiously repudiated all
degrees except the three symbolic degrees.

Bro. Whytehead, in the article before referred to, supplies us with an
extract from the minutes of the Imperial George Lodge of Middleton in
Lancashire, which had been warranted in 1752 by the Grand Lodge of
"Moderns." The minute is dated March 9, 1809, and is in these words:

"This lodge was opened in due form at 8 o'clock, in peace and good
harmony.

"When the following Brethren were made Mark Masons."

Bro. Whytehead also cites the Directory of Minerva Lodge No. 250 at
Hull, as showing that in the year 1802 that lodge conferred, besides
several other degrees, those of "Ark, Mark, and Link."

Though there was no regular book of the Mark Lodge, yet the Secretary,
Bro. M.C. Peck, states that the marks were entered in the Craft minute
book.

In Kenning's Masonic Cyclopaedia, Bro. Woodford says: "It is
undoubtedly true that in Scotland the 'Falows of Craft' took up their
marks, but we are not aware, so far, of any corresponding use in
England."  (1)

But the records of St. Thomas Lodge of Lancashire in 1775 and of
Minerva Lodge of Yorkshire in 1809, marks were regularly selected and
recorded by brethren when they received the Mark degree.  The mark
was always appended to the name of the brother.

So that if, by the expression "Taking up their marks," of which, he says,
there was no "corresponding use in England," he means that the English
Mark Masons did not select and register their marks, just as they did in
Scotland, these records show that he is clearly in error.

Bro. Woodford also says, in the same article, "Mark Man, in our humble
opinion, is historically synonymous with Mark Mason."

But the same records prove that in 1775 the degree of Mark Man was
distinct from that of Mark Master, though in 1809 the Minerva Lodge
does not appear to have practiced the former.

Whether we call the first of these degrees Mark Man or Mark Mason, and
the latter Mark Mason or Mark Master Mason, the words Mark Man and
Mark Mason, in the meaning given to them at the present day, are not
synonymous, and never could have been, because they indicate two
distinct things.

These minutes also show that in the 18th century the Mark degree was
worked independently by certain Blue lodges under their Grand Lodge
Warrants.  It was, however, rejected as a degree, or rather not
recognized by the United Grand Lodge, in the articles of union adopted
in 1813. It has, however, always been recognized in Scotland and in
Ireland as a part of Speculative Masonry necessarily preparatory to the
Royal Arch.

The Mark degree was introduced into the United States at a 


(1) Kenning's "Cyclopaedia,' in voce.  Mark Man, p. 453.

time subsequent to the middle of the last century.  In the sparseness of
authentic documents, it is impossible to affix the precise date of the
introduction of the Mark degree into America, but it would be, I think,
more correct to place that date at about the close rather than
immediately after the middle of the century.  "Independent Mark Lodges"
says Bro. Hughan, (1) "were scattered throughout the United States of
America during the latter part of the last century and early in the present
one." This, I have no doubt, as the result of my own investigations, is the
proper date of the introduction of the degree in this country.

The late Bro. F.G. Tisdall, who was the Master of St. John's Lodge No. 1
in the city of New York, asserted in an address delivered at the
Centennial of the lodge, in 1857, that the lodge received its original
Warrant from the Grand Lodge of England in the year 1757, under the
Grand Mastership of Lord Aberdour, and that to its Warrant was
"annexed a Warrant with power to make Mark Masons."

If this assertion were true it would establish two important historical facts:
first, that the Mark degree was recognized in the middle of the last
century by the Grand Lodge of England (Moderns), and secondly, that it
was practiced at the same period in the United States.

Unfortunately, Bro. Tisdall has verified neither of these statements by
authentic documents, and we are compelled to relegate them to the
regions of the mythical, where so many hundreds of hap-hazard
statements of Masonic history have found at last a quiet resting-place.
(2)

He has, however, cited an extract from the minutes which shows that in
the year 1796 there was a Mark lodge, connected in some way with the
Craft Lodge, St. John, and that at that time the Mark degree was
conferred by it. (3)

It must be admitted as a well-proven historical fact that Mark


(1) Mackey's "National Freemasons" February, 1873, vol. ii., p. 348.
(2) In the article just cited from Mackey's "National Freemasons" Bro.
Hughan has written an able criticism on the address of Bro. Tisdall as
well as some Essays on the same subject published by Tisdall in
Pomeroy's "Democrat." Hughan has very conclusively proved that the
claims of Tisdall for so early an existence in America of the Mark degree
have no historical foundation.
(3) The minute reads as follows: "The accounts of St. John's Mark Lodge
No. 1, made up to December 23, 1796, show a balance due to the
treasury of 3 pounds 18s."


lodges existed in America and that the Mark Master's degree was
conferred at the earliest about the close of the last century.

It was most probably introduced from Scotland or from the Athol Grand
Lodge of England.  St. John's Lodge of New York, already mentioned,
though it was originally warranted by the Grand Lodge of "Moderns,"
afterward attached itself to the Grand Lodge of New York which was
established by the "Ancients" under the Duke of Athol in 1781. It will be
remarked, as has been proven by Bro. Hughan, that notwithstanding the
assertion of Tisdall, there is no mention in the records of a Mark lodge or
of the Mark degree in the records, until after it became connected with
the "Ancients."

Though it is probable that in America, as in Scotland and in England, the
Mark Master's degree was conferred in connection with Craft lodges, we
learn by authentic testimonies that it was about the beginning of the
present century, perhaps a few years earlier, conferred in Mark lodges,
which seem to have been under the charge of Chapters. 

Webb, in the 1812 edition of his Freemasons Monitor, records two Mark
lodges as existing in Rhode Island and seventeen in New York.  The
Grand Chapters of both of these states were organized in 1798.  But
there were Royal Arch Chapters in existence before this date, and Mark
lodges also.

The first constitution adopted in 1798 by the Grand Royal Arch Chapter
of the Northern States of America, which body afterward became the
General Grand Chapter of the United States, recognized the Mark Master
Mason's degree as a part of its system of degrees.  The Constitutions
adopted in 1799 expressly provided for the granting of warrants to hold
Mark Master Masons' Lodges separately.

For a long time afterward Mark lodges were held generally in the bosom
of the Chapters and under Chapter Warrants, and sometimes in distinct
lodges under Warrants issued by the State Grand Chapters.  Perhaps
the last of these was St. John's Mark Lodge No. 1, in the city of
Charleston, South Carolina.

But in the year 1856 the General Grand Chapter abolished independent
Mark lodges, and ever since the degree has been conferred in a lodge
working in the bosom of a Chapter and under the Chapter Warrant.

The theory entertained by some that the Mark degree was introduced
into America by the Masons of the Scottish Rite, founded on the isolated
fact that in the year 1803 a Mark lodge had been warranted in the city of
Charleston by the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem, is wholly
untenable.  It is more probable that the jurisdiction over the degree was
assumed in that case by the Council, the degree having existed long
before in this country, whither it had been brought from Scotland and
England through Charters issued for the establishment of subordinate
lodges of Craft Masons.

The Mark degree appears, indeed, to have been something of a waif
floating on the waters - a sort of flotsam and jetsam - without any lawful
owner, and claimed and seized sometimes by Royal Arch Chapters,
sometimes by Craft lodges, sometimes by independent Mark lodges,
and lastly by the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem of the Ancient
and Accepted Scottish Rite.  The degree was traveling about during the
close of the last and the beginning of the present century like Marryat's
"Japhet," in search of a father.  Fortunately, it has at last found a parent
in Scotland, Ireland, and this country, in the Grand Chapter, which has
assumed the paternity.  In England, maternal relations are exercised by
the Grand Mark Lodge, which is nursing the bantling until such time as
the Grand Chapter shall acknowledge a fatherhood.

From this indicative sketch of the position occupied by Mark Masonry in
the series of Masonic grades, we pass to a consideration of its legend -
that mythical history fabricated at the time of its adoption, as a part of
the system of Speculative Masonry.

In pursuing our further investigations in this way we necessarily abandon
the functions of the historian and assume those of the fabulist.  Yet the
investigation is of great importance, for the fact of the direct descent of
Speculative Masonry from the Operative art practiced by the medieval
builders, is by no circumstance more clearly and positively proved than
by the modification of the system of Marks peculiar to the latter, which
was invented by the former.

This modification was, however, a very important one.  The practice of
using proprietary Marks, which was in use among the Operative Masons
of the Middle Ages, and which lasted longer in Scotland than in any
other country, undoubtedly suggested to the Speculative Masons the
thought which resulted in the fabrication of  the Mark degree.  At first the
idea of a proprietary mark may have occurred to the inventors of the
different legends.  If so, it gradually became obsolescent, and at this day
the Mark of a Speculative Mark Master bears in its accepted character
and use a much nearer resemblance to the tessers hospitalis of the
Ancients than to the proprietary mark of an Operative Mason of the
Middle Ages.  To this particular point I shall have occasion hereafter to
revert.

As the government of the Mark degree differed in different countries and
at different times, so the legend seems also to have varied, and we find
several forms of it in the rituals of the degree.

In the middle of the last century, or a little later, when in Scotland and in
England the Mark system was divided into two grades or ranks, that of
Mark Man and that of Mark Master, the design of the Mark was
supposed to be very different from that of indicating a proprietorship.

The duty of the Mark Men is said in the ritual to have been to examine
the materials as they came out of the hands of the workmen, and then to
place a Mark upon them so as to enable them to be put together with
greater facility and precision when brought from the quarries, the forest,
and the clay-grounds to the city of Jerusalem.  These marks were
mathematical figures, name squares, levels, and perpendiculars which
were used by command of King Solomon.

The Mark Masters were to examine the materials when they were
brought to the Temple to see that every part duly corresponded, and
thus to prevent confusion and mistake in fitting the respective parts to
their proper places.
In doing this they were, of course, guided by the marks which had been
placed upon the stones and other materials by the Mark Men. The Mark
Masters then placed an additional Mark upon them to show that they
approved the work which had been previously examined by the Mark
Men.

In all this there is not the slightest notion of a proprietorship.  The stones
were marked by the medieval Mason, so that the work of each man
might be identified and he be made responsible for its imperfection or
receive due credit for its merit.

But the stones and timbers were not according to this legend marked for
any such purpose by the workmen, who "hewed, cut, and squared"
them.  The Mark was placed upon them by the Mark Masters, who
superintended the Masons and carpenters in the quarries and the
forests, and who placed a Mark on each stone and timber so that when
transported to Jerusalem, the Mark Masters would find no difficulty,
when guided by these Marks, in placing those materials together which
were intended to be in juxtaposition.

Such a system prevails at the present day among stonemasons,
carpenters, and joiners, so as to point out precisely the positions to be
occupied by the different parts of the work upon which they are engaged
when they are to be put together.

But this is altogether different from the system of proprietary Marks
which was pursued by the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages.

There was another legend introduced at a later period, for the
preliminary degree of Mark Man appears to have been omitted by that
time from the system.  It was most probably the ritual practiced in this
country before the close of the last century.  It is that which was used by
the Mark lodge in Charleston, which had been chartered in 1804 by the
Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem.  We have every reason to
believe that this was the ritual used at that time by the Mark lodges in
America, from whom the Charleston Mark lodge must have received it,
as there is no other source known from which it could have been
derived.

The legend in this ritual differs very materially from the former, which has
been just described.  There is no longer a pretension that the Mark was
used as a means of indicating that two distinct pieces of material were
when brought together to be put in juxtaposition.  That idea has now
been entirely eliminated from the degree.

In this more modern legend, the Mark is said to have been used for two
purposes.  In the first place, Hiram Abif, seeing that it was impossible to
superintend so large a number of workmen as were employed in the
building of the Temple, appointed overseers to the different classes.  He
was careful to select only men of irreproachable character for this
responsible office.

He was particularly attached to the Giblemites or Stonecutters, whom he
formed into a body, whose duty it was, as overseers, to procure from the
Treasurer-General such sums of money as were necessary to pay off the
workmen over whom they presided, which was done at a particular time
and in a particular place.

To expedite the task of payment, and to prevent confusion and
imposition among the workmen, the Giblemites were ordered to provide
for themselves a particular Mark by which they and the amount due to
each one were easily recognized; and presenting this Mark in a
particular manner, each Mark Master received at once the wages due to
him.

But the Mark thus selected was to be used not on the stone as a proof
of who was the cutter of the stone, but only as a jewel to be employed
at the hour of paying wages, so that the paymaster might commit no
error in the payment.

But the Mark was used also for another purpose.  This purpose was one
utterly unknown to the Operative Masons or to the Speculative Masons
who first founded the degree.

A Mark Master being in distress or danger, has a talisman for relief in his
Mark.  He sends it, says the ritual, to a Mark Mason, who instantly obeys
the summons and flies to his relief with a heart warmed with the impulse
of brotherly love.

The Mark might also be put in pledge if the owner was "in the utmost
distress;" and he was to redeem it as soon as it should be in his power.

In this way the Mark of the Speculative Masons began to cease to bear
any analogy to that of the Operative Stonecutters whence it was
originally derived.  It was no longer a device placed by a builder upon
the stone which he had wrought, and the proprietorship of which he by
this token claimed - not a proprietorship in the material, but in the
workmanship with which his skill had fitted it for the building.

In the first ritual of the Mark degree, adopted at the time, most probably,
of its institution, though this design of a proprietary Mark was not exactly
observed, still the Speculative Mark referred to an architectural purpose,
that of indicating the proper position of the materials.

There was enough of analogy to the Operative preserved by the
Speculative Mark to indicate and to clearly prove the one was the
outcome of the other.

But now all analogy or resemblance to the operative art was obliterated,
and the more recent Mark Masters began to look outside of the Craft of
Operative Masons for characteristics to apply to the Mark.  It became to
him, as it is called in the ritual quoted above, a "talisman," a means of
obtaining relief, either by summoning with it a brother Mark Master to his
assistance, or by pledging it to obtain the loan of money.

In plain words it ceased to have any relation to the proprietary mark of
the Cologne and Strasburg Masons, and found its true analogy in the
tessera hospitalis of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The tessera hospitalis, or "hospitable die," was a piece of bone, of stone,
or ivory, or any other material.  It was a custom among the ancients that
when two persons became allied as friends, they took such a die, which
they divided into two parts, each one inscribing his name upon one of
the halves, which were then interchanged.  The Scholiast on Euripides
says that if at any future period either needed assistance, on showing his
broken half of the die to the other the required aid was, if possible,
granted.

Plautus, the Roman dramatist, gives an interesting instance of the use of
the lessers in the interview between Agorastocles and his unknown
uncle, Hanno, described in the play of "Poenulus."

"Hanno. Hail, my countryman.
"Agorastocles. Whosoever thou art, I hail thee also in the name of Pollux.
If thou needest anything, speak, I beseech thee, and ask it for the sake
of thy country.
"Hanno. I thank thee, but I have a lodging here. Show me, if you know
him, Agorastocles, the son of Antedamas.  Knowest thou here a certain
youth called Agorastocles ?
"Agorastocles.  If thou art looking for the adopted son of Antedamas, I
am the one thou art seeking.
"Hanno. Ha! what do I hear ?
"Agorastocles.  That I am the son of Antedamas.
"Hanno. If this be so, compare with me, if thou pleasest, the hospitable
die (tessera hospitalis); here it is, I have brought it with me.
"Agorastocles. Come then, let me see it; it is the exact counterpart of
that which I have at home.
"Hanno. Much I greet thee, oh, my friend! for thy father, Antidamas, thy
father, I say, was bound to me by the ties of hospitality.  This hospitable
die (tessera hospitalis) was in common with him and me.
"Agorastocles. Therefore thou shalt lodge with me. For I deny neither the
rights of hospitality nor Carthage where I was born." (1)

The early Christians also had their lessers, which they carried about in
their journeys from one place to another as a means of introduction to
their fellow-Christians whom they might meet.  Dr. Mason Harris, in a
dissertation on this subject, says that the use of these tesseree in the
place of written certificates of character lasted until the 11th century.

It is very evident that the fabricator of the Mark ritual which we are
considering was well acquainted with the nature of these Greek, Roman,
and Christian tessera, and that they suggested to him the idea of
transmuting the proprietary Mark of the Operative Masons which had
given origin to the Mark degree from a token of ownership in the work of
the stone to a badge of fraternity, and a means of claiming brotherly
assistance.

In the early part of the present century, perhaps even much earlier, the
ritual was again changed, and that form adopted which being either
invented or approved by Thomas Smith Webb, the most prominent ritual
maker of his day, is now the form universally practiced in this country.

The legend attached to this ritual enters into several details not
embraced in the former ones, but it continues to maintain the theory that
the Mark is a token of friendship, a theory which I have already said a
dozen times was utterly unknown to the old Operative Masons.

The legend is to this effect.  At the building of the Temple of Solomon, a
young craftsman found in the quarries a stone of a peculiar form and
beauty, and an which was inscribed certain mystical characters the
meaning of which was wholly unknown to him.  Nevertheless, he carried
it up to the inspectors of the materials brought up for the construction of
the temple, and disingenuously but unsuccessfully attempted to pass it
off as a stone wrought by himself.  Some time afterward this very stone,
which had been prepared by Hiram Abif, for a special purpose in the
building, was found to be wanting.  After a strict search it was
discovered among the rubbish and applied to its original destination.  In
honour of


(1) Plautus, "Poenulus," Act V., Scene 2, ver. 80.


Hiram Abif, who had constructed the stone and placed his own mark
upon it, a representation of this stone in gold or silver is used as the
decoration of the degree; it is worn by Mark Masters, and the traditional
mark of Hiram being a circle of letters, each brother is directed to select
his own mark and place it within the circle.  This mark is inscribed by the
lodge in its register or Book of Marks.  The representation of it in metal
is often, but not always, nor by any obligation, worn upon his person.  It
is sometimes used when in distress as a means of obtaining aid and
relief.

To be more precise in the description: the American ritual requires the
jewel, as it is called, to be "made of gold or silver, usually of the former
metal (sometimes of a precious stone, as opal or agate), and in the form
of a keystone.  On the obverse or front surface the device or mark
selected by the owner must be engraved within a circle composed of the
letters H.T.W.S.S.T.K.S. On the reverse surface the name of the owner,
of his chapter, and the time of his advancement to the degree may be
inscribed, though this is not legally necessary.

In Scotland the usage is a little different.  The jewel must be of
mother-of-pearl and wedgeshaped.  In a circle on one side are the
Hebrew letters XXXXXXXX; on the other side are letters conveying the
same meaning in the vernacular language with the wearer's mark in the
center. (1)

In this ritual and legend, as in the preceding one, the Mark has
altogether lost the proprietary character which it had among the Craft in
the Middle Ages.  It has become a Masonic decoration and a means of
proving the claims of its owner to certain prerogatives peculiar to Mark
Masters.

In one point, however, all the legends agree.  Each fixes the time and
place of instituting the degree at the building of Solomon, and they
attribute the establishment of the regulations which then governed it to
the wisdom and foresight of Hiram Abif, though according to the most
modern ritual, the circumstances which are commemorated in the
ceremony of initiation occurred after the death of that distinguished
artist.

As the result of our investigation, I think that we are forced to come to
the conclusion that the Mark degree first made its appearance


(1) Laws of the Supreme Grand Chapter of Scotland, cap. vii., 4.


in Speculative Masonry about the middle of the 18th century.  We can
find no records in which such a degree is mentioned previous to that
period.

In a report made to the Grand Lodge of Mark Masons of England in
1873, it is said, with a great deal more of boldness than of accuracy, that
"there is probably no degree in Freemasonry that can lay claim to
greater antiquity than those of Mark Man or Mark Mason and Mark
Master Mason." It is a very great pity, for it is vastly detrimental to the
intelligent study of Masonic history, that men otherwise accurate and
trustworthy should indulge in such fanciful speculations.  To say nothing
of the Fellow-Craft and Master's degrees which antedate all allusions to
Mark degrees by about half a century, all the degrees of the Chevalier
Ramsey's system and many other high degrees were known and
practiced at a time when Mark Masonry as a Speculative degree or
degrees had been unheard of.

There can not, I think, be any doubt that Scotland was the place where
the Mark degree was instituted.  "It is to Scotland," says Bro. Whytehead
(in the letter heretofore cited), "that we must look for the birthplace of the
Mark degree as a Speculative working;" and he feels sure that the
degree "came into working existence toward the close of the last
century, when there was a rage for the multiplication of Orders."

In both of these opinions I concur, except that I would prefer to make
the time of birth about the middle, rather than toward the close, of the
last century.  But in either way the difference would not be much more
than a score of years.

We must also, I am sure, ascribe the fabrication of the degree to
suggestions derived from the use of proprietary marks by the
Freemasons of Germany, whence they were introduced into Scotland. 
There they remained long after they had ceased to be employed in other
countries.

It has been shown that in Operative Masonry the Mark was bestowed
upon the Fellow-craft or sometimes upon the Apprentice,
unaccompanied with any other ceremonial than that of a modest
banquet in Germany at the expense of the lodge, and that of a
registration of the mark in Scotland at the expense of the candidate.

Notwithstanding this, when the inclination to create a new degree in
Speculative Masonry took possession of the minds of certain Scottish
Masons, the very fact that the Mark was bestowed without any
ceremonial, inspired the thought that this manifest want of any formality
in the bestowal might be well supplied by the fabrication of a degree in
which the ceremony might take place.

Whytehead supposes, but I can not agree with him, that "it may have
even been the case that originally some kind of Mark working, though, of
course, not the same as at present, once formed an integral part or
complement of the Second degree, just as some Masons imagine the
Royal Arch did of the Third degree, and that for the sake of abbreviating
the ceremonies both were divorced and fashioned into separated and
distinct workings under newly invented names."

But it is not necessary to indulge in any such supposition, which,
besides, is not sustained by the records.  The mere fact that there was in
Operative Masonry a Mark, which every Fellow received upon his
admission to the Craft and preparatory to his going to work as a
journeyman, would have been sufficient to suggest to an inventive
genius the most fitting points of a new degree, at a time when the
manufactory of degrees had been established as a popular and
successful branch of business in Speculative Masonry.

Notwithstanding that the use of proprietary Marks by the German and
Scottish Operative Masons had furnished the suggestion for the
invention of a degree in Speculative Masonry, the fabricators of that
degree did not strictly preserve the system by which the use of Marks
had always been regulated, which was simply to each stone-cutter the
means of identifying the stones which he had cut.

I do not believe that the Mark was employed simply to give the
Overseers and Masters of the works a ready means of calculating the
amount of pay due to each workman.  Nothing of this is to be found in
any of the old statutes or regulations.

Besides, the Mark was not placed on all stones indiscriminately, and if
the calculation of wages was made by the marked stones only, the
workmen would be constantly defrauded of a part of their dues.

It was a regulation that those stones only should be marked which were
of importance in the building and which required skill and dexterity in
their construction.

The inscribing of a Mark on a well-cut and polished stone was rather
intended to secure to the stonecutter a just reputation for his work than
to enable an overseer to calculate the amount of wages which were due.

If I am correct in my views, the Masons placed their Marks upon the
stones which they cut in the same spirit in which the early printers
affixed, each one, a peculiar device on the title-pages of the books which
were issued from his press. (1)

It is evident from what has been here said that the design of the Mark
has been greatly changed in its adoption by the Speculative Masons
from that of the Operative Builders, from whom, however, the former
derived it.

In one respect the various rituals of Mark Masonry agree, without the
slightest variation.  They all placed the institution of the system of giving
Marks to a portion of the Craft at the time of building King Solomon's
Temple, and the legend connects them with Hiram Abif, whose
supposed personal Mark, surrounding that of the wearer, constitutes the
decoration of the degree of Mark Master according to the modern ritual.

I need hardly say that this story of the Temple origin of the Mark degree
is a mere myth, having no more foundation in history than the Hiramic
legend of the Third degree.
 
Its adoption in the Mark Master's degree is, however, a conclusive proof
that degree in Speculative Masonry was fabricated after the invention of
the Third degree, in the first quarter of the 18th century.
     
In conclusion, as it has been shown that the Mark of the modern
Speculative Freemason was evidently suggested by that of the German
and especially the Scottish Operative Masons, and as the employment of
Marks by the latter has evidently suggested their adoption by the Mark
Masters when fabricating their degree, so I may repeat what was said in
the beginning of this chapter, that there is no stronger or more
convincing proof of the connection between the Operative Freemasons
of the Middle Ages and the Speculative Freemasons of the present day,
and of the direct descent of the latter from the former, than that which is
furnished by the Mark Master's degree.

(1) Some of these old printers' devices bear a very striking resemblance
to the stone-cutters' marks.  That resembling an inverted 4 is very
common to both.  See Fosbrook's, "Encyclopedia of Antiquities," p. 445,
or the title-page of any old book.


But we must be careful to repudiate as simply a myth of modern origin,
the notion that there was ever a Mark degree before the middle or
toward the close of the last century.

Still the Mark degree, though it has no antiquity, has its historical value
as a factor in determining the true origin of the Speculative system, no
investigation of which could be correctly or usefully conducted without a
due consideration of the modern Mark degree.



CHAPTER XXVI

TRANSITION FROM OPERATIVE TO SPECULATIVE FREEMASONRY


THE history of the institution of Freemasonry is naturally divided into two
distinct yet closely connected periods.  The first period embraces the
history of Operative Freemasonry; the second that of Speculative
Freemasonry.

But the first of these periods did not pass at once and, as it were, by a leap
into the second. The change which took place was a gradual one.  The
steps which led from the one to the other were almost imperceptible.  The
progress was slow and gradual.  There was a time when all Freemasonry
was purely Operative, and there was a time when it became solely
Speculative.  We have abundant facts to prove this statement.  But it is
impossible from any records in our possession to define the precise epoch
when the change took place.

The naturalist with all the science in his possession is at a loss to determine
the precise limits which bound the different kingdoms of nature.  The
mineral passes by an imperceptible gradation into the vegetable, and the
highest species of the vegetable assimilate with a remarkable likeness of
organization to the lowest tribes of the animal kingdom.  It requires even in
this advanced state of science, the largest
amount of professional knowledge and experience to determine in
certain instances to which division of nature certain specimens rightly
belong.

So in the history of the Masonic institution, there are well-marked eras in
its annals when we are at no loss to define the distinctive character of its
workings.  There are again points on the extreme limits of its two
periods, when the Operative and the Speculative elements are so
intimately connected and clash so confusedly together, like the prismatic
colours of the spectrum, that it becomes extremely difficult, if not
absolutely impossible, to define the precise line of demarcation.

Thus we know with certainty that the Freemasonry of the 12th century,
which had penetrated every country of the Continent of Europe, was
wholly Operative, without a particle of the Speculative element in it; we
know, too, that the Freemasonry of the 19th century, which prevails over
the whole civilized world, is entirely Speculative and has ceased to have
any social connection with the Operative Craft.


But at what precise period the Operative art ceased to form a part of the
institution of Freemasonry, and when the Speculative science threw off
all connection with it, are historical questions which admit hardly of a
possible conjecture, certainly not of any positive solution.

A great difficulty which we encounter in the discussion of this subject is
that the change from one to the other branch began to assume a distinct
form in different countries at different periods.

Thus, in London, Speculative Freemasonry had assumed a distinct and
independent form many years before the lodges of Scotland had
divested themselves of the Operative influence, and even in the same
kingdom there were English lodges in the provinces which mingled
Operative and Speculative Freemasonry in their work, long after the
former system had been wholly abandoned by the lodges in the
Metropolis.

Though it is probable that most readers understand the distinction
between Masonry and Freemasonry, it may be well to impress that
distinction upon their minds, that during this investigation they may
perfectly appreciate the train of reasoning that is pursued.

Masonry is merely the art of building.  It has existed from the earliest
historic times, when men began to need places of shelter from the
inclemency of the seasons, and must continue to exist so long as they
require houses for their habitation.  With its history we have no concern.
Freemasonry is the art of building connected in its practical operations
with a Guild organization.  It was always a confraternity or corporation
constituted on the plan of a guild, and maintaining throughout all its
progress that idea derived first from the Roman Colleges of Artificers,
until finally it was merged in the non-operative system of Freemasonry,
which exists at the present day and whose history it is the object of the
present work to treat.

This distinction, it will be remembered, never ceased to be maintained
by the Operative Freemasons, who always held themselves aloof as a
higher class from the lower body of "rough masons" who were not "free"
of the guild.

In pursuing our researches into that indefinable period during which the
Operative organization was slowly advancing to a transformation into a
Speculative society, it will be necessary that we should first thoroughly
understand one of the characteristics which marked the Freemasons of
the Middle Ages, and which rendered them unlike every other class of
contemporary craftsmen.

This was the admission into their ranks and into full fraternity with them
of non-professional persons, whose only claim to a connection with the
craft was derived from their learning, their rank, or their wealth, which
gave them the means of elevating the character and promoting the
interests of the fraternity.

We have seen the existence of the same system in the Roman Colleges
of Artificers, who strengthened their corporations by the adoption of men
of rank and political influence as Patrons.

The early Freemasons were patronized by the Church, and were
engaged almost solely in the construction of religious edifices.  Hence
there was a close and friendly connection between them and the
ecclesiastics of that period.  Lodges were for the most part held in the
vicinity and under the patronage of monasteries, and the monks were
often architects and builders.  At a later period, when the Freemasons
became independent of monastic influence, the primitive alliance was
not completely dissolved, and the clergy, especially in France, in
Germany, and in England, were often admitted, though not professional
Masons, into the corporation of the Craft.  They were among the first of
non-masons who received from Operative Lodges the compliment of
honourary membership.

The result of thus securing the patronage of bishops and other high
ecclesiastics was, of course, favourable to the interests of the
corporations of workmen and was, to a great extent, the controlling
motive with them, as it had previously been with the Roman Colleges, for
introducing into their guild men who were not of the Craft.

It was seen in the 12th and 13th centuries, when the corporations, not
only of Masons but of other crafts, having sought to exercise undue
power in the cities, incurred the displeasure of the government.  Many
sanguinary contests ensued, with alternate successes.  But when the
Emperors Frederick II. and Henry VII. of Germany sought to end them by
abolishing the corporations of workmen, these associations had grown
so strong that they were able to successfully resist the Imperial power.
(1)

Dr. Anderson, in the second edition of the Book of Constitutions, gives
repeated instances of bishops, noblemen, and even kings, who were
admitted to the privileges of the Craft and exercised authority over the
Operative Masons as members and patrons of the guild. But as the
accuracy of Anderson as an historian has ceased to be respected
through the researches of modern scholars, his authority on this subject
need not be pressed.  Elias Ashmole, however, whose truthfulness and
minuteness as an annalist has never been doubted, furnishes
unquestioned instances in which he and other gentlemen had been
made members of an Operative Lodge in the 17th century.  Nor does he
speak of these admissions as if they were of unusual occurrence. 
Indeed, he leads us, by his silence, to the contrary inference.

But it is in the annals of the lodges of Scotland that we find the most
satisfactory history of the rise and progress of the custom of admitting
persons who were not Operative Masons as members of the guild.  For
this we are indebted to the researches of Bro. Murray Lyon, whose
History of the Lodge of Edinburgh is of invaluable use to the scholar
who is seeking to trace the authentic history of Freemasonry outside and
independent of its mythical elements.  To that work I shall have constant
occasion to refer in the course of the part of the present investigation.

Lyon says that the earliest authentic record of a non-operative being a
member of a Masons' lodge is contained in a minute of the Lodge of
Edinburgh under date of June 8, 1600, where John Boswell Laird, of
Achinflek, is mentioned among the members of the lodge.  His name
with his mark is signed to the minute with the names and marks of
twelve others who evidently were Operative Masons. (2)

But twelve years anterior to that, in 1598, we find that William Schaw,
who was also a non-operative, (3) acted as Master of the Work,


(1) Lacroix, "Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance," tom. iii., Part I., art. 3.
(2) Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 51.
(3) Lyon thinks that there is no proof that he was an Operative Mason,
and says there can be little doubt that he was an honourary member of
the fraternity. "Hist.," p. 56.


and that a year afterward he signed his name to the supplementary
statutes issued by him, as "Master of the Work, Warden of the Masons."


His predecessor in that office was a nobleman, and in his own time the
Wardenship over the Masons in Aberdeen, Banff, and Kincardine was
held by a country gentleman, the Laird of Udaught, which shows, says
Lyon, "that it was not necessary that either appointment should be held
by a Craftsman." But there is just reason for inferring that to hold such
offices it was necessary to have honourary membership in the fraternity.

At a later period in the 17th century the practice of admitting
non-operatives appears to have begun to be common.

In July, 1634, the Lodge of Edinburgh admitted as Fellow-Craft the
following gentlemen: Lord Alexander, Viscount Canada, Sir Anthony
Alexander, and Sir Alexander Strachan.  The two first were sons of the
Earl of Stirling, and the last a well-known public man in his time.

"These brethren," says Lyon, "seem from their subsequent attendance in
the lodge to have felt an interest in its proceedings.  In the month
immediately succeeding their initiation they were present, and attested
the admission of three Operative Apprentices and one Fellow of Craft. 
They attended three meetings of the lodge in 1635, one in 1636, and
one in 1637. In signing the minute of their own reception each appends
a mark to his name. (1)

Throughout the rest of the 17th century there are repeated records in the
minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh of the admission of nonoperatives to
the rank of Fellow-Crafts and sometimes of Masters.

Thus, in 1637, David Ramsay, a "gentleman of the Privy Chamber," was
admitted; in 1638, Henry Alexander, another son of the Earl of Stirling; in
1640, General Alexander Hamilton; in 1667, Sir Patrick Hume; and in
1670, the Right Honourable William Murray, son of Lord Balvaird, and
Walter Pringle and Sir John Harper, both members of the Scotch Bar.

It is not necessary to cite any more instances to show that in the 17th
century the practice existed of admitting non-operative persons into the
brotherhood of the Craft.  In the 18th century it had become


(1) Lyon, p. 86.


so common as finally to give to the Speculative element a
preponderance over the Operative in the fraternity.

The following remarks of Bro.  Lyon on the subject of the admission of
non-operatives into the membership of the Craft are of great value in
connection with this subject:

"It is worthy of remark that with singularly few exceptions, the
non-operatives who were admitted to Masonic fellowship in the Lodges
of Edinburgh and Kilwinning during the 17th century were persons of
quality, the most distinguished of whom, as the natural result of its
metropolitan position, being made in the former lodge.  Their admission
to fellowship in an institution composed of operative Masons associated
together for purposes of their craft, would in all probability originate in a
desire to elevate its position and increase its influence, and once
adopted the system would further recommend itself to the Fraternity, by
the opportunities which it presented for cultivating the friendship and
enjoying the society of gentlemen, to whom, in ordinary circumstances,
there was little chance of their ever being personally known.

"On the other hand, non-professionals connecting themselves with the
lodge by the ties of membership would, we believe, be actuated partly
by a disposition to reciprocate the feelings which had prompted the
bestowal of the fellowship, partly by curiosity to penetrate the arcana of
the Craft, and partly by the novelty of the situation as members of a
secret society and participants in its ceremonies and festivities." (1)

The members thus admitted received various designations, such as
"Gentlemen Masons," "Theoretical Masons," "Geomatic Masons," and
"Honourary Members." The use of these terms evidently shows that the
Working Masons - the "Domatic Masons," (2) as Lyon styles them -
recognized that there was a very palpable difference


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 81.
(2) The words domatic, used for an Operative Mason, and geomatic, for
a Theoretic Mason I have met with only in the work of Bro. Lyon.  They
are not to be found in the Scottish dictionary of Jamieson, nor in any
English Dictionary from Phillips to Webster.  Neither are they used in any
of the old Constitutions, Scotch or English, nor have I encountered them
in any Masonic work that I have read.  Lyon derives domatic from the
Latin domus, a house, and says it means "of or belonging to a house."
Geomatic he derives from the Greek gea, land, and he says Geomatic
Masons were "landed proprietors or men in some way or other
connected with agriculture." I do not like the words.  I like less the
definitions, and still less the etymology.


between the two classes of members.  It is well to remember this fact, as
it supplies one of the motives for the result which afterward occurred in
the complete separation of the Speculative from the Operative element.

The Scotch Constitutions of 1598 and 1599 were certainly constructed
solely for the government of Operative Masons.  Yet there is no
prohibition, express or implied, of the admission of non-operatives as
members of lodges.  The fact that Schaw, the framer of the
Constitutions, was himself present at a meeting of the Lodge of
Edinburgh, where a non-operative took a part in the proceedings, shows
that he did not view such admissions as illegal innovations on the
usages and laws of the fraternity.

We are not without the requisite information as to the status of these
"Honourary Members."

The form of initiation or admission must have differed in some respects
from that prescribed for an Operative Mason.  The presentation of an
"essay" or Master-piece of work, as a trial of skill, must have been
dispensed with in the case of candidates whose previous education and
profession had not supplied them with the necessary mechanical
knowledge.

"It can not now be ascertained," says Bro.  Lyon, "in what respect the
ceremonial preceding the admission of theoretical, differed from that
observed in the reception of practical Masons; but that there was some
difference is certain, from the inability of non-professionals to comply
with the tests to which Operatives were subjected ere they could be
passed as Fellows of Craft.  The former class of entrants would, in all
likelihood, be initiated into a knowledge of the legendary history of the
Mason Craft, and have the Word and such other secrets communicated
to them as was necessary to their recognition as brethren." (1)

At first they were not chargeable with admission fees; but in 1727, when
an attempt was made to exclude them on account of this exemption, a
fee of one guinea was exacted as entrance money.  But this was done at
so late a period that we may infer that exemption from fees was the
usage with respect to all "Theoretic Masons," while the lodges were
purely Operative in character.

Notwithstanding this exemption, Theoretic Masons were qualified


(1) Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 82.


to hold the highest office in the lodge.  Lyon says that "for a time the
occupancy of the chair alternated between the two grand classes into
which its membership was divided.  Though to Speculative concurrence
the Operative section owed the more frequent possession of the coveted
honour." (1)

In Scotland the Operatives and Speculatives do not appear to have lived
always in peace and concord; some jealousy seems to have existed at
times, which finally culminated in the year 1727 in an attempt by the
Operatives to exclude Theoretical Masons from the lodge. "Exclusion" is
the word used by Lyon, by which I suppose he means not only the
expulsion of the Theoretic Masons who had been already admitted, but
also the discontinuance in future of the custom of admitting them.

The attempt did not succeed.  Speculative Masonry was already the
preponderating element in the lodges, which a few years afterward
abandoned in Scotland, as they had long before done in England, the
Operative character.

It is admitted that the earliest authentic record of the admission of
"Gentlemen Masons" into the lodges of England, or in other words the
introduction of the Speculative element, occurred in 1646, when Elias
Ashmole, the celebrated antiquary, and Colonel Henry Mainwaring were
made "Free-Masons" in a lodge at Warrington in Lancashire.

But it does not, by any means, follow, because this is the first recorded
instance, that Theoretical Masons had not been admitted in England
long before.  But the records have not come down to us, because of the
loss or disappearance of the ancient minute books of the English
Operative lodges.

"Why," says Bro. W.J. Hughan, "so many minute books are still
preserved in Scotland, dating long before the institution of the Grand
Lodge, even some in the 17th century, and yet scarcely any are to be
found in England, seems inexplicable." (2)

We, have a right to presume, judging by the usages of the sister
kingdom, that the initiation of Ashmole and Mainwaring in 1646 was not
the introduction of a new custom, but only the continuation of an old
one.


(1) Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 201.
(2) "Masonic Sketches and Reprints," p. 19.


If we have not the names of those gentlemen who had previously been
admitted to the fellowship of English lodges, it is because the records
are not extant.

Many brave heroes, says the Roman poet, have lived before
Agamemnon but they have died unwept, because there was no poet to
sing their deeds.

The same thing may be said of the corporations and lodges of France
and Germany.  Though the records are not extant, we have collateral
evidence that in both of them, as well as in other countries of the
Continent, Theoretical or Honourary Members were admitted among the
Operative craftsmen.

We may therefore lay it down as an authentic historical statement, which
if not supported in other places as in Scotland by positive testimony, is
yet sustained by the strongest logical inference, that from the earliest
period, Speculative Masons who were not practical workmen, builders,
or architects, began to be admitted into the ranks of the Operative Craft. 
As time passed on the number of these Speculatives increased, as in the
nature of things must have occurred, until they predominated over the
Operatives.  Finally, when this predominance became sufficiently
powerful, the control of Freemasonry passed into their hands, and as a
necessary result the institution ceased to be Operative and became
wholly Speculative in its character.

The terms "Gentleman Mason," "Theoretical Mason," and "Honourary
Member," formerly employed to distinguish a non-Operative from an
Operative, are no longer in use.  For them has been substituted the
word "Speculative." The thing itself was in existence long before the word
which was to define it.

The first place in which we find the word Speculative in connection with
Masonry is in the Cooke MS., whose conjectural date is about 1490.  In
this document it is said that the youngest son of King Athelstan, being a
master of the Speculative science of geometry or masonry, added to it
by his connection with the Craft of Masons a knowledge of the practical
science. (1)


It must be admitted, as Bro. Cooke says, that "no book or

  
(1) He "lovyd well the sciens of Gemetry and he wyst well that hand craft
had the practyke of the sciens of Gemetry so well as masons wherefore
he drewe hym to consell and lernyd practyke of that sciens to his
speculatye. For of speculatyfe he was a master and he lovyd well
masonry and masons." - Cooke MS., lines 615, 626.


writing so early as this manuscript has yet been discovered in which
Speculative Masonry is mentioned." (1) It is equally certain that the word
appears to have been used in the sense given to it at the present day,
and the writer of the manuscript drew a distinction between Practical or
Operative and Speculative Masonry.

The word, however, is not repeated in any of the subsequent
Constitutions, and we do not hear of it again until the time of Preston,
who is the first to give its definition in these words :

"Masonry passes and is understood under two denominations; it is
operative and speculative.  By the former we allude to the useful rules of
architecture, whence a structure derives figure, strength, and beauty,
and whence result a due proportion and just correspondence in all its
parts. By the latter we learn to subdue the passions, act upon the
square, keep a tongue of good report, maintain secrecy, and practice
charity." (2)

The lexicographers define Speculative as opposed to Practical.  Hence,
"Speculative Masons," the term used at the present day, is precisely
synonymous with "Theoretic Masons," the term which was applied by the
Scotch Masons of the 16th and 17th centuries to those persons who
were admitted into their lodges though they had no practical knowledge
of the Operative art of building.

In contemplating that period in the history of Freemasonry when the
institution was gradually preparing for the important change in its
organization from an Operative Art to a Speculative Science, which
period may be called, borrowing a term from the language of geology,
the transition period, we must first properly appreciate what was its real
condition just previous to the change.

In the first place, we find that before the present organization of Grand
and Subordinate Lodges, the Society was an Operative one whose
members were actually engaged in the manual labour of building, as
well as in the more intellectual task of architecture or the designing of
plans.

But not every man who was engaged in building or in handling stones
was a member of this society or entitled to its privileges.  In every
country were two distinct and well-recognized classes of workmen.


(1) Cooke MS., lines 615, 626, note K.
(2) Preston, "Illustrations of Masonry," 2d edit., p. 19. In subsequent
editions he enlarged the phraseology without materially changing the
sense.


In Germany the Craftsman (Werkmann) of the Corporation was
distinguished from the Maurer or wall builder, the man who simply
hewed and set stones.  The Craftsman, the Stonecutter, was employed
in the higher walks of the art.  These Craftsmen formed a fraternity of
themselves, and no workman was permitted to work with a Mason who
was not a member, except under special circumstances which were
provided for by the regulations.  These facts are well authenticated in the
Strasburg and other German Ordinances.

In France, the regulations of Enenne Boileau prescribe a similar
difference between the Masons and Stonecutters who were members of
the Corporation and those who were not.  The former could employ the
latter only as assistants and servants (aides et vallis), but were forbidden
to instruct them in any of the secrets of the mystery or trade.

In Scotland the Masons of the Guild, who were called, certainly as early
as the middle of the 17th century, Freemasons, (1) were distinguished
from the Masons who were not "free of the Guild," and who were called
"Cowans," a term which has been preserved in the ritual of modern
Speculative Freemasonry with a similar meaning.  With the Cowans the
Freemasons were forbidden to work."

In England the distinction was between Masons or Freemasons and
"Rough layers," and the same prohibition as to fellowship in labour
prevailed there that did in other countries.

Though all were Operative workmen and all were engaged in the
practical art of building, there was in every country a broad line of
demarcation between the Freemasons who were instructed in the
highest principles of the art and the lower class of Masons, who were
without any pretension to a knowledge of the sciences of architecture
and geometry which were cultivated by the higher class.

"Those only," said the Strasburg builders, with an excusable pride in their
elevated position, "shall be Masters who can design and erect costly
edifices and works for the execution of which they are authorized and
privileged, nor shall they be compelled to work with any other
craftsmen." (2)

But this higher class of Freemasons were, as we have already


(1) See Lyon's "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," P. 79.
(2) "Strasburg Constitutions," art. 2.


seen, divided also into two classes, the Operative and the non-Operative
members of the Guild, Corporation, or Fraternity.

It is not difficult to suppose how this division into two classes originally
arose.  In the earliest times of the society of Freemasons it was closely
connected with and under the patronage of the Church.  Among its
practical members were often monks who were skilled in the manual
labour of the Craft, and the architectural designs for the construction of
Cathedrals and monasteries were often drawn by bishops or abbots who
were well skilled in the theory of architecture.  These sometimes from
choice, and sometimes from necessity, in consequence of the intimate
relations they held with it, became members of the Fraternity.
Subsequently, when the Operative Masons had released themselves
from the rule of their ecclesiastical superiors and had established an
independent brotherhood, they found it politic, if not positively
necessary, to secure the patronage of wealthy nobles, and men of rank
and science, who by their social position secured protection to the
association and elevated its character.

The same process had occurred in the Roman Colleges of Artificers,
from whose peculiar organization the Freemasons had derived the idea
of their own.

Thus it happened that the Fraternity of Freemasons consisted from the
very earliest period of its history of two classes, the Operative Masons
who did the work, and the Theoretic, or, as we now call them, the
Speculative Masons.

The word "Speculative," as has been already shown, is of very modern
origin.  If the single passage in the Cooke MS. be excepted, it is never
met with in any Masonic writing until after the organization of Grand
Lodges.

I use it, in the present work, as a mere matter of convenience, because it
is most familiar to the general reader as a recent synonym of the old
word "Theoretic."

Thus there always existed, we may say, from the earliest times, so far as
we can trace authentic history, two classes of Freemasons, namely,
Operative and Speculative.

The Speculative Masons, however, though very definitely distinguished
after the separation of the Fraternity from its monastic connections, from
the Operative, by their want of practical skill, did not form an
independent and distinct class.

In the lodges into which they were admitted they mingled with the
members on a common footing.  We presume that this was the case in
all countries; we know that it was so in Scotland.  They underwent a
modified initiation into membership, in which of course the presentation
of an essay, piece, or chef d'oeuvre was omitted; they assisted in the
admission of new members, took part in the deliberations of the society
on affairs of business, voted, and even held office.

Starting with our inquiries from the time when the Fraternity dissolved its
connection with the monasteries, where it really played the role of a
subordinate, we may well suppose that at first the number of these
Speculative Masons or Honourary members must have been very small.

But they never could have been an insignificant element.  The Operative
Masons held the ascendency in members, but the Speculative Masons
must have always exerted a powerful influence by their better culture,
their wealth, and their higher social position.

These two elements of Freemasonry continued to exist together for a
very long period of time.  But at length, from causes which must be
attributed to the increasing power and influence of the Speculative
element, as well as to intellectual progress, there came a total and
permanent disseverance of the two.

The precise time of this disseverance must be placed at the beginning of
the 18th century, though it is evident that for some years previously the
feeling which eventually led to it must have been gradually growing.  The
men of culture and science who were in constant communion with their
operative associates, were getting dissatisfied with a society of
mechanics who had lost much of that skill as architects which had given
so bright a reputation to their predecessors of the Middle Ages, and who
were now not very much superior to the "Cowans," the "wall builders,"
and the "rough layers" whom these skillful predecessors had so much
contemned -  contemned so much that the Freemasons would not work
in common with them on the same building.

The first act of severance occurred in England in the year 1717, when
the Grand Lodge of "Free and Accepted Masons" was organized, an
event that has been very generally designated by Masonic writers by the
rather questionable title of the Revival.

This was followed nineteen years afterward by the organization of the
Grand Lodge of Scotland with similar methods.

Both of these bodies were formed by lodges that were Operative, but in
each case the Operative character was abandoned, and the Grand
lodges and the lodges under them became entirely Speculative; that is
to say, they ceased to cultivate practical Masonry, and were composed
for the most part of members who were totally ignorant of the Mystery of
the handicraft of building.

In other countries the process of disseverance did not take place
according to the English and Scottish method.  Elsewhere than in those
two countries the organization of Freemasonry as it prevailed in the
Middle Ages had long ceased to exist.

In France the Corporations des Metiers and in Germany the Hutten had
been abolished, though in both countries the Stonemasons still
continued to maintain an organization, which, however, was outside of
the law, and without legal protection or recognition.

But we must look for the real causes of the change from Operative to
Speculative Masonry to England, for it was in that country that the
change was first developed and consummated.





CHAPTER XXVII

THE REMOTE CAUSES OF THE TRANSITION


THE transition from Operative to Speculative Freemasonry was not a
spontaneous and sudden act, commencing and completing itself by an
instantaneous movement, through which that which was the peculiar
characteristic of the institution was at once changed into another and
entirely different one.

On the contrary, the epoch of the change can not be precisely determined
within the period of six years at least during which the Speculative Masons
were engaged in slowly perfecting it.  The fortress of Operative
Freemasonry, which had derived its strength from its comparative antiquity
and from the imperishable labours of the medieval architects, was not to be
taken by storm.  It was only by gradual approaches that its stronghold in
the lodges was to be overcome.

We are not to suppose that on that eventful festival of St. John the Baptist,
when the members of the Four Old Lodges of the Metropolis of England
met at the Goose and Gridiron, and elected for the first time a Grand
Master to preside in their new organization, that the special and
well-understood design of that meeting was at once to change the entire
character of the fraternity.

The fact is that the beginning of the 18th century was in England, and
more especially in London, the age of clubs.  We shall soon see how
associations of men for all sorts of purposes, but principally for convivial
ones, were established in that city.

Now the Masonic lodges, consisting as they did and as they had done
for many years past of professional Masons and of non-professional
gentlemen, and the latter preponderating, perhaps in numbers, certainly
in influence, would seem to have afforded an admirable opportunity, by
their coalition into one body, for the establishment of a club of the very
highest rank, one indeed of a rank and prestige very far superior to that
of the obscure and often ridiculous coteries of that day, such as the "No
Nose Club," or the "Ugly Faced Club."

We know that for many years previous to 1717 the Operative lodges
contained many non-operative or "Gentlemen Masons," and that outside
of London and its suburbs this condition lasted for many years
afterward.  And yet during all that period we have no record of any
attempt on the part of the latter to infuse a Speculative element into
those lodges.

Even the organization of the Grand Lodge on St. John the Baptist's day,
1717, does not seem, if we may judge from the meager details of that
event which Anderson has transmitted to us, to have been intended to
accomplish at once a total severance of the Speculative from the
Operative element.  The "Charges of a Freemason," which were adopted
in 1718, for the government of the new form of the institution, were only
a collation of the old laws which had formerly regulated the Operative
lodges, and were wholly inapplicable to a system from which practical
Masonry had been eliminated.

Nor was there any pretense that these were new laws, framed for a new
society.  It was thus acknowledged that the old Constitutions of the
Operative were to be preserved.  The disruption was not to be suddenly
effected.  Anderson, recording the transactions of 1718, under the Grand
Mastership of George Payne, says that "this year several old copies of
the Gothic Constitutions were produced and collated." (1)

The preservation and publication of these "charges" as the standard of
Masonic law very clearly show that at that time the thought of a purely
Speculative institution, fully dissolved from any association with
Operative Masonry, had not yet entered the minds of those who were
engaged in the establishment of a Grand Lodge.

The most that we can say of their ulterior views at that early period, was
that they intended to enforce, with greater rigor, the usage which had
long before prevailed, and to interpret with the utmost liberality the
standing regulation which admitted persons who were not Masons by
profession to the privileges of the Society.

It was not until 1721, four years after the organization of the


(1) Anderson, "Constitutions," 2d ed., p. 110.


Grand Lodge, that a set of "General Regulations," which had been
compiled by Payne the year before, were adopted, which were
applicable to the requirements of a purely Speculative association, in
which the Operative element was wholly ignored.

It will be seen hereafter, when the early records of the Grand Lodge are
brought under review, that though no Operative Mason was ever elected
Grand Master, yet until the year 1723 that class was recognized by being
chosen to the high office of Grand Warden on several occasions.

After that year the Operative Masons appear to have retired either
voluntarily or involuntarily from all prominence, and probably from all
participation in the concerns of the Society.  It had by this time assumed
a thoroughly speculative character; its laws and usages were such as
were appropriate to a non-operative system; and its offices were given
only to noblemen, to scholars, and to men of high social position.

The immediate cause of these changes has with very great certainty
been attributed to the efforts of three persons - John Theophilus
Desaguliers, a philosopher, James Anderson, a clergyman, and George
Payne, an antiquary.  To them are we to attribute the influences which
gradually but successfully led between the years 1717 and 1723 to the
complete separation of the Speculative from the Operative Order, and to
the birth of that system which, after many subsequent accretions,
modifications, and improvements, has been developed into the widely
extended Freemasonry of the present day.

But there were other causes in operation which assisted in the
accomplishment of those results, in which these celebrated persons
played so important a part, and without which their labours would hardly
have been successful.

The first and perhaps the most important event which prepared the way
for the transition was the decadence of architecture in England, where in
the 17th century the principles of the Gothic style with all its symbolism
began to give way to the corrupt forms of the Renaissance, which was a
revival of the Roman style. It was on Gothic architecture that the
Freemasons of the Middle Ages had founded that school of symbolism
which gave to every stone a living voice, and supported the claim of the
Fraternity to the elevated position which it had long held above all other
handicrafts.

But when the Craft had abandoned this so long honoured art and the
lodges ceased to be, as Lord Lyndsay has called them, "parliaments of
genius," there must have been some, as there are now, who deplored
the change from high to low taste, and who were anxious to perpetuate,
if not the practical part of the art, as it has been pursued by the Gothic
Masons, at least to preserve the spirit of symbolism which had been in
medieval times its principal and peculiar characteristic.

Thus the way was gradually prepared in the 17th century for that
spiritualizing of the labours and implements of Operative Masonry which
resulted finally, after many slow steps, in the formation of that system of
purely symbolic Masonry which exists at the present day, wholly distinct
from the body of working Masons.

The science of symbolism had been originally practiced only by the
Church and by the Gothic Freemasons.  When it had been abandoned
in the former by the Reformation and in the latter by the decay of
architecture, it was still preserved in some of its forms, not in all its
excellence, by the Rosicrucian society which sprung into existence in the
17th century.  Though the mystical association of Rosicrucianism was
not, in any way, connected with Freemasonry, it can not be doubted that
it played an important part in inspiring many members of the Masonic
lodges of Operative Masonry with a renewed taste for the mystical
symbolism of their predecessors, which in its progressive cultivation led
to the inauguration of a purely symbolic association founded on
architecture.

Another important cause is to be found in the intellectual revolution
which took place in the 17th century, and toward which the Reformation
in religion had contributed essential aid.  The writings of Bacon had
produced a school of experimental philosophy in England, one result of
which was the organization of the Royal Society, in whose bosom a race
of thinkers was nursed who, in their search for the attainment of
knowledge, were ever ready to convert an art such as Operative
Masonry into a Speculative Science.

At one time it was a favourite theory with some Masonic historians that
the origin of Speculative Freemasonry was to be traced to the Royal
Society.  Though the theory was a fallacious one, as has been shown in
a preceding part of this work, its very existence proves that Society
must, in an indirect way, have had some influence upon the birth and
the growth of the Speculative institution.

It is singularly pertinent to this question that Dr. Desaguliers, to whom,
beyond all other men, we must ascribe the organization of Speculative
Freemasonry in England, was a distinguished experimental philosopher
of the Baconian school and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

It can not, however, be doubted that as the low state of morals, the
general depression of learning, and the decay of art, which distinguished
the close of the 17th century, had a very unfavourable effect on the
character of Operative Masonry; so the improvement of the moral and
intellectual condition of England, and the cultivation of a refinement in
literature and science which sprang up soon after the beginning of the
18th century, must have awakened a new spirit in the thinkers of the
age.
Dr. Oliver, in an essay on this subject, (1) attributes this revolution
principally to the influence of Addison, Steele, and the other periodical
writers of the day.  He quotes the opinion of Foster, (2) who had said
that "it is incredible to conceive the effect these writings have had on the
town; ... they have set all our wits and men of letters upon a new way of
thinking of which they had little or no notion before." Hence Oliver says,
"It will not be conceding too much to the influence of these immortal
productions, if we admit that the Revival of Freemasonry in 1717 was
owing, in a great measure, to their operation on public taste and public
morality." (3)

As of the two most important and effective of these periodical essays by
Steele and Addison, the Tatler was begun in 1709, and the Spectator in
1711, while the organization of the Grand Lodge which was the prelude
to the establishment of Speculative Freemasonry has the date of 1717,
the inference of Oliver as to their influence will hardly be deemed
untenable.

Another cause leading directly to the establishment of Speculative
Freemasonry has been adduced by Kloss in his German work


(1) Introductory Dissertation on the State of Freemasonry in the 18th
century, affixed to his edition of Hutchinson's " Spirit of Masonry," p. 5.
(2) Essays, in a series of "Letters to a Friend," by John Foster.
(3) Intro. Dissertation, p. 6.


on the History of Freemasonry in France, which is well worth
consideration.  He says:

"When Wren had completed the building of St. Paul's Cathedral in
London, in 1708, and thus the workmen had no common center
remaining, their corporate customs, like those of many other bodies,
would, in the course of time, have been lost and wiped away, if the
brotherhood had not been sustained as such by the power of that
ancient addition - the non-professional members, taken from the various
grades of society.  The religious contentions, which had prevailed for
two centuries, were at last compelled to recede before the spirit of
toleration.  Hence the necessity of some place of rest, where political
discussions could not enter, was the cause and the reason for the
formation and adoption of, about the year 1716, an organized system,
then first appearing as Freemasonry." (1)

Of the correctness of two assertions made in this paragraph we have
convincing proofs.  The decay of the Operative branch of Freemasonry
is evident, since, according to Oliver, there were in 1688 only seven
lodges in existence, and of them there were but two that held their
meetings regularly. (2) There was some improvement at the beginning of
the next century, which, however, it would be but fair to attribute to the
influence and the energy of the honourary or non-professional members.

In respect to the question of religious toleration, it is very evident that in
the matter of a creed there was a very great difference between the two
systems, the Operative and the Speculative.  The early Operative
Freemasons were, of course, Roman Catholics.  After the Reformation in
England they became Protestants, but strict adherents to the church. 
This is apparent from the older and the more recent Constitutions. (3)

There was another cause which must have exercised a very potent
influence in hastening the establishment of a Grand Lodge of
Speculative Freemasonry.  This was the universal passion for the
formation of clubs which took possession of the English people toward
the close of the 17th and at the beginning of the 18th century.


(1) "Geschichte der Freimaurer in Frankreiche," i., 13.
(2) Introductory Essay on the State of Freemasonry.
(3) In the oldest of the Old Constitutions which are extant, the Halliwell
poem,  there are directions for hearing Mass.



The word Club, as signifying a society or assembly of persons each
contributing his share of the expenses, came into the English language,
as the things itself did into English social customs, at the period
specified.  Dryden is the first writer who speaks of political clubs, but the
word is in familiar use in the pages of the Tatler and Spectator.  These
new organizations had in a short time become so important as to claim
a place in literary history; and in 1709 a work of some magnitude was
published in London, entitled The Secret History of Clubs, particularly of
the Golden Fleece. With their Original: And the Characters of the most
noted Members thereof. (1) Dr. Oliver, to whose indefatigable industry
and research (however they were sometimes illy regulated) we are
indebted for an admirable Essay on the Usages and Customs of
Symbolical Masonry in the 18th Century, (2) supplies us with the
following information on the subject of Clubs:

"The 18th century was distinguished by the existence of numerous local
institutions, which periodically congregated together different classes of
society, for divers purposes, the chief of which appears to have been the
amusement of an idle hour, when the business of the day was ended. 
Few of these ephemeral societies aimed at a higher flight.  Some met
weekly, while the members of others assembled every evening.  Each
profession and calling had its club, and in large towns the trade of every
street was not without its means of thus killing the evening hour.

"Such societies embraced every class of persons, from the noble to the
beggar; and whatever might be a man's character or disposition, he
would find in London a club that would square with his ideas.  If he were
a tall man, the tall club was ready to receive him; if short, he would soon
find a club of dwarfs; if musically inclined, the harmonic club was at
hand; was he fond of late hours, he joined the owl club; if of convivial
habits, he would find a free and easy in every street; if warlike, he
sought out the lumber troopers; if a buck of the first water, he joined the
club of choice spirits; and if sober and quiet, the humdrum.  If nature
had favoured him with a gigantic proboscis, an unsightly protuberance
on his shoulders, or


(1) I give this title on the authority of Dr. Kloss.  It is numbered 237 in his
Bibliography der Freimaurerei, and is said to have extended to 392
octave pages.
(2) Prefixed to the third volume of his "Golden Remains."


any other striking peculiarity, he would have no difficulty in finding a
society to keep him in countenance." (1)

Before the middle of the century the number of clubs had increased
amazingly.  Dermott gives in his Ahiman Rezon the names of thirty-eight,
besides "many others not worth notice." (2)

Most of these clubs were of a convivial character.  There were, however,
some whose members aimed at higher pursuits and devoted themselves
to the cultivation of art, science, and literature. It must not be forgotten
that the Royal Society was originally formed on the pattern of a club.

Dermott mentions a circumstance connected with these clubs which is
worthy of notice as showing the popularity of Freemasonry at the time,
and the existence then, as at the present day, of societies which sought
to imitate its forms, if not always its principles.

"Several of these Clubs or Societies," he says, "have, in imitation of the
free-masons, called their club by the name of lodge, and their president
by the title of grand master or most noble grand." (3) 

Addison, speaking in the Spectator of these associations, says:

"Man is said to be a social animal, and as an instance of it we may
observe that we take all occasions and pretences of forming ourselves
into those little nocturnal assemblies which are commonly known as
clubs. When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular,
though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity
and meet once or twice a week on account of such a fantastic
resemblance." (4)

The presumption will not, then, be a violent one that the first successful
effort toward a secession from Operative Freemasonry, must have been
stimulated by the usage among men of all classes, in the early part of
the last century, of inaugurating separate societies or clubs.

The meeting in 1716 consisting of honourary or non-professional
members of the London Operative lodges, being held, too, at a tavern,
as was the custom with all clubs, might very properly and with the
utmost respect, be looked upon as a club of the highest class.  This
club of scientific and literary gentlemen who were desirous of separating
from the coarser and less intellectual materials


(1) "On the Usages and Customs of Symbolic Masonry in the 18th
Century," page 2.
(2) "Ahiman Rezon," p. xii. 
(3) "Ahiman Rezon," ut supra. 
(4) Spectator, No.  IX.



which composed the lodges of practical Masons, was not long
afterward, in June, 1717, resolved into a Grand Lodge, the mother of all
the Speculative lodges in the world, Scotland excepted, just as the club
of philosophers who first met in the latter part of the preceding century,
was finally developed into the Royal Society, the most prominent
institution of learning in England. (1)

That such was the opinion of the learned Dr. Oliver may be justly
inferred from the language used by him in his essay On the Usages and
the Customs of Symbolical Masonry in the 18th Century.  Speaking of
the character of the Clubs in which conviviality appears to have been
always carried to an excess, he says :

"There was, however, one society in that period, which, if it did indulge
its members with the enjoyment of decent refreshment, had a standing
law which provided against all excess; declaring that 'they ought to be
moral men, good husbands, good parents, good sons, and good
neighbours, not staying too long from home, and avoiding all excess.'
This society was Freemasonry; the exclusive character of which excited
the envy of all other periodical assemblies of convivial men." (2)

Five causes appear to have been instrumental in producing that
separation of the Speculative from the Operative element in Freemasonry
which led to the organization of the Grand Lodge of England and to the
establishment of the present system.  These, which have been fully
treated in the present chapter, may be briefly summarized as follows:

1. The gradual decay of Gothic architecture and the abandonment of
scientific methods by the Operative Masons.

2. The intellectual revolution in Europe, which led to the more general
cultivation of science and literature.
3. The loss of a common center and a commencing disintegration of the
Operative Masons in England, after their last great work, the Cathedral of
St. Paul's, had been finished.

4. The growing desire among men of culture and refinement to


(1) From the year 1716, when the Speculative Masons first met at the
Apple Tree Tavern, until June, 1717, when the Grand Lodge was
organized at the Goose and Gridiron, a period of more than six months
elapsed.  During that time it is not unreasonable to suppose, from
contemporary custom, that the members met under a club organization. 
But this subject will be fully discussed in a future chapter.
(2) "On Usages and Customs," etc., p. 7.


establish an association from which the spirit of political partisanship and
of religious intolerance should be banished.

5. And, lastly, the social example given in the beginning of the 18th
century by the universal formation of clubs and private societies for all
sorts of purposes. 

But none of these causes could have been productive of a society of
philosophers whose formulas of instruction were derived from the
principles of Operative Masonry, had not the way been prepared for the
establishment of such a society by relations which had previously
existed between the two elements.

To this subject I shall accordingly invite the attention of the reader in the
following chapter.





CHAPTER XXVIII

THE WAY PREPARED FOR THE TRANSITION


THE very great change from an Operative art to a Speculative Science, by
which the whole practical character of the former was abandoned and a
system of philosophy was established on its basis, could never have been
accomplished by any human efforts, if there had not been some previous
provision, which, though undesigned originally for that purpose, rendered
the transition from the one to the other practicable, if not easy of execution.

In the process of locomotion, the act of removal from one point to another
can not be effected unless there be a pathway which will render the
removal possible.  If there be no pathway, there can be no removal; and
the more direct the pathway is, and the less it is encumbered by
obstructions, the more readily will the removal be accomplished.

So in the intellectual transmutation of an old society into a new one, it is
just as necessary that there should be a way prepared by which the
change may be effected. The old society may be of such a nature that it
would be impossible to convert it into the contemplated new society.  The
design and objects of the former might be such as to be antagonistic even,
and not favourable to the transformation.

Thus it would be impossible to convert a guild of Weavers or of Mercers
into an association having the character of a lodge of Speculative
Freemasons. The way is not open to such a conversion.  The
foundation-stone upon which the system of modern Freemasonry is built
must have been a fraternity of Operative Builders in stone.    It is
useless to look for it elsewhere, because the symbolism of Freemasonry
is derived altogether from the art of architecture.

This is the best reason that we possess for the rejection of the theory
that the origin of Freemasonry is to be sought in the ancient mysteries of
Egypt, of Greece, or of Persia.  There is no passable way leading from
these Mysteries to Speculative Freemasonry.  In the secret doctrines and
in the usages of these Mysteries we find no reference to architecture. 
They were simply systems intended to teach in a mystical way what they
supposed to be religious truth.  Their organization was so different from
that on which the Freemasonry of the present day is based, that we can
find no road directly connecting the two.

Those who have sought to make the Speculative Freemasons the
legitimate descendants of the Crusaders and the Knights Templars, must
meet with the same difficulty in connecting the two.  Military associations
could never give rise to sodalities, all of whose principles are those of
peace and brotherly love.  It would have been utterly impossible to
transform a camp of knights in armour, thirsting for the blood of their
Saracen foes, into a peaceful lodge of Freemasons, engaged, as the
French song says, in erecting temples for virtue and dungeons for vice.

It is true that at a later period, when Craft Masonry was supplied with
new rituals and when what are called the high degrees were invented, a
great deal of dogma was borrowed from or rather found to be identical
as to the unity of God and the immortality of the soul with those of the
ancient Mysteries, and something like the usages of chivalry was
introduced into the developed system of Freemasonry.

But the Speculative Freemasonry which at the beginning of the 18th
century was boldly separated from the Operative Masonry, within which
it had quietly slept, waiting patiently for its time of birth, knew nothing -
recognized nothing - imitated nothing of the Mysteries of Osiris, of
Dionysus, or of Mithras, and cared still less for the daring deeds of the
warriors of Palestine.

In 1716, when the resolve was first made to segregate Speculative from
Operative Freemasonry, and in 1717, when that resolve was carried into
effect by the organization of the Grand Lodge of England, those who
undertook the enterprise, looked only to the usages and principles of the
English Stonemasons for the pattern on which they were to construct the
new edifice in which they were thereafter to dwell.  Hence it is that the
pure, Speculative Freemasonry at its origin borrowed and spiritualized,
not the sacred baskets and phallic emblems of the Mysteries, nor the
glittering swords and invincible armour of the Crusaders, but the working
tools and professional phrases of the sodality of builders, whence they
sprang.

They even, in deference to and in memorial of their descent, preserved
the name of the association to which they thus unequivocally ascribed
their origin.

They did not profess to be Free Mystagogues or Hierophants, nor Free
Knights, but simply, as they then spelt the word, Free Masons, Builders
free of the Guild, who still continued to build.  They only transmuted the
material cathedral, where God was to be worshipped in all the splendour
of art, to the spiritual temple of the heart, where the same worship was
to be continued in purity and truth.

It is true that we thus materially abridge the pretensions of the institution
to a profound antiquity.  But unfounded claims never win honour or
respect from the honest inquirer.  If we were disposed to treat the rise
and progress of Freemasonry as a romance, we might indulge the
imagination in its wildest flights, with no other object than to make the
narrative interesting.  But as the purpose is to write a history, we must
confine ourselves to authenticated facts, and take the result, whatever it
may be, without reservation.

Accepting, then, as true the theory that the Freemasons who
commenced the organization of the Speculative system in the year 1716
at the "Apple Tree" Tavern in London, and afterward completed it in 1717
at the "Goose and Gridiron," framed their Association after the model of
the Stonemasons of the Middle Ages, whose fraternity was still
preserved, though in a degenerated form, in the four Operative Lodges
of London, we must inquire what were the circumstances that prepared
the founders of the new Order which they were instituting for this
transition from an Operative art to a purely Speculative science? We
must go over the road which they traversed in making the transition from
one system to the other.

If we carefully inspect the organizations of the two associations, we will
observe that while between them there are some very important
differences, there were, on the other hand, some equally important
resemblances.

The differences present that well-marked line of demarcation which gave
to each an independent individuality.  They show that there have been
two very distinct fraternities, while the resemblances between the two,
directly considered, show also the dependence of one upon the other
and the relation that existed between them.

The differences between them were only three, and were as follows :

1. The medieval Freemasons were exclusively a body of Operative
builders.  They admitted, it is true, as honourary members a class of
persons who were not stonemasons by profession.  This did not,
however, in the slightest degree affect the purely Operative character of
the institution.

The modern Speculative Freemasons are not Operative builders. No
member is necessarily a stonemason.  Stonemasons, it is true, are
admitted into the brotherhood, just as persons of any other Craft may
be, if morally and intellectually qualified.

2. The medieval Freemasons constituted a guild which was restricted to
men of one peculiar handicraft.  No one could be admitted into the guild
except the Honourary Members, or Theoretic Masons, as they were
sometimes called, unless he had served a long apprenticeship to the
mystery, extending from one to seven years.

The Speculative Freemasons have no such provision in their
Constitution. Although they derive their existence from an association of
Stonemasons, and though they preserve much of the language and use
all the implements of Operative Masonry in their own association, yet
men of every craft and profession, and men without either, are freely
admitted, without distinction, into their Brotherhood.

3. Another difference is in the religious character of the two associations. 
This difference is a very important one, and has already been assigned
as one of the causes that led to the separation.

The medieval Masons were at first Roman Catholic, and afterward, when
the Reformation had gained a foothold, and become the religion of the
country in which they resided, the Freemasons professed to be
Protestants, but in all their regulations a strict allegiance to the Church
was required.  The medieval Operative Freemasons all professed and
maintained the Christian religion.

But one of the first acts of the Speculative Freemasons after their
organization was to establish a system of toleration in respect to
religious doctrines. The Mason was required to be of "that religion in
which all men agree." Consequently atheists only were precluded from
admission to the Brotherhood.  In Speculative Masonry every member is
permitted to enjoy his own peculiar views on religious matters, provided
that he does not deny the existence of a personal God and of a future
life.
These are the essential differences which exist between the two
associations.  To counterbalance them, there are several very important
and significant resemblances.  These are as follows:

1. Both systems had some form of initiation into the Brotherhood, and
certain methods of recognition by which one member could make
himself known to another.  These forms and methods were exceedingly
simple in the older fraternity, and varied then as they do now in different
countries.  They afforded only the germ from which in the newer
fraternity was developed, by slow steps, the full fruit of a perfect form of
initiation and more complicated methods of recognition.

It must be very evident that when the first movement was inaugurated
toward the separation of the Speculative from the Operative element, the
existence in the latter of a form of initiation and modes of recognition,
however simple they may have been, must have suggested the policy of
continuing, and as the organization became more mature, of improving
them.

That the Modern Order of Free and Accepted Masons is a secret society,
in the meaning usually but not accurately ascribed to that phrase, arises
from the fact that the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages were of
the same character.  Of the fact that the Operative Freemasons were a
secret association there is not the least doubt. (1)

If the Operative Masons had not practiced these forms and methods, we
may safely infer that nothing of that nature would have been adopted by
the Speculative Masons.  No other of the contemporary clubs or
societies which at that day were springing abundantly into existence had
adopted any such methods of organization until a few of them, which
were established after the year 1717, such as the Gormagons, followed
the example of the Freemasons.

These forms were peculiar to the Operative Freemasons, and that they
were adopted by the Speculatives is one of the strongest


(1) "So studiously did they conceal their secrets," says Halliwell, "that it
may be fairly questioned whether even some of those who were
admitted into the Society of the (Operative) Freemasons were wholly
skilled in all the mysterious portions of the art." - "Archaeologia," vol.
xxviii., p. 445.


proofs that could be presented that the latter are the direct descendants
of the former. 

2. Both the Operative and Speculative Freemasons held Geometry in the
greatest esteem as being; the most important of the sciences. Indeed, in
the Old Constitutions, the words were held to be synonymous.  The
secrets of the medieval Architects are admitted to have been
geometrical, that is, they consisted in an application of the principals of
geometry to the art of building.

Mr. Paley, in a sentence that has heretofore been quoted, says that "it is
certain that geometry lent its aid in the planning and designing of
buildings ... which were evidently profound secrets in the keeping of the
Freemasons." (1)

When Speculative Freemasonry arose out of the declining condition of
the Operative system, (2) this respect for geometry was retained as the
basis of the symbolic science, as it had been of the building art. "Right
angles, horizontals, and perpendiculars," which had been applied to the
construction of edifices, received now a spiritual signification as symbols. 
But seven years after the organization of Speculative Freemasonry, we
find the "Free Masons' Signs" depicted in the oldest ritual extant (3) as
acute, obtuse, and right angles.  The equilateral triangle which Palfrey
says was probably the basis of most of the formations of the Operative
Freemasons has become the most sacred of the symbols of their
Speculative descendants.

In fact all the geometrical symbols (and there are very few others) which
are found in the rituals of modern Freemasonry, such as the triangle, the
square, the right angle, and the forty-seventh problem of Euclid may be
considered as the debris of what has been called the "lost secrets" of the
old Freemasons.  As these founded


(1) Manual of Gothic Architecture.
(2) When an allusion is made to the "decline" of Operative Masonry, it
must be understood that the reference is to that system of elevated art
which was founded and practiced by the Freemasons of the Middle
Ages.  Pure Masonry, or the mere art of building, is so necessary to the
wants of man, that it must flourish in every civilized Society.  But there is
the same difference between Operative Freemasonry and Operative
Masonry as there is between the gorgeous Cathedral erected for God's
worship and the unassuming house built for man's dwelling.  That
Freemasonry in the sense here given was in a declining condition and
had "fallen from its high estate" at the close of the 17th and the
beginning of the 18th century, is the concurrent record of all architectural
historians.
(3) "The Grand Mystery Discovered," London, 1724.


their art on the application of the principles of Geometry to the art of
building, declaring in their veneration for the science that "there is no
handicraft that is wrought by man's hand but it is wrought by, geometry,"
so the Speculative Freemasons, imitating them in that veneration, have
drawn from it their most important symbols and announced it in all their
rituals to be "the first and noblest of the sciences, and the basis on
which the superstructure of Freemasonry is founded."

Of the various links of the chain which connects the Operative
Freemasonry of the Middle Ages with the Speculative system of the
present times, there is no stronger one than this common cultivation of
the science of geometry by both - in the one, as the aid to a style of
architecture; in the other, as the foundation of a profound system of
symbolism.

Moreover, it supplies an unanswerable objection to the theory which
seeks to deduce Freemasonry from the Ancient Mysteries.  Between the
two this common bond is wanting.  The hierophants of Egypt, of Greece,
and of Persia presented no geometric teachings in their religious
systems, and a modern mystical association which was derived from the
Osirian, the Dionysiac, or the Mithraic secret culture, would have been as
devoid as its original to any allusions to the science of Geometry.

3. A third point of resemblance is that both the Operative and the
Speculative Freemasons cultivated the science of symbolism as an
important part of their systems.
There is no one of the resemblances between the medieval and the
modern Freemasons which is so full of suggestion as to the descent of
the one from the other, as is the existence of this fact that a science of
symbolism was common to both.

That the Freemasons of the Middle Ages cultivated with consummate
taste and skill the science of symbolism and infused its principles in all
their works, is an authentic fact of history which admits of no denial. 
The proofs of this are at hand, and if it were necessary might be readily
produced.

Findel, whose iconoclasm as an historian never permits him to accept
conclusions without a careful investigation, has contributed his authority
to the statement that the German Stonemasons made abundant use of
symbols in the prosecution of their art.

According to him the implements, and especially the compasses, the
square, the gavel, and the foot-rule, were peculiar and expressive
symbols.  Other crafts may have symbolized the instruments of their
trade, but the Freemasons, above all others, "had special reason to
invest them with a far higher value and to associate them with a spiritual
meaning; for it was a holy vocation to which they had devoted
themselves.  By the erection of a house to God's service, the Master
Mason not only perpetuated his own name, but contributed to the glory
of the greatest of all Beings by spreading the knowledge of Christianity
and by inciting to the practice of Christian virtue and piety." (1)

But it was not to the mere implements of their work that they confined
this principle of symbolization.  They extended it to the work itself, and
every church and cathedral erected by Gothic art is full of the symbolism
of architecture. "On all the buildings erected by them," says Findel, "are
to be found intimations of their secret brotherhood and of the symbols
known to them."

Michelet, the historian of France, always eloquent and florid, becomes
especially so when he is referring to the architectural symbolism of the
Old Freemasons.

According to him the church, as erected in all the significance of its
architectural symbols, is not a mere building of stones, but the material
presentation of the Christian drama.  "It is," he exclaims, in the fervour of
his admiration, "a petrified Mystery, a Passion in stone, or rather the
Sufferer himself.  The whole edifice, in the austerity of its geometrical
architecture, is a living body, a Man.  The nave, extending its two arms,
is the Man on the cross; the crypt, or subterranean church, is the Man in
the tomb; the spire is still the same Man, but above, ascending to
heaven; while in the choir obliquely inclining in respect to the nave you
see his head bent in agony." (2) 

Now this science of symbolism so assiduously and so gracefully
cultivated by the medieval Freemasons was handed down, like an
heir-loom, to their modern successors, who in slow process of time
developed it into the beautiful system which now forms the vital force of
Speculative Freemasonry.

One of the legal and accredited definitions of modem Freemasonry is
that it is "a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated


(1) Findel, "Geschichte," in Lyon's Translation, p. 68.
(2) Michelet, "Histoire de France," liv. iv., ch. ix-, p. 364.


by symbols." (1) As the architecture of the old Freemasons differed from
all other architecture in the symbolism which it impressed on every
stone, so the morality of the modern Freemasons differs from every
other code in the symbolism with which it clothes its instructions.

But in all fairness it must be confessed that the mere fact that the
science of symbolism has been cultivated both by the Operative and
Speculative Freemasons furnishes no satisfactory evidence that the one
has been derived from the other.

Symbolism was the very earliest method by which men sought to convey
religious thought.  It is believed, with some share of plausibility, that it
existed even in prehistoric times.  It was common to all nations, and
exercised its influence even in the construction of language, for words
are merely the symbols of ideas.

The Phallic, supposed to be the most ancient of all worships, was
preeminently a religion of symbolism.  Much of that symbolism has been
retained in modern customs and religious observances, though its origin
has been forgotten and its application been perverted.

Nearly all the ancient schools were secret, like that of Pythagoras, and
clothed their lessons of wisdom with the covering of symbolism.  As with
the philosophical, so was it with the religious sects called the Mysteries.
Their secret dogmas were concealed beneath symbols and allegories.

It is evident, then, that in regard to the single point of symbolism, the
modern Freemasons might as well have derived their symbolic usages
from the ancient institutions of philosophy or of religion as from the
medieval builders.

But the symbols which were adopted by the modern Freemasons, in the
beginning of the 18th century, under their Speculative system, were all
based on geometry and on architecture and on its implements.

Now the symbols of the old Operative Freemasons were of precisely the
same character.  Geometry and architecture were the foundation of both
of them.

But the hierophants and mystagogues of the Pagan mysteries employed,
in the illustration of their doctrines, symbols, like the


(1) English Lectures of Dr. Hemming, adopted by the Grand Lodge of
England.


phallus, or the serpent, that had no connection whatsoever with the art
of building or with the science of mathematics.  It is evident that the
Speculative Freemasons, when they were instituting their new Society as
"a system of morality which was to be illustrated by symbols," could not
have derived any suggestions from the Pagan mysteries.

The winged globe or the handled cross of the Egyptians, the mystic van
of Eleusis, and the bleeding bull of the rites of Mithras found no place as
symbols in the system of the first Speculative Masons.

It is true that at a later period, and especially after the invention of what
are called the "high degrees," the original ritual was supplemented by the
addition of many symbols culled from these ancient sources.

Among the Operative Freemasons there were also a few symbols which
were not connected with Geometry or Architecture, which were, it is
supposed, borrowed from the Gnostics, with whom these old builders
appear to have had some intercourse.  But these symbols were chiefly
confined to the proprietary marks, and consequently never were
incorporated into the ritual of the Speculatives.

But the society which in 1716 seceded or separated from the Operative
Lodges of London, and in less than a year after organized the "Grand
Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons," when adopting its unimposing
ritual, gave the most ample testimony in its construction of the unmixed
influence of an association of builders.  The symbolism employed in the
beginning by the Speculative Freemasons therefore furnished all the
evidence that is necessary, if no other were forthcoming, of their direct
descent from the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages.

4. A fourth resemblance between the two associations is found in the
fact that both were divided into three classes, bearing the same name,
namely, Masters, Fellows, and Apprentices.

In the Operative system these were mere ranks or classes, which do not
appear, from any evidence we possess, to have any distinct form of
initiation or methods of recognition by which the classes were
esoterically separated from each other.  In other words, there was no
such thing as a series of degrees, as that term is now masonically
understood, but only one degree or form of initiation common to all - to
the Apprentice as well as to the Master.

This was precisely the system adopted by the Speculative Freemasons
at the outspring of the separation.  For at least three years they pursued
the old Operative method, and had but one esoteric form of admission
for all their members.  The fabrication of the three degrees was an
afterthought, which did not take place until at least the year 1720.

Bro. W.J. Hughan, who on this subject will be willingly recognized as of
the highest authority, has made this positive statement on the subject:
(1)

"The reference to Masonic degrees (as we understand the term now)
never occurs in the ancient minutes, no rituals of degrees prior to 1720
are in existence; and whatever esoteric customs may have been
communicated to craftsmen before the last century, they do not appear
to have necessitated the temporary absence of either class of members
from the lodge."

But as this has long been, and even now is, a mooted question among
masonic scholars, a very few inclining to give to the series of Craft
degrees a greater antiquity than they seem entitled to, the subject will be
discussed in all its bearings in a future chapter of this work, when the
judgment expressed by Bro. Hughan will, I think, be sustained by the
clearest historical evidence.

In respect to the inquiry which we are now pursuing, the decision of the
question is unimportant.  For whether we consider that the Masters,
Fellows, and Apprentices represented three degrees of esoteric Masonry
or only three classes of workmen, there is no doubt that the Speculative
Freemasons derived the idea of such a division from the Operatives. 
They could not have got it from any of the religious or philosophic
systems of antiquity.  They could not have found it in the Mysteries of
Osiris nor in the school of Pythagoras, in neither of which does any such
division occur.

Whatever changes the Speculatives may have made after their
organization by transmuting what were classes in the Operative system
into degrees, the change could not obliterate the evidence that the
former was the successor of the latter, and could have an origin only in
an association of craftsmen to whom such a division into classes or
ranks of workmen was common and necessary.

5. Another resemblance is found in the common reference of 


(1) In a letter in the London Freemason for June 27, 1874.


both to the Temple of Solomon as a pattern or type on which much of
their symbolism has been founded.

It is not intended to maintain the theory that the Institution of
Freemasonry has descended from the Tyrian and Jewish builders at the
Temple erected by King Solomon.  It has already engaged our attention
in a preceding part of this work, and I have sought, I hope and think
successfully, to show that the Solomonic legend as it has been
formulated in the third degree of our modern Freemasonry, though
accepted in the lodge rituals, is a mere myth without a particle of
historical authority to sustain it.

Yet as a part of the great Legend of the Craft, the connection of King
Solomon's Temple with the supposed history of Masonry was not
unknown to the Operative Masons of at least the 15th and succeeding
centuries, since they were familiar with the Old Constitutions in which
this Legend was embodied.

Notwithstanding that the details of the construction of this Temple by the
Jewish and Tyrian Masons contained in the Legend of the Craft are very
brief, these details, unsatisfactory as they are, were enough to inspire
the Freemasons of the Middle Ages with the belief that the building had
been erected by the aid of their predecessors.  Hence their Master
Builders preserved a reverential reference to it in many of their
architectural symbols.

But there is no evidence that the Hiramic legend, such as met with in the
lodges, was ever known to the architects of the Middle Ages.
 
Still, the history of the Temple, inaccurately as it was given in the
Legend, was accepted by them as a part of the history of the Craft, and
the building of the magnificent structure was esteemed by them as one
of the most glorious works of the ancient Brotherhood.

From the Operative Freemasons the Temple idea passed over to their
Speculative successors.  From no other source could the latter have
derived it.  Its presence among them, coupled with the other
resemblances, especially that of the division into three classes, is a most
irrefragable proof of the intimate connection of the two associations.

The founders of Speculative Freemasonry found the simple Legend of
the Craft ready at hand.  They adopted it - incorporated it into their new
association - and in a short time, with great ingenuity, developed it into
the beautiful and impressive allegory of the Third degree.

6. A very significant resemblance between the Operative and the
Speculative Freemasons is shown in the fact that all the written laws and
usages of the latter are founded upon those which were enacted for the
government of the former.


The oldest code of laws for the government of Speculative Freemasons
is that contained in the document entitled "The Charges of a
Free-Mason," which were adopted in 1722 by the Grand Lodge and
published in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions.  In this edition
it is said that they have been "extracted from the ancient records of
lodges beyond sea and of those in England, Scotland, and Ireland for
the use of the lodges in London." (1)

The statutes which governed the Operative Freemasons are contained in
the old manuscript Constitutions, which range in date from the end of
the 13th to the beginning of the 18th century.  The regulations which
they contain are wholly inappropriate to the government of a
non-Operative society.

Still, as the Speculative was founded upon the Operative association,
and was only a development of the principles of the latter in an
application of them to moral and philosophical purposes, the laws of the
Operative society were largely made use of by the Speculative Fraternity
in the construction of their new code.

It is true that the statutes contained in the manuscript Constitutions have
not, with a few exceptions, been copied word for word in the "Charges"
adopted for the regulation of the newly born Brotherhood.  This was
hardly to be expected.  That which is justly appropriate for a mechanic
pursuing a mechanical occupation, would be very absurd and
incongruous when applied to a philosopher engaged in a philosophical
inquiry.

Still, the spirit of the old laws has been rigidly observed.  There is not a
regulation in the "Charges" adopted in 1722 which does not find an
analogy in the Constitutions of the Operative Craft contained


(1) The "Charges" printed in the 2d or 1738 edition of the Constitutions
are of little or no value as an exponent of the common law of
Freemasonry, as they were unauthoritatively altered in many important
respects by Dr. Anderson.  But as an historical document it is worthy of
consideration, as it shows the gradual outgrowth of the Speculative from
the Operative system and indicates the mode in which the laws were
modified in order to accommodate the application of the old laws to the
new association.

 

in the old manuscript records, beginning, so far as we have any trace of
them, with the Constitutions of the Art of Geometry according to Euclid,
which was written, it is supposed, in the year 1399, and which was in all
probability a copy of some older manuscript, now, perhaps,
irrecoverably lost.  The old law has been retained, but in its spirit and
application there has been a material change.

Thus, by way of example, we find in the "Charges" of 1722 the following
clause :

"No Master shall give more wages to any Brother or Apprentice than he
may deserve."

Now this most certainly could not have meant that in a lodge of
Speculative Freemasons the Master should not pay more than a certain
justly earned amount of wages to an Entered Apprentice.  In 1722, when
this regulation was adopted, the Masters of lodges did not pay wages, in
the ordinary acceptation of the word, to any of the members.

The French Masons have retained the use of this word in their technical
language, and show us very clearly what meaning was intended to be
conveyed by these "Charges," when they spoke of paying a Speculative
Freemason his wages.

What the English and American Freemasons call "advancement from a
lower to a higher degree," the French Freemasons designate by the
expression "increase of wages." When we say that an Entered Apprentice
has been advanced to the degree of Fellow-Craft, the French express
the same fact by stating that the Apprentice has received an increase of
wages.

This, then, is the idea intended to be conveyed in that clause of the
"Charges" of 1722 which has just been quoted.  Translated into the
language of the present day, we find it in that law which exists in all
Masonic jurisdictions and under the sanction of all Grand Lodges, that
no Mason shall be advanced to a higher degree until he has shown
suitable proficiency in the preceding one.

Now this law of Speculative Freemasonry has been derived from and
finds its analogy in the Old Constitutions of the Operative Freemasons,
where the following law is extant:

"Every Master shall give pay to his Fellows and servants as they may
deserve, so that he be not defamed with false working." (1)


(1) Lansdowne MS., anno 1560.


It is very manifest that here the literal meaning of the law as it was
applicable to Operative Freemasonry has been abandoned, but the spirit
has been preserved in a symbolical interpretation.

Again, in the "Charges" adopted by the Speculatives in 1722, the
following regulation will be found:

"None shall discover envy at the prosperity of a Brother nor supplant
him, nor put him out of his work if he be capable to finish the same; for
no man can finish another's work so much to the Lord's profit, unless he
be thoroughly acquainted with the design and draughts of him that
began it."

No one, on the mere reading of this regulation, can hesitate to believe
that it must have been originally intended for the government of working
Masons, and that the Speculative Masons must have derived it from
them.
Accordingly, if we look into the Old Constitutions of the Operative
Freemasons we shall find the same law, though not expressed in
identical words.  The Operative law is thus stated in the Sloane MS.,
whose date is about 1645.

"Noe Maister nor Fellowe shall supplant others of there worke (that is to
say); if he have taken a worke, or stand Maister of a Lord's work, you
shall not put him out of it; if hee bee able of cunning to performe the
same."

Now we can very easily understand the meaning of this last regulation
as applied to an association or fraternity of working Masons.  It was
intended to prevent the unfair interference of one Operative Freemason
with another, by seeking to wrest employment from him in surreptitious
and underhanded ways.  It is not, even at this day, considered by
craftsmen to be an honourable act, though not forbidden, as it was to
the old Freemasons, by an express statute.

But what can be the meaning of such a law when applied, as it is in the
"Charges" of 1722, to Speculative Freemasons? They have no "Lord's
work" to do, in which they might be supplanted by a rival craftsman.

If the literal meaning of the law were to be accepted, we should verify
the truth of Scripture that it is the letter which killeth.  But if we apply the
symbolic interpretation, which must have been the one given to it by the
Speculative Freemasons, we shall find that the spirit of the old Operative
regulations is still preserved and obeyed b,y all the Grand Lodges in the
world.  It is in fact the very law that applies to and is the foundation of
the well-known and often discussed doctrine of Masonic jurisdiction.

The law as it is normally understood is that no lodge shall interfere with
another lodge in conferring degrees on a candidate; that when he has
received the First degree in any lodge, he becomes, masonically, the
work of that lodge and must there receive the rest of the degrees.  No
other lodge shall be permitted to supplant it, or to take the finishing of
that work out of its hands.  The Apprentice must be passed and raised
in the lodge wherein he was initiated.

Thus the law of Speculative Freemasonry which is everywhere accepted
by the Craft as the rule of courtesy for the government of lodges in their
relation to each other, was evidently founded on the principles of
Operative Freemasonry, taken, in fact, from the law of that older branch
of the Institution and, as it were, spiritualized in its practical application
to the government of the Speculative branch.

Viewed in their literal meaning, it is very evident that the whole of the
"Charges" adopted in the year 1722 by the Grand Lodge of England, just
after its severance from the Operative lodges, are laws which must have
been intended for an association of working Masons.
     
They were the statutes of an Operative guild, and were adopted in the
bulk by the Speculative Freemasons at the time of the separation, to be
subsequently and gradually interpreted in their meaning and modified in
their purpose to suit the Speculative idea.

Other points of emblance and other points of resemblance might be
found on a more minute investigation, but the connection between the
two branches have I think, been sufficiently shown.

The differences have enabled us to give to each association a
personality and an individuality which manifestly separate the one from
the other.  The guild of Operative and the guild of Speculative
Freemasons were and are entirely distinct, in their character and design. 
The parent and the child are not the same, though there will be
resemblances which indicate the common lineage.

Now the resemblances which have been described as existing between
the two Fraternities, while they paved the way for the easy outgrowth of
the one from the other, furnish also the most incontestable evidence of
the influence that was exerted by the guild of medieval Freemasons on
the organization of the Speculative Freemasons who sprang into
existence in England at the beginning of the 18th century.  To use a
Darwinian phrase, the change might be said to have been produced by
a sort of evolution.

In other words, if there had been no guilds of Operative Freemasons,
such as history paints them, from the 10th to the 17th centuries, there
would have been no lodges of Speculative Freemasons in the 18th and
19th centuries.

Thus we establish the truth of the hypothesis which it has been the
object of this work to maintain, that the Freemasonry of the present day
is derived solely, in its primitive organization, from the Building
Corporations of the Middle Ages; and that its rites, its doctrines, and its
laws have suffered no modification except that which naturally resulted
from a change of character when the Operative Fraternity became a
Speculative one.

This is, I think, about the sum and substance and the true solution of the
historical problem which refers to the connection of the Speculative with
the Operative association; of the Freemasons of to-day with the
Freemasons who came from Lombardy and who flourished in the Middle
Ages; of the men whose lodges have now passed into every country
where civilization has extended, and everywhere exerted a powerful
moral influence, with the men who erected monuments of their artistic
skill at Magdeburg, and Strasburg, and Cologne, at Canterbury and
York, at Kilwinning and Melrose.

Our attention must next be directed to the historical events that took
place immediately after the separation in England, and afterward in
Scotland and in other countries - events which make up the narrative of
the rise and progress of Speculative Freemasonry.

To these events the following chapters will be devoted.