The Speculative Science and the Operative Art.
And now, let us apply this doctrine of symbolism to an investigation of
the nature of a speculative science, as derived from an operative art; for
the fact is familiar to every one that Freemasonry is of two kinds. We
work, it is true, in speculative Masonry only, but our ancient brethren
wrought in both operative and speculative; and it is now well understood
that the two branches are widely apart in design and in character--the one
a mere useful art, intended for the protection and convenience of man and
the gratification of his physical wants, the other a profound science,
entering into abstruse investigations of the soul and a future existence,
and originating in the craving need of humanity to know something that is
above and beyond the mere outward life that surrounds us with its gross
atmosphere here below.[44] Indeed, the only bond or link that unites
speculative and operative Masonry is the symbolism that belongs
altogether to the former, but which, throughout its whole extent, is
derived from the latter.
Our first inquiry, then, will be into the nature of the symbolism which
operative gives to speculative Masonry; and thoroughly to understand
this--to know its origin, and its necessity, and its mode of
application--we must begin with a reference to the condition of a long
past period of time.
Thousands of years ago, this science of symbolism was adopted by the
sagacious priesthood of Egypt to convey the lessons of worldly wisdom and
religious knowledge, which they thus communicated to their disciples.[45]
Their science, their history, and their philosophy were thus concealed
beneath an impenetrable veil from all the profane, and only the few who
had passed through the severe ordeal of initiation were put in possession
of the key which enabled them to decipher and read with ease those mystic
lessons which we still see engraved upon the obelisks, the tombs, and the
sarcophagi, which lie scattered, at this day, in endless profusion along
the banks of the Nile.
From the Egyptians the same method of symbolic instruction was diffused
among all the pagan nations of antiquity, and was used in all the ancient
Mysteries[46] as the medium of communicating to the initiated the esoteric
and secret doctrines for whose preservation and promulgation these
singular associations were formed.
Moses, who, as Holy Writ informs us, was skilled in all the learning of
Egypt, brought with him, from that cradle of the sciences, a perfect
knowledge of the science of symbolism, as it was taught by the priests of
Isis and Osiris, and applied it to the ceremonies with which he invested
the purer religion of the people for whom he had been appointed to
legislate.[47]
Hence we learn, from the great Jewish historian, that, in the construction
of the tabernacle, which gave the first model for the temple at Jerusalem,
and afterwards for every masonic lodge, this principle of symbolism was
applied to every part of it. Thus it was divided into three parts, to
represent the three great elementary divisions of the universe--the land,
the sea, and the air. The first two, or exterior portions, which were
accessible to the priests and the people, were symbolic of the land and
the sea, which all men might inhabit; while the third, or interior
division,--the holy of holies,--whose threshold no mortal dared to cross,
and which was peculiarly consecrated to GOD, was emblematic of heaven, his
dwelling-place. The veils, too, according to Josephus, were intended for
symbolic instruction in their color and their materials. Collectively,
they represented the four elements of the universe; and, in passing, it
may be observed that this notion of symbolizing the universe characterized
all the ancient systems, both the true and the false, and that the remains
of the principle are to be found everywhere, even at this day, pervading
Masonry, which is but a development of these systems. In the four veils of
the tabernacle, the white or fine linen signified the earth, from which
flax was produced; the scarlet signified fire, appropriately represented
by its flaming color; the purple typified the sea, in allusion to the
shell-fish murex, from which the tint was obtained; and the blue, the
color of the firmament, was emblematic of air.[48]
It is not necessary to enter into a detail of the whole system of
religious symbolism, as developed in the Mosaic ritual. It was but an
application of the same principles of instruction, that pervaded all the
surrounding Gentile nations, to the inculcation of truth. The very idea of
the ark itself[49] was borrowed, as the discoveries of the modern
Egyptologists have shown us, from the banks of the Nile; and the
breastplate of the high priest, with its Urim and Thummim,[50] was
indebted for its origin to a similar ornament worn by the Egyptian judge.
The system was the same; in its application, only, did it differ.
With the tabernacle of Moses the temple of King Solomon is closely
connected: the one was the archetype of the other. Now, it is at the
building of that temple that we must place the origin of Freemasonry in
its present organization: not that the system did not exist before, but
that the union of its operative and speculative character, and the mutual
dependence of one upon the other, were there first established.
At the construction of this stupendous edifice--stupendous, not in
magnitude, for many a parish church has since excelled it in size,[51] but
stupendous in the wealth and magnificence of its ornaments--the wise king
of Israel, with all that sagacity for which he was so eminently
distinguished, and aided and counselled by the Gentile experience of the
king of Tyre, and that immortal architect who superintended his workmen,
saw at once the excellence and beauty of this method of inculcating moral
and religious truth, and gave, therefore, the impulse to that symbolic
reference of material things to a spiritual sense, which has ever since
distinguished the institution of which he was the founder.
If I deemed it necessary to substantiate the truth of the assertion that
the mind of King Solomon was eminently symbolic in its propensities, I
might easily refer to his writings, filled as they are to profusion with
tropes and figures. Passing over the Book of Canticles,--that great
lyrical drama, whose abstruse symbolism has not yet been fully evolved or
explained, notwithstanding the vast number of commentators who have
labored at the task,--I might simply refer to that beautiful passage in
the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, so familiar to every Mason as being
appropriated, in the ritual, to the ceremonies of the third degree, and in
which a dilapidated building is metaphorically made to represent the
decays and infirmities of old age in the human body. This brief but
eloquent description is itself an embodiment of much of our masonic
symbolism, both as to the mode and the subject matter.
In attempting any investigation into the symbolism of Freemasonry, the
first thing that should engage our attention is the general purport of the
institution, and the mode in which its symbolism is developed. Let us
first examine it as a whole, before we investigate its parts, just as we
would first view, as critics, the general effect of a building, before we
began to inquire into its architectural details.
Looking, then, in this way, at the institution--coming down to us, as it
has, from a remote age--having passed unaltered and unscathed through a
thousand revolutions of nations--and engaging, as disciples in its school
of mental labor, the intellectual of all times--the first thing that must
naturally arrest the attention is the singular combination that it
presents of an operative with a speculative organization--an art with a
science--the technical terms and language of a mechanical profession with
the abstruse teachings of a profound philosophy.
Here it is before us--a venerable school, discoursing of the deepest
subjects of wisdom, in which sages might alone find themselves
appropriately employed, and yet having its birth and deriving its first
life from a society of artisans, whose only object was, apparently, the
construction of material edifices of stone and mortar.
The nature, then, of this operative and speculative combination, is the
first problem to be solved, and the symbolism which depends upon it is the
first feature of the institution which is to be developed.
Freemasonry, in its character as an operative art, is familiar to every
one. As such, it is engaged in the application of the rules and principles
of architecture to the construction of edifices for private and public
use--houses for the dwelling-place of man, and temples for the worship of
Deity. It abounds, like every other art, in the use of technical terms,
and employs, in practice, an abundance of implements and materials which
are peculiar to itself.
Now, if the ends of operative Masonry had here ceased,--if this technical
dialect and these technical implements had never been used for any other
purpose, nor appropriated to any other object, than that of enabling its
disciples to pursue their artistic labors with greater convenience to
themselves,--Freemasonry would never have existed. The same principles
might, and in all probability would, have been developed in some other
way; but the organization, the name, the mode of instruction, would all
have most materially differed.
But the operative Masons, who founded the order, were not content with
the mere material and manual part of their profession: they adjoined to
it, under the wise instructions of their leaders, a correlative branch of
study.
And hence, to the Freemason, this operative art has been symbolized in
that intellectual deduction from it, which has been correctly called
Speculative Masonry. At one time, each was an integrant part of one
undivided system. Not that the period ever existed when every operative
mason was acquainted with, or initiated into, the speculative science.
Even now, there are thousands of skilful artisans who know as little of
that as they do of the Hebrew language which was spoken by its founder.
But operative Masonry was, in the inception of our history, and is, in
some measure, even now, the skeleton upon which was strung the living
muscles, and tendons, and nerves of the speculative system. It was the
block of marble--rude and unpolished it may have been--from which was
sculptured the life-breathing statue.[52]
Speculative Masonry (which is but another name for Freemasonary in its
modern acceptation) may be briefly defined as the scientific application
and the religious consecration of the rules and principles, the language,
the implements and materials of operative Masonry to the veneration of
God, the purification of the heart, and the inculcation of the dogmas of a
religious philosophy.