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The History of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Chapter 28 - 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.

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