e of
four, and the hypotenuse of five parts, the square of which is equal
to the squares of those sides containing the right angle. The
perpendicular (three) is the Male, Osiris, the originating principle
([Greek: arche]); the base (four) is the Female, Isis, the receptive
principle ([Greek: hypodoche]); and the Hypotenuse (five) is the
offspring of both, Horus, the product ([Greek: apotelesma])." The
central feature of this triangle, upon which its property is based,
is the Right Angle. The Greeks gave to this Right Angle the name of
_Gnomon_ (meaning Knowledge), and it has ever since been, under the
form of a carpenter's "square," the emblem or symbol of an Architect,
the Master Mason, as personifying the Great Architect of the
Universe--namely, He who has the knowledge of Geometry; and, as the
Right-Angled Triangle represented the Universe, it was upon the
_perfection_ of this Gnomon, or knowledge, that the very existence of
the Universe depended, because the law of the three squares only holds
good when that angle is perfect.

The Secret handed down in the Craft, from Architect to Architect, was
how to form a perfect right angle, or, as it was called, the "Square,"
without possibility of Error, and this I have called "the Knowledge of
the Square." Vitruvius, who, at the beginning of our Era, wrote his
thesis on Tectonic art, which is still the text-book of Architecture
for Ancient buildings, says Pythagoras taught his followers to form a
gnomon, or square, as follows: "Take three rods, of three lengths,
four lengths, and five lengths long; with these form a triangle, and,
if each rod be squared, you have 9, 16, and 25, and the areas of the
two former will be equal to the latter."

Now let us come to the closing years of the tenth century. What a
strange condition of the building craft was to be seen all over
Europe; not a church was being built, nor had been built, for the last
twenty years; the thousand years after Christ was drawing to its
close, everybody was waiting for, and expecting, the world to come to
an end; no new undertakings were begun. How much money went into the
hands of the Monasteries and other Religious Houses, as peace
offerings for the future welfare of the givers, nobody can say; it was
probably enormous. When, however, the eleventh century was well
started and the crisis was over, churches were built on a large scale,
as shown by the numerous remains we have of Norman buildings of the
last