The Age Of Ereemasonry And Masonic Historiography.

greater number of competent brethren in all Germany for the purpose of historical investigation . These labours suddenly threw quite a new light on Anderson — that oldest source of Masonic historiography . In the wake

of these men follows the author of this paper in his History of Freemasonry , in which work all the well ascertained facts and all the results of the researches of earlier and more recent times have for the first time been critically

reexamined and worked up into a systematic whole . He reads attentively all the new ' publications ; but all that comes to light only confirms the result arrived at by the common enquiry , and can only correct some minor details .

This result consists above all , hi the unassailable fact that the Freemasonic Crait in the modern sense is a work of its founders , the Bros . Payne , Desagulier and Anderson ; for before the year 1717 there were indeed Lodges and Freemasons , and several chief Lodges resembling our Grand Lodges , but our

ceremonies at the reception , our rituals and our constitutions are essentially modern , although , no doubt , the ancient customs , historically handed down , afforded a model , and various precedents . New , above all , is the whole

intellectual element of Freemasonry , which is indeed its principal feature ; new is the universal basis ; new the system of world-wide moral principles ; new its cosmopolitan tendency and organisation ; new , in a word is all that lifts

freemasonry above the narrow boundaries of a working Mason ' s guild and makes it the veritable antipodes of the Eoman church with its hierarchy and absolutism and a representative of atrue Catholism , based on the moral freedom

of the individual , rendering a steady progress possible , and uniting all mankind in freedom . Freemasonry , in this sense , has existed only since the Midsummer of 1717 , when the four London working Mason ' s lodges united into a Craft of speculative Freemasonry , and in this fact , too , lies the germ of modern historiography ; for it confirms , above

all , the close connexion between speculative and operative Freemasonry , which further results ( 1 ) from a comparison of the documents , the laws and customs of both , ( 2 ) from the historical sketch of Anderson hi the constitution book of

1723 , the oldest source of modern history . A comparison of the ancient ( German and English ) operative Masons' constitution with that of the present Craft , especially of the old charges , confirms not only the connexion between the two associations , but especially , too , the fact that the Freemasonic Craft has taken

the place of the former . The rites of the present Freemasony , though enlarged , purified and essentially remodelled , are nevertheless , in their fundamental features , formed after customs and catechisms of the ancient

fraternity of Stonemasons , and what results from the facts and records is confirmed too by Anderson , whose history of Freemasonry is essentially a history of architecture and a reproduction of the legends of the

fraternity . Freemasonry then , originated in the fraternity of the English Free Stonemasons , which again is identical with the fraternity ; of the German Stonemason , and these partly inherit its customs and

institutions , and partly received them from the monasteries , and when at the heigts of their prosperity in the middle ages remedied them in a spirit of their own .

If one chooses to insist upon a connexion existing between all the trades and corporations , no objection will be raised , for the entire history of mankind is connected , and particularly those unions which , like the association of

builders , are founded on geometry . But the history of Freemasonry is not at the same time a history of building corporations , though analogies and relations may certainly exist . So far from in a purely scientific question ,

allowing patriotism to influence my decision , I willingly and candidly admit that England has a greater share in the