It is said that a building is ready to crumble when you can see its
foundations. In that regard, masonry is imperishable; because for a long time
it has been agreed and repeated that its origin is lost in the dawn of time.
Its temple has time for duration and the universe for space. An instrument of
civilization, that dates from the first civilized people, Masonry proceeds with
art, its means are sure, its term remains unknown until one has arrived at it.
It has as a basis the gratitude towards the first Being and the study of
nature; as appeal and as a veil, mystery; as a key, allegory; as a bond, morality;
as a goal, the perfection and happiness of humankind; and as result, good
actions.
Working towards the emancipation of human intelligence, and wanting to escape
the shadowy suspicions of civil authority and sacerdotal intolerance of all
ages, it has had to surround itself in mystery, precautions and often pointless
ceremonies. Always campaigning to break down the obstacles that are opposed to
the progress of enlightenment, it has not always had the leisure to build,
because of the silence and precautions that have accompanied its march through
the centuries; perhaps now we are arriving at a period where its theories will
in part be realized. Villains have said,
divide and conquer, the first masons said unite to resist; and, under the allegory of the immaterial temple
erected to the Great Architect of the Universe by the wise of all climates, and
which columns, symbols of strength and wisdom, are everywhere crowned with the
pomegranates of friendship.
Masonry is comprised of the elite of generous and beneficient
people from every nation, taken from all
social classes. Ignoring distinctions of pre-eminence, it only recognizes those
that shine through talents and the virtue of perseverance in a common work is
the condition of its existence. A body does not exist without a soul, a society
without a fundamental principle of association, and so masonry presents by its
affiliations a universal hierarchy based on fraternity, liberty, and equality.
The words liberty, equality used by our lodges have a meaning that is foreign
to politics, and are purely moral. The liberty of the masons is the reasoned
obedience which is opposed to passive obedience, which is slavery.Without equality,
masonry falls into inertia; but it is not that monstrous equality, daughter of
anarchy, that only brings destructive licence. The regeneration of primitive
equality, approved by reason and demanded by social ties, is one of the
fundamental principles of its institution, its indestructible principle.
Moreover, masonry never gets involved in questions of government or
civil and religious legislation and, while guiding its members towards the
perfection of all the sciences, it positively excludes, in its lodges, two,
although the most beautiful, politics and theology, because those two sciences
divided people and cultures which Masonry constantly strives to unite. Amongst
the social confederations and in the shadow of political governments, it founded
a confederation of people that established a universal government, always even and
peaceful, and which was maintained without coercive laws. It captivates the
spirit and the heart by gentleness and the wisdom of its maxims, which are
based in the love of humanity. Admitting any virtuous individual to share its
benefits, and drawing its members from all nations, friend or enemy, it makes
its empire universal.
The rich learn the generous aversion to gold; the military, that they
are more fit for loving and protecting people than for destroying them; the
politicians, that customs, opinions, and patriotism, and not armies, are the
force of States; but that there is no bond without trust, and no trust without
just, impartial, and irrevocable laws for all; despots and those inclined to
despotism, that the equal to the equal cannot be master of their equal, and
those who are obliged to enforce laws are themselves under those laws;
citizens, that they must be left to their own devices, to their own merit so
that everyone, on their own, can become what they can be. Masons, that they
are, in Masonry and in the world, but students of the law; that they cannot nor
must they change it; they need only desire it clear and formal, so that
it will never need commentary or interpretation, and finally the high
initiates, that they must derive from Masonic morality that same advantage that
Aristotle was said to have derived from philosophy, and made him do, without
being ordered, what others do only through fear of the laws.
When the Egyptian priests said All
for the people, nothing by the people, they were right when a people is
ignorant; the truth must only be told to good people; but with an enlightened
people, that maxim, that formed the basis of the twofold Egyptian doctrine and
was perpetuated in Europe until the seventeenth century, is absurd. We have
seen in our time, All by the people,
nothing for the people, a false and dangerous system. The true maxim is
this: All for the people and with the
people. It is applicable today. (pp. 17-22)
Masonry is not a
religion. Those who make it a religious belief falsify and distort it. The
Brahman, the Jew, the Muslim, the Christian, the Protestant, that have their
religion sanctioned by the laws, the times, and the climates must conserve it,
and their cannot be two religions because the social and sacred laws
appropriate for the needs, customs and prejudices of whatever country, are
human products. Masonry, whose inspirations are of high import, is the summary of divine
and human wisdom, that is, of all the perfections that can bring people the
closest to Divinity.
It is a universal
morality that fits all inhabitants of all climates, people of all cults. Like
them, it does not receive the law, it gives it, because its morality, one and
unchangeing, is more extensive and more universal than those of local religions,
always exclusive, because it classifies individuals as pagans, idolaters,
sectarian schismatics, infidels while Masonry only sees, in all those
religionaries but people, brothers and sisters to which it opens its temple to
free them from the prejudices of their countries, of the mistakes of the
religions of their ancestors, by bringing them to love and help one another:
because Masons deplore and flee error, but neither hate nor persecute it. (p. 37)
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