to the place of its birth; while it and every other society of our own
times that have sought to simulate the outward appearance of Freemasonry,
seem to him who has examined the history of this ancient institution to
have sprung around it, like mushrooms bursting from between the roots and
vegetating under the shade of some mighty and venerable oak, the
patriarch of the forest, whose huge trunk and wide-extended branches have
protected them from the sun and the gale, and whose fruit, thrown off in
autumn, has enriched and fattened the soil that gives these humbler plants
their power of life and growth.

But there is a more important deduction to be drawn from this narrative.
In tracing the progress of Freemasonry, we shall find it so intimately
connected with the history of philosophy, of religion, and of art in all
ages of the world, that it is evident that no Mason can expect thoroughly
to understand the nature of the institution, or to appreciate its
character, unless he shall carefully study its annals, and make himself
conversant with the facts of history, to which and from which it gives and
receives a mutual influence. The brother who unfortunately supposes that
the only requisites of a skilful Mason consist in repeating with fluency
the ordinary lectures, or in correctly opening and closing the lodge, or
in giving with sufficient accuracy the modes of recognition, will hardly
credit the assertion, that he whose knowledge of the "royal art" extends
no farther than these preliminaries has scarcely advanced beyond the
rudiments of our science. There is a far nobler series of doctrines with
which Freemasonry is connected, and which no student ever began to
investigate who did not find himself insensibly led on, from step to step
in his researches, his love and admiration of the order increasing with
the augmentation of his acquaintance with its character. It is this which
constitutes the science and the philosophy of Freemasonry, and it is this
alone which will return the scholar who devotes himself to the task a
sevenfold reward for his labor.

With this view I propose, in the next place, to enter upon an examination
of that science and philosophy as they are developed in the system of
symbolism, which owes its existence to this peculiar origin and
organization of the order, and without a knowledge of which, such as I
have attempted to portray it in this preliminary inquiry, the science
itself could never be unde