no one expects to see the true eternal Hiram arise in himself. (W. S. H.,
p. 94.)

We find also in Wirth, how the work is divided into three main steps,
which begin with the purifying, turn towards the inner soul, and end with
the death-resembling Unio Mystica; here we find, too, in the last degree
the unattainable ideal, which like a star in heaven shall give a sure
course to the voyage of our life. The viewing of the exalted anagogic
conception as a perspective vanishing point, makes allowance for the
possible errors of superposition in the anagogic aspect of the elementary
types.

The tripartite division, which we meet in the great work, shows the
frequently doubted inner qualification of the three degrees of
freemasonry. As they answer a need, they have again prevailed, although
they were not existent in the masonic form of the royal art at the
beginning (about two centuries ago); I say "again," because similar needs
have already earlier produced similar forms. (Cf. L. Keller's writings.)
Whether we consider ethical education in general or the intensive
(introversion) form of it, mysticism, we have in either case a process of
development, and degrees are necessary to express it symbolically. The
effort, appearing from time to time, to multiply the degrees has been
justified. We can divide what is divided into three sections into seven
also (7 operations in alchemy, 7 levels of contemplation, 7 ordinations,
etc.), although it is not really needed. But the idea of abolishing the
three degrees can only arise from a misapprehension of the value of the
existing symbolism. That masonry is a union of equal rights is not
affected by the presence of the degrees, provided that their symbolic
significance is not overstepped. The degrees form a constituent part of
the symbolic custom itself and like it are to be intangible.

The symbols of all the lofty spiritual religious communities, for which
the royal art presents itself as a paradigm or exemplar, put before us, as
it were, types of truth. Single facts which the symbols may signify (or
that could be read into the symbols) are not the most important, but
rather the totality of all these meanings. The totality (which can be
acquired only by a sort of integration) is something inexpressible; and if
it also succeeded in expressing this inexpressible, the words of the
expression would be incomprehensible to any finite spirit, as the
individual facts are.

The symbols are th