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The History of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Chapter 37 - The Death of Operative and the Birth of Speculative Freemasonry

GROWTH, says Dr. South, "is progress, and all progress designs, and tends to the acquisition of something, which the growing thing or person is not yet possessed of."

This apothegm of the learned divine is peculiarly applicable to the history of that system of Speculative Freemasonry which, springing into existence at the "Apple Tree tavern," in London, at the close of the second decade of the 18th century, made such progress in the acquisition of new knowledge as to completely change its character soon after the beginning of the third decade.

We have seen that it was derived from an older institution whose objects were altogether practical, and whose members were always engaged in the building of public edifices. But there were other members of the guild who were not Operative Masons, but who had been admitted to the privileges of membership for the sake of the prestige and influence which the Fraternity expected to obtain from their learning, their wealth, or their rank.

These unprofessional brethren, who were at first called Theoretic Masons or Honorary members, but who afterward assumed the title of Speculative Freemasons, began even in the very outset of what they were pleased, most inaccurately, to call a Revival, to exercise an unexpected and detrimental influence on the Operative Guild.

This influence was so exerted that Operative Freemasonry was gradually extruded from the important place which it had so long occupied, and finally, in and after the year 1723, ceased entirely to exist.

The gradual transformation from Operative to Speculative Free masonry is one of the most interesting points in the history of the institution, and is well worth our careful consideration.

Hardly more wonderful is the change from the insignificant acorn to the majestic oak, than was this expansion of a guild of workingmen, limited in their design and their numbers, into a Fraternity of moralists and philosophers, whose object was the elevation of their fellow-men, and whose influence has extended into every quarter of the civilized world.

Operative Freemasonry, which flourished in the Middle Ages and long after as an association of skillful builders who were in the possession of architectural secrets unknown to the ruder workmen of the same craft, and who were bound to each other by a fraternal tie, no longer exists. Like the massive cathedrals which it constructed, it has crumbled into decay.

But Speculative Freemasonry, erected on its ruins, lives and will always live, a perpetual memorial in its symbols and its technical language of the source whence it sprang.

Let us inquire how the one died and how the other was born.

When on the 24th day of June in the year 1717 certain Freemasons of London met at the "Goose and Gridiron Tavern" and carried into effect the arrangement made in the previous February, by organizing a Grand Lodge, it is not to be presumed that any other idea had at that time entered their minds than that of consolidating the four Operative Lodges of which they were members into one body. The motives that actuated them were to produce a stronger union among the Craft than had previously existed, each lodge having hitherto been independent and isolated, and also to enlarge their numbers and to increase their influence, by throwing the door more widely open to the admission of gentlemen who were not otherwise connected with the Craft.

The fact is that the fashion then prevailed to a remarkable extent in London for men of like sentiments or of the same occupation to form themselves into clubs. The Freemasons, both Operative and Theoretic, in thus uniting, were doing nothing else than following the fashion, and were really instituting a club of a more elevated character and under a different name.

Hence the consolidation of the four Lodges was called a Grand Lodge, a title and an organization which had previously been unknown to English Freemasonry. (1)

(1) It is not worth while to repeat the argument so often advanced, and by which Masonic scholars have satisfied themselves that no Grand Lodge ever existed in England before the year 1717.

There was no thought, at that early period, by those who were engaged in the organization, of changing to any greater extent the character of the society. It was still to be a Guild of Operative Freemasons, but consisting more largely in proportion than ever before of members who were not professional workmen.

"At the revival in 1717," says Dr. Oliver, "the philosophy of the Order was seldom considered, and our facetious brethren did not think it worth their while to raise any question respecting the validity of our legends; nor did they concern themselves much about the truth of our traditions. Their principal object was pass a pleasant hour in company with a select assemblage of brethren; and that purpose being attained, they waived all inquiry into the truth or probability of either the one or the other." (1)

The scanty records of the transaction, which Dr. Anderson, our only authority, has supplied, make no mention of those distinguished persons who afterward took a prominent part in affecting the transmutation of Operative into Speculative Freemasonry, and who were indeed the founders of the latter system.

It is said, though I know not on what authentic authority, that Dr. Desaguliers, the corypheus of the band of reformers, had been admitted five years before into the honorary membership of the Lodge which met at the sign of the "Rummer and Grapes," and which was one of the four that united in the formation of a Grand Lodge.

If this be true, and there are good reasons for believing it, it can not be doubted that he was present at the organization of the Grand Lodge, and that he took an active part in the proceedings of the meetings both in February and in June, 1717.

Neither the names of Payne nor of Anderson, who subsequently became the collaborators of Desaguliers in the formation of Speculative Freemasonry, are mentioned in the brief records of those meetings. If they were present or connected with the organization, the fact is not recorded. Payne first appears in June, 1718, when he was elected Grand Master; Desaguliers in 1719, when he was elected to the same office. This would tend to show that both had been for some years in the Fraternity, since new-comers would hardly have been chosen for those positions.

(1) "Discrepancies of Freemasonry," p. 13.

It is not so certain that Anderson was a Freemason in 1717. It is not improbable that he was soon afterward admitted, for in September, 1721, he acquired such a reputation in the society as to have been selected by the Duke of Montagu, who was then the Grand Master, to digest the old Gothic Constitutions, a task of great importance.

Of one thing, however, there can be no doubt, that no one of these three persons, who were afterward so distinguished for their services in Speculative Freemasonry, had in 1717 been prominently placed before the Craft. In the selection of an officer to preside over the newly established Grand Lodge, the choice fell, not on one of them, but on a comparatively insignificant person, Mr. Anthony Sayer. Of his subsequent Masonic career, we only know that he was appointed by Desaguliers one of the Grand Wardens. He is also recorded as having been the Senior Warden at one of the four original Lodges after he had passed the Grand Mastership. He afterward fell into financial difficulties, and having received relief from the Grand Lodge, we hear no more of him in the history of Freemasonry.

It is to Desaguliers, to Payne, and to Anderson that we are to attribute the creation of that change in the organization of the system of English Freemasonry which gradually led to the dissolution of the Operative element, and the substitution in its place of one that was purely Speculative. The three were members of the same lodge, were men of education, (1) were interested in the institution, as is shown by their regular attendance on the meetings of the Grand Lodge until near the middle of the century, and were all zealously engaged in the investigation of the old records of the institution, so as to fit them for the prosecution of the peaceful revolution which they were seeking to accomplish.

Among the multitudinous books contributed by Dr. Oliver to the literature of Freemasonry, is one entitled The Reversions of

(1) John Robison, a professor of Natural Philosophy in Edinburgh, wrote and published in 1797 an anti-masonic work entitled "Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Government in Europe," etc., the falsehoods in which, unfortunately for the author's reputation, were extended by French and Dutch translations. In this book he says of Anderson and Desaguliers that they were "two persons of little education and of low manners, who had aimed at little more than making a pretext, not altogether contemptible, for a convivial meeting." (P. 71.) This is a fair specimen of Robison's knowledge and judgment.

a Square, which contains much information concerning the condition of the ritual and the progress of the institution during the early period now under consideration. Unfortunately, there is such a blending of truth and fiction in this work that it is difficult, on many occasions, to separate the one from the other.

It is but fair, however, to admit the author's claim that his statements are not to be accounted fabulous and without authority because its contents are communicated through an imaginary medium," for, as he avers, he is in possession of authentic vouchers for every transaction.

These vouchers consisted principally of the contents of a masonic diary kept by his father, who had been initiated in 1784, and was acquainted with a distinguished Freemason who had been a contemporary of Desaguliers. With this brother the elder Oliver had held many conversations, as well as with others of the 18th century. The substance of these conversations he had committed to his diary, and this came into the possession of his son, and is the basis on which he composed his Revelations of a Square.

If Dr. Oliver had given in marginal notes or otherwise special references to the diary and to other sources which he used as authorities for his statements, I do not hesitate to say that The Revelations of a Square would, by these proofs of authenticity, be the most valuable of all his historical works.

Still, I am disposed to accept generally the statements of the work as authentic, and if there be sometimes an appearance of the fabulous, it can not be doubted that beneath the fiction there is always a considerable substratum of truth.

According to Oliver, Desaguliers had at that early period determined to renovate the Order, which was falling into decay, and had enlisted several active and zealous brethren in the support of his plans. Among these were Sayer and Payne, the firsf and second Grand Masters, and Elliott and Lamball, the first two Wardens, with several others whose names have not elsewhere been transmitted to posterity. (1)

There is nothing unreasonable nor improbable in this statement. It is very likely that Desaguliers and a few of his friends had seen and deplored the decaying condition of the four lodges in London.

(1) "Revelations of a Square," ch. i., p. 5.

It is also likely that their first thought was that a greater degree of success and prosperity might be secured if the lodges would abandon to some extent the independence and isolation of their condition, and would establish a bond of union by their consolidation under a common head.

Whatever views might have been secretly entertained by Desaguliers and a few friends in his confidence, he could not have openly expressed to the Craft any intention to dissolve the Operative guild and to establish a Speculative society in its place. Had such an intention been even suspected by the purely Operative Freemasons who composed part of the membership of the four lodges, it can not well be doubted that they would have declined to support a scheme which looked eventually to the destruction of their Craft, and consequently the organization of a Grand Lodge would never have been attempted.

But I am not willing to charge Desaguliers with such duplicity. He was honest in his desire to renovate the institution of Operative freemasonry, and he believed that the first step toward that renovation would be the consolidation of the lodges. He expected that an imperfect code of laws would be improved, and perhaps that a rude and unpolished ritual might be expanded and refined.

Farther, he was not, it may be supposed, prepared at that time to go. Whatever modifications he subsequently made by the invention of degrees which at once established a new system were the results of afterthoughts suggested to his mind by a sequence of circumstances.

That the change from Operative to Speculative Freemasonry was of gradual growth, we know from the authentic records that are before us.

In the year 1717 we find an Operative guild presenting itself in cold simplicity of organization as a body of practical workmen to whom were joined some honorary members, who were not Craftsmen; with an imperfect and almost obsolete system of by-laws; with but one form of admission; with secrets common to all classes, and which were of little or no importance, for the architectural and geometrical secrets of the medieval Craft had been lost; and finally with an insignificant and unpolished ritual, a mere catechism for wandering brethren to test their right to the privileges and the hospitality of the Fraternity.

Six years after, in 1723, this association of workmen has disappeared, and in its place we find a new society which has been erected on the foundations of that edifice which has crumbled into ruins; a society that has repudiated all necessary knowledge of the art of building; to which workmen may be admitted, not because they are workmen, but because they are men of good character and of exemplary conduct; with a well- framed code of laws for its government; with three degrees, with three forms of initiation, and with secrets exclusively appropriated to each; and with rituals which, produced by cultured minds, present the germs of a science of symbolism.

Operative Freemasonry no longer wields the scepter; it has descended from its throne into its grave, and Speculative Freemasonry, as a living form, has assumed the vacant seat.

That the transmutation was gradually accomplished we know, for six years were occupied in its accomplishment, and the records of that period, brief and scanty as they are, unerringly indicate the steps of its gentle progress.

From June, 1717, to June, 1718, under the administration of Anthony Sayer, Gentleman, as Grand Master, there are no signs of a contemplated change. He was not, if negative evidence may be accepted as the index of his character, the man to inaugurate so bold an enterprise. His efforts seem to have been directed solely to the strengthening and confirming of the union of the Operative lodges by consulting at stated periods with their officers.

From June, 1718, to June, 1719, George Payne presided over the Craft. Now we discover the first traces of a sentiment tending toward the improvement of the institution. Old manuscripts and records were anxiously sought for that the ancient usages of the Craft might be learned. In preparing for the future it was expedient to know something of the past.

The result of this collation of old documents was the compilation of the "Charges of a Freemason," appended to the first edition of the Book of Constitutions. The composition of this code is generally attributed to Anderson. Without positive testimony on this point, I am inclined to assign the authorship to Payne. He was a noted antiquary, and well fitted by the turn of his mind to labors of that kind.

Desaguliers was Grand Master from June, 1719, to June, 1720, His administration is made memorable by the first great change in the system.

An examination of the old manuscripts which had been collected by Payne must have shown that the body of the Craft had always been divided into two classes, Apprentices and Fellows, who were distinguished by the possession of certain privileges as workmen peculiar to each.

In the lodge they assembled together and partook equally of its counsels. But the prominence of the Fellows in rank as a class of workmen and in numbers as constituting the principal membership of the four old Lodges, very probably suggested to the mind of Desaguliers the advantages that would result from a more distinct separation of the Fellows from the Apprentices, not by a recognition of the higher rank of the former as workmen, because if a Speculative system was to be established, a qualification derived from skill in the practical labors of the Craft would cease to be of avail; but a separation by granting to each class a peculiar form of initiation, with its accompanying secrets.

The fact, also, that in some of the old manuscripts, which were then called the "Gothic Constitutions," copies of which had been produced as the result of the call of Grand Master Payne, there were two distinct sets of "Charges," one for the Masters and Fellows and one for the Apprentices, would have strengthened the notion that there should be a positive and distinct separation of the two classes as the first preparatory step toward the development of the new system.

This step was taken by Desaguliers soon after his installation as Grand Master. Accordingly, in 1719, he modified the one degree or form of initiation or admission which had been hitherto common to all ranks of Craftsmen.

One part of the degree (but the word is not precisely correct) he confined to the Apprentices, and made it the working degree of the lodge. Another part he enlarged and improved, transferred to it the most important secret, the MASON WORD, and made it a degree to be conferred only on Fellow-Crafts in the Grand Lodge; while the degree of the Apprentices thus modified continued as of old to be conferred on new candidates in the lodge.

Thus it was that in the year 1719 the first alteration in the old Operative system took place, and two degrees, the First and Second, were created.

The Entered Apprentice now ceased to be a youth bound for a certain number of years to a Master for the purpose of learning the mysteries of the trade. The term henceforth denoted one who had been initiated into the secrets of the First degree of Speculative Freemasonry, a meaning which it has ever since retained.

In former times, under the purely Operative system, the Masters of the Work, those appointed to rule over the migratory lodges and to superintend the Craftsmen in their hours of labor, were necessarily selected from the Fellows, because of their greater skill, acquired from experience and their freedom from servitude.

But when the Theoretic Freemasons, the Honorary members, began to be the dominant party, in consequence of their increased number, their higher social position, and their superior education, it was plainly seen that any claim to privileges which was derived from greater skill in the practical art of building, from the expiration of indentures and from the acquisition of independence and the right to go and come at will, would soon be abolished.

The Operative members only could maintain a distinction between themselves founded on such claims. The Theoretic members were, so far as regarded skill in building or freedom from the servitude of indentures, on an equal footing, everyone with all the others.

But Desaguliers and his collaborators were anxious to retain as many as they could of the old usages of the Craft. They were not prepared nor willing to obliterate all marks of identity between the old and the new system. Nor could they afford, in the infancy of their enterprise, to excite the opposition of the Operative members by an open attack on the ancient customs of the Craft.

Hence they determined to retain the distinction which had always existed between Fellows and Apprentices, but to found that distinction, not on the possession of superior skill in the art of building, but in the possession of peculiar secrets.

The Second degree having been thus established, it became necessary to secure the privileges of the Fellows. These in the old system had inured to them by usage and the natural workings of the trade; they were now to be perpetuated and maintained in the new system by positive law.

Accordingly, in the following year, Payne made that compilation or code of laws for the government of the new society which is known as the "General Regulations," and which having been approved by the Grand Lodge, was inserted in the Book of Constitutions.

It has been already abundantly shown that the whole tenor of these "Regulations" was to make the Fellow-Crafts the possessors of the highest degree then known, and to constitute them the sole legislators of the society (except in the alteration of the "Regulations") and the body from which its officers were to be chosen.

Thus the first step in the separation of Speculative from Operative Freemasonry was accomplished by the establishment of two degrees of initiation instead of one, and by making the Fellow-Crafts distinct from and superior to the Apprentices, not by a higher skill in an Operative art, but by their attainment to greater knowledge in a Speculative science.

For four years this new system prevailed, and Speculative Freemasonry in England was divided into two degrees. The system, in fact, existed up to the very day of the final approval, in January, 1723, of the Book of Constitutions.

The First degree was appropriated to the initiation of candidates in the particular, or, as we now call them, the subordinate lodges.

The Second degree conferred in the Grand Lodge was given to those few who felt the aspiration for higher knowledge, or who had been elected as Masters of lodges or as officers in the Grand Lodge.

The Operative members submitted to the change, and continued to take an interest in the new society, receiving in proportion to their numbers a fair share of the offices in the Grand Lodge.

But the progress of change and innovation was not to cease at this point. The inventive genius of Desaguliers was not at rest, and urged onward, not only by his ritualistic taste and his desire to elevate the institution into a higher plane than would result by the force of surrounding circumstances, he contemplated a further advance.

"Circumstances," says Goethe, in his Wilhelm Meister, "move backward and forward before us and ceaselessly finish the web, which we ourselves have in part spun and put upon the loom."

Desaguliers, with the co-operation of other Theoretic Freemasons. had united the four Operative Lodges into a Grand Lodge, a body until then unknown to the Craft; he had established a form of government with which they were equally unfamiliar; he had abolished the old degree, and inventedtwo new ones; and yet it appears that he did not consider the system perfect.

He contemplated a further development of the ritual by the addition of another degree. In this design he was probably, to some extent, controlled by surrounding circumstances.

The Fellow-Crafts had been invested with important privileges not granted to the Entered Apprentices, and the possession of these privileges was accompanied by the acquisition of a higher esoteric knowledge.

Among the privileges which had been acquired by the Fellow Crafts were those of election to office in the Grand Lodge and of Mastership in a subordinate lodge.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that the Fellows who had been elevated to these positions in consequence of their possession of a new degree were desirous, especially the Master of the lodges, to be farther distinguished from both the Apprentices and the Fellowv Crafts by the acquisition of a still higher grade.

Besides this motive, the existence of which, though not attested by any positive authority, is nevertheless very presumable, another and a more philosophic one must have actuated Desaguliers in the further development of his system of degrees.

He had seen that the old Operative Craft was divided into three classes or ranks of workmen. To the first and secede of these classes he had appropriated a degree peculiar to each. But the third and highest class was still without one. Thus was his system made incongruous and incomplete.

To give it perfection it was necessary that a Third degree should be invented, to be the property of the third class, or the Masters.

It is possible that Desaguliers had, in his original plan, contemplated the composition of three degrees, or it may have been that the willing acceptance of the First and Second by the Craft had suggested the invention of a Third degree.

Be this as it may, for it is all a matter of mere surmise and not of great importance, it is very certain that the invention and composition of the ritual of so philosophic a degree could not have been the labor of a day or a week or any brief period of time.

It involved much thought, and months must have beer occupied in the mental labor of completing it. It could not have been finished before the close of the year 1722. If it had, it would have been presented to the Grand Lodge before the final approval of the Book of Constitutions, and would then have received that prominent place in Speculative Freemasonry which in that book and in the "General Regulations" is assigned to the degree of Fellow-Craft.

But at that time the degree was so far completed as to make it certain that it would be ready for presentation to the Grand Lodge and to the Craft in the course of the following year.

But as the Book of Constitutions was finally approved in January, 1723, and immediately afterward printed and published, Desaguliers being desirous of keeping the new degree under his own control for a brief period, until its ritual should be well understood and properly worked, anticipated the enactment of a law on the subject, and interpolated the passage in the "General Regulations" which required the Second and Third degrees to be conferred in the Grand Lodge only.

Logical inferences and documentary evidence bring us unavoidably to the conclusion that the following was the sequence of events which led to the establishment of the present ritual of three degrees.

In 1717 the Grand Lodge, at its organization, received the one comprehensive degree or ritual which had been common to all classes of the Operative Freemasons.

This they continued to use, with no modification, for the space of two years.

In 1719 the ritual of this degree was disintegrated and divided into two parts. One part was appropriated to the Entered Apprentices; the other, with some augmentations, to the Fellow-Craft.

From that time until the year 1723 the system of Speculative Freemasonry, which was practiced by the Grand Lodge, consisted of two degrees. That of Fellow-Craft was deemed the summit of Freemasonry, and there was nothing esoteric beyond it.

On this system of two degrees the Book of Constitutions, the "General Regulations," and the "Manner of Constituting a new Lodge" were framed. When these were published the Craft knew nothing of a Third degree.

In the year 1723 Dr. Desaguliers perfected the system by presenting the Grand Lodge with the Third degree, which he had recently invented.

This degree was accepted by the Grand Lodge, and being introduced into the ritual, from that time forth Ancient Craft Masonry, as it has since been called, has consisted of these three degrees. (1)

There can be little doubt that this radical change from the old system was not pleasing to the purely Operative Freemasons who were members of the Grand Lodge. Innovation has always been repugnant to the Masonic mind. Then, as now, changes in the ritual and the introduction of new degrees must have met with much opposition from those who were attached traditionally to former usages and were unwilling to abandon the old paths.

From 1717 to 1722 we find, by Anderson's records, that the Operatives must have taken an active part in the transactions of the Grand Lodge, for during that period they received a fair proportion of the offices. No one of them, however, had been elected to the chief post of Grand Master, which was always bestowed upon a Speculative.

But from the year 1723, when, as it has been shown, the Speculative system had been perfected, we lose all sight of the Operatives in any further proceedings of the society. It is impossible to determine whether this was the result of their voluntary withdrawal or whether the Speculatives no longer desired their co-operation. But the evidence is ample that from the year 1723 Speculative Freemasonry has become the dominant, and, indeed, the only feature of the Grand Lodge.

Bro. Robert Freeke Gould, who has written an elaborate sketch of the history of those times, makes on this point the following remark, which sustains the present views:

"In 1723, however, a struggle for supremacy, between the Operatives and the Speculatives, had set in, and the former, from that time, could justly complain of their total supercession in the offices of the Society." (2)

It is, then, in the year 1723 that we must place the birth of Speculative Freemasonry. Operative Masonry, the mere art of building, that which was practiced by the "Rough Layers" of England and the wall builders or Murer of Germany, still remains and will always remain as one of the useful arts.

(1) The dismemberment of the Third degree, which is said to have subsequently taken place to form a fourth degree, has nothing to do with this discussion. (2) "History of the Four Old Lodges," p. 34.

But Operative Freemasonry, the descendant and the representative of the mediaeval guilds, ceased then and forever to exist.

It died, but it left its sign in the implements of the Craft which were still preserved in the new system, but applied to spiritual uses; in the technical terms of the art which gave rise to a symbolic language; and in the ineffaceable memorials which show that the new association of Speculative Freemasonry has been erected on the foundations of a purely Operative Society.

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