Project Gutenberg's The Symbolism of Freemasonry, by Albert G. Mackey

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Title: The Symbolism of Freemasonry

Author: Albert G. Mackey

Release Date: April 7, 2004 [EBook #11937]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Notes:

Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the work.

This book contains words and phrases in both Greek and Hebrew. Greek
characters have been transliterated using Beta-code. Most of the Hebrew
words and characters are transliterated in the text by the author; those
that were not transliterated by the author have been transliterate in the
ASCII version.]

The Symbolism of Freemasonry:

Illustrating and Explaining
Its Science and Philosophy, its Legends,
Myths and Symbols.

By

Albert G. Mackey, M.D.,

"_Ea enim quae scribuntur tria habere decent, utilitatem praesentem,
certum finem, inexpugnabile fundamentum._"

Cardanus.

1882.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by ALBERT G.
MACKEY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
South Carolina.

To General John C. Fremont.

My Dear Sir:

While any American might be proud of associating his name with that of
one who has done so much to increase the renown of his country, and to
enlarge the sum of human knowledge, this book is dedicated to you as a
slight testimonial of regard for your personal character, and in grateful
recollection of acts of friendship.

Yours very truly,

A. G. Mackey.

Preface.

Of the various modes of communicating instruction to the uninformed, the
masonic student is particularly interested in two; namely, the instruction
by legends and that by symbols. It is to these two, almost exclusively,
that he is indebted for all that he knows, and for all that he can know,
of the philosophic system which is taught in the institution. All its
mysteries and its dogmas, which constitute its philosophy, are intrusted
for communication to the neophyte, sometimes to one, sometimes to the
other of these two methods of inst