SCHOOLS OF MASONIC PHILOSOPHY
The Builder - 1923
BY BRO. H. L. HAYWOOD
LECTURES on the "Philosophy of Freemasonry" by Roscoe
Pound, of the Law School of Harvard University, is the book
wherewith to begin a study of the Philosophy of Masonry in a
technical and systematic manner. The book is not bulky, and
the language is simple, so that a novice need have no
difficulties in reading it. I value this little manual so highly that
I shall bring this series of studies of the Great Teachings of
Freemasonry to conclusion by giving a rapid review of its
contents, the same to be followed by reference to two or
three schools not canvassed by Brother Pound, and by a
suggestion of my own concerning Masonic philosophy.
The eighteenth century in England was a period of
comparative quiet, despite the blow-up that came at the end
of it, and men ceased very generally to quarrel over
fundamental matters. It was a period of formalism when
more attention was paid to manner than to matter. Also, and
this is most important, it was everywhere believed that
Knowledge is the greatest thing in the world and must
therefore be the one aim of all endeavor.
William Preston was a true child of his century in these
things, and he gave to Freemasonry a typical eighteenth
century interpretation. This is especially seen in our second
degree, most of which came from his hands, or at least took
shape under his influence, for in that ceremony knowledge is
made the great object of Masonic endeavor. The lectures
consist of a series of courses in instruction in the arts and
sciences after the fashion of school-room discourses. "For
what does Masonry exist? What is the end and purpose of
the order? Preston would answer: To diffuse light, that is, to
spread knowledge among men." In criticizing this position
Brother Pound has the following provocative words to say:
"Preston of course was wrong knowledge is not the sole end
of Masonry. But in another way Preston was right.
Knowledge is one end - at least one proximate end - and it is
not the least of those by which human perfection shall be
attained. Preston's mistakes were the mistakes of his
century - the mistake of faith in the finality of what was
known to that era, and the mistake of regarding correct
formal presentation as the one sound method of instruction.
But what shall be said of the greater mistake we make today,
when we go on reciting his lectures - shorn and abridged till
they mean nothing to the hearer - and gravely presenting
them as a system of Masonic knowledge? ... I hate to think
that all initiative is gone from our Order and that no new
Preston will arise to take up his conception of knowledge as
an end of the Fraternity and present to the Masons of today
the knowledge which they ought to possess."
II
Of a very different cast, both as to intellectual equipment and
moral nature, was Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, born near
Leipzig in 1781, the founder of the great school of Masonic
thought of which Ahrens afterwards became so powerful an
exponent. In the period in which Krause grew up
conceptions of the human race and of human life underwent
a profound change: thinkers abandoned their allegiance to
the Roman Catholic theological leaders of the Middle Ages
with their dependence on supernatural ideas and resumed
the principal idea of the classical Greek and Roman
scientists and jurists which was that man must be known for
what he is actually found to be and dealt with accordingly.
The goal of all endeavors, according to this modern way of
thinking, is the betterment of human life in the interest of
men and women themselves - a vastly different conception
from that of the Middle Ages, which was that human life must
be twisted and hewn to fit a scheme of things lying outside of
human life. Krause believed that Freemasonry exists in order
to help perfect the human race. Our Fraternity should work in
cooperation with the other institutions, such as Government,
School, Church, etc., all of which exist for the same purpose.
According to what principles should Masonry be governed in
seeking to attain this end? "Krause answers: Masonry has to
deal with the internal conditions of life governed by reason.
Hence its fundamental principles are measurement and
restraint - measurement by reason and restraint by reason -
and it teaches these as a means of achieving perfection."
Contemporaneous with Krause, but of a type strikingly
different, was the Rev. George Oliver, whose teachings so
universally influenced English and American Masonic
thought a half century ago. Romanticism (understood as the
technical name of a school of thought) was the center of his
thinking, as religion was the center of his heart. Like Sam'l
Taylor Coleridge, the most eloquent interpreter of Oliver's
own period, he rebelled against the dry intellectualism of the
eighteenth century in behalf of speculation and imagination;
he insisted that reason make way for intuition and faith; he
attached a very high value to tradition: and he was very
eager to reconcile Christianity with philosophy.
"What then are Oliver's answers to the three fundamental
questions of Masonic philosophy?
"1. What is the end of Masonry, for what does the institution
exist? Oliver would answer, it is one in its end with religion
and with science. Each of these are means through which
we are brought into relation with the absolute. They are the
means through which we know God and his works.
"2. How does Masonry seek to achieve its end? Oliver would
answer by preserving, handing down and interpreting a
tradition of immemorial antiquity, a pure tradition from the
childhood of the race.
"3. What are the fundamental principles by which Masonry is
governed in achieving its task? Oliver would say, the
fundamental principles of Masonry are essentially the
principles of religion as the basic principles of the moral
world. But in Masonry they appear in a traditional form.
Thus, for example, toleration in Masonry is a form of what in
religion we call charity; universality in Masonry is a traditional
form of what in religion we call love of one's neighbor."
Albert Pike was, during a large part of his life
contemporaneous with Oliver and Krause, and consequently
grew up in the same thought world, but for all that he worked
out an interpretation of Masonry radically different from
others. In spite of all his studies in antiquity and in forgotten
philosophies and religions Pike, at the bottom of his mind,
attacked the problems of Masonic thought as though no
other man before him had ever heard of it. He was impatient
of traditions, often scornful of other opinions, and as for the
dogmas and shibboleths of the schools he would have
nothing of them. What is genuinely real? that was the great
question of his thinking: and accordingly his interpretation of
Freemasonry took the form of a metaphysic. He was more
interested in nature than in function.
"1. What is the end of Masonry? What is the purpose for
which it exists? Pike would answer: The immediate end is
the pursuit of light. But light means here attainment of the
fundamental principle of the universe and bringing of
ourselves into harmony, the ultimate unity which alone is
real. Hence the ultimate end is to lead us to the Absolute -
interpreted by our individual creed if we like but recognized
as the final unity into which all things merge and with which
in the end all things must accord. You will see here at once a
purely philosophical version of what, with Oliver, was purely
religious.
"2. What is the relation of Masonry to other human
institutions and particularly to the state and to religion? He
would answer it seeks to interpret them to us, to make them
more vital for us, to make them more efficacious for their
purposes by showing the ultimate reality of which they are
manifestations. It teaches us that there is but one Absolute
and that everything short of that Absolute is relative; is but a
manifestation, so that creeds and dogmas, political or
religious, are but interpretations. It teaches us to make our
own interpretation for ourselves. It teaches us to save
ourselves by finding for ourselves the ultimate principle by
which we shall come to the real. In other words, it is the
universal institution of which other spiritual, moral and social
institutions are local and temporary phases.
"3. How does Masonry seek to reach these ends? He would
say by a system of allegories and of symbols handed down
from antiquity which we are to study and upon which we are
to reflect until they reveal the light to each of us individually.
Masonry preserves these symbols and acts out these
allegories for us. But the responsibility of reaching the real
through them is upon each of us. Each of us has the duty of
using this wonderful heritage from antiquity for himself.
Masonry in Pike's view does not offer us predigested food. It
offers us a wholesome fare which we must digest for
ourselves. But what a feast! It is nothing less than the whole
history of human search for reality. And through it he
conceives, through mastery of it, we shall master the
universe."
III
Brother Pound, it seems to me, might well have included in
his survey two other well defined schools, one of which, it is
probable, is destined to out-do all its predecessors in
influence. I refer to the Historical School, and to the Mystical
School, neither of which thus far has developed a leader
worthy of conferring his own name on his group, though it
may be said that Robert Freke Gould and Arthur Edward
Waite are typical representatives.
The fundamental tenet of the historical school is that
Freemasonry interprets itself through its own history. This
history is not broken into separate fragments but is
continuous and progressive throughout so that the unfolding
story of Masonry is a gradual revelation of the nature of
Masonry. Would you know what Masonry actually is, apart
from what in the theory of men it appears to be? read its
history. Would you know what is the future of Masonry?
trace out the tracks of its past development, and from them
you can plot the curves of its future developments. Would
you discover what are the ideals and possibilities of the
Fraternity? study to learn what it has been trying to do in the
past and is now trying to do.
This philosophy makes a profound appeal to men in this day
when science, with its interest in history, development and
evolution, rules in the fields of thought, and I have no doubt
that more and more it will be found necessary for the leaders
of contemporary Masonry to master the history of past
Masonry, especially because Masonry, more than most
institutions, derives from and is dependent on its own past.
Nevertheless, in Masonry as in all other fields, philosophy
cannot be made identical with history for the reason that
such a method does not provide for new developments.
What if some mighty leader - another Albert Pike, for
example - were to arise now and give the course of Masonic
evolution an entirely new twist, what could the historians do
about it? Nothing. They would have no precedents to go by.
An adequate philosophy must understand the nature of
Masonry by insight and intuition as well as by history. Also,
Masonry must not shut itself away from the creative genius
of new leaders, else it petrify itself into immobile sterility, and
condemn itself to the mere repetition of its own past. A great
public institution must ever-more work in the midst of the
world and constantly learn to apply itself to its own new tasks
as they arise in the world; otherwise it becomes no institution
at all, but the plaything of a little coteric.
Of the school of Masonic Mysticism it is more difficult to
speak, and this partly for the reason that mysticism itself, by
virtue of its own inner nature, cannot become clearly
articulate but must utter itself darkly by hints and symbols.
On the one side mysticism is ever tending to become
occultism; on the other side it has close affinities with
theology. All three words - mysticism, occultism, and
theology - are frequently used interchangeably in such wise
as to cause great confusion of thought. Owing to this
shuffling of use and meaning of its own ideas and terms the
school of Masonic mysticism has thus far not been able to
wrest itself free from entangling alliances in order to stand
independently on its own feet as an authentic interpreter of
the Great Teachings of the Craft. But in spite of all these
handicaps a few of our scholars have been able to give us a
tolerably consistent and, in some cases, a very noble
account of Freemasonry in the terms of mysticism. Notable
among these is Bro. A.E. Waite, whose volume, "Studies in
Mysticism," is not as widely known as it should be.
To Brother Waite - unless I have sadly misread him, a thing
not at all impossible, for he is not always easy to follow - the
inner and living stuff of all religion consists of mysticism; and
mysticism is a first-hand experience of things Divine, the
classic examples of which are the great mystics among
whom Plotinus, St. Francis, St. Theresa, Ruysbroeck, and
St. Rose of Lima may be named as typical. According to the
hypothesis the spiritual experience of these geniuses in
religion gives us an authentic report of the Unseen and is as
much to be relied on as any flesh-and-blood report of the
Seen; but unfortunately the realities of the Unseen are
ineffable, consequently they cannot be described to the
ordinary non-mystical person at all except in the language of
ritual and symbolism. It is at this point that Freemasonry
comes in. According to the mystical theory our Order is an
instituted form of mysticism in the ceremonies and symbols
of which men may find, if they care to follow them, the roads
that lead to a direct and first-hand experience of God.
IV
If I may come at last to speak for myself I believe that there
is now shaping in our midst, and will some day come to the
front, a Masonic philosophy that will not quarrel with these
great schools but will at the same time replace them by a
larger and more complete synthesis. I have no idea what this
school will be called. It will be human, social, and pragmatic,
and it will exist for use rather than show. It will not strive to
carry the Masonic institution to some goal beyond and
outside of humanity but will see in Freemasonry a wise and
well-equipped means of enriching human life as it now is and
in this present familiar world. We men do not exist to glorify
the angels or to realize some superhuman scheme remote
from us. Human life is an end in itself, and it is the first duty
of men to live happily, freely, joyously. This is God's own
purpose for us, and, unless all modern religious thinking has
gone hopelessly astray, God's life and ours are so bound up
together that His purposes and His will coincide with our own
great human aims. When man is completely man God's will
then be done.
As things now are we men and women have not yet learned
how to live happily with each other, and there is a great rarity
of human charity under the sun. Why can't we learn to know
ourselves and each other and our world in such wise as to
organize ourselves together into a human family living
happily together? That, it seems to me, should be the great
object of Freemasonry.
