The Present Position Of Masonic History And Criticism.

qualities of the mortal mind , in all philosophical , theosophical , historical , conjectural researches , there is always a tendency to exaggeration ; and the reaction brought about by actual and sterner criticism sometimes results in Nihilism and Iconoclasm ruthless and destructive . Formerly our writers accepted everything without enquiry , without verification , without collation of any kindand the consequence was a repetition of unnecessary platitudes

, or identical assertions , which , whether on one side or the other , gave Masonic writers , and un-Masonic commentators too , the character of being " panegyrists or calumniators , each equally mendacious . " See Hallam passim . Some time back a class of students rejected with noble scorn the whole " outcome " of the romantic and sentimental Masonic school , because neither originalreliableor accurate ; now the critical school is falling into a vein of

, , deliberate scepticism , and is proclaiming , with the same happy disregard of evidence ( such as it is ) , and the same tendency to hopeless dogmatism , that " things are because they are , " and that they believe nothing , accept nothing , realize nothing , except what suits or squares with their own pronounced views of what Masonic history is and should be . Hence we are still in great danger of a realistic uncritical school , which will do as much harm

to true Masonic history as did the romantic and sentimental school now discredited and disavowed . Let me illustrate my meaning by what I may term the " battle of the grades . " For some time past there has been a tendency to reduce everything to a mere matter-of-fact 1717 creation theory ; and we doubt and deprecate , if not actually give up all pre-1717 Masonry . Indeed , that able Mason , Bro . Gould , seems to limit the arrangements of our present system as between 1717 and 1721 .

Payne ' s Regulations of 1721 , and " The Grand Mystery " of 1721 , are in the way , which allude clearly to an earlier similar form as existing "defacto" ; but unless I have totally misapprehended Bro . Gould ' s meaning , he would assume , as his " petitio principii , " that the regulations of 1721 are only the regulations of 1721 " ad hoc "; that "The Grand Mystery" is of no authority ; that the earlier claims are mere verbiage and surplusage ; but that as no doubt the Masons of 1717 had some form of ritual between 1717 and 1721 that was expanded

, practically as we now have it . And here it is that I wish , as a careful Masonic student of some years , to raise my humble voice of warning . The question of degrees is a very difficult one "per se , " and cannot be settled with a few off-hand sentences , as a good deal depends upon it in respect of the whole truth of Masonic history . There are two schools as regards the degrees . The one school looks on

degrees as modern purely , and seems inclined to accept Bro . D . M . Lyon ' s view as to one degree only , as before 1721 . The other school believes that the triplicate form of degree has always existed , not perhaps exactly as now , but in some form distinct and definite . The present Scottish system of three decrees Bro . D . M . Lyon ascribes to Desaguliers . If that be so , I for one see no use in carrying on the contest any further . I cannot think that it will repay any

careful , thoughtful , or intellectual student to waste his time in researches which only serve to shew that Freemasonry is the " outcome" of convivial and social clubs of 1717 , and which have slavishly , nay childishly , adopted the customs , the legends , the terminology , the dross , the slang of certain obsolete and decayed operative guilds . "The game is not worth the candle . " But truth , though it is said to lie at the bottom of the well , as often lies between two extremes , and I , therefore , for one , after many years of patient study , feel sure that there is a safer and more critical view for us all to adopt . And it is this .

Undoubtedly , no one could contend safel y that the old Masons before 1717 had the degrees exactly as we have them now , with identicall y the same teaching , landmarks , and formulas . Anderson , who first uses the word