exalted zones of the heaven of mind. The rites, legends,
and mysteries of the great Fraternity are also full of mystical
allusions, and admit of mystical interpretation in the same manner, but
their evidential force is weaker, because ceremonial and legend in the
hands of a skilful commentator can be made to take any shape and any
complexion; it is otherwise with the symbols of the Brotherhood which
were possessed by us before the historical appearance of Masonry. So
also the Masonic reverence for certain numbers which are apparently
arbitrary in themselves is in reality connected with a most recondite
and curious system of mystic methodical philosophy, while in the high
titles of Masonic dignity there is frequently a direct reference to
Mysticism.

If we turn from these considerations and approach the historical
connection through those still undetermined problems which concern the
origin of Masonry, we shall discern not unfortunately a way clear to
their solution, but a significant characteristic pervading every Masonic
hypothesis almost without exception--namely, an instinctive desire to
refer Masonry in its original form to sources that are provably mystic.
In the fanciful and extravagant period, when archaeology and comparative
mythology were as yet in their childhood, this tendency was not less
strong because it was mostly quite unconscious. To pass in review before
us the chief institutions of antiquity with which Masonry was then said
to be connected, would be to sweep the whole field of transcendental
history, and when we come to a more sober period which recognised the
better claim of the building guilds to explain the beginnings of the
Fraternity, the link with Mysticism was not even then abandoned, and a
splendid variant of the Dionysian dream took back the mediaeval
architects to the portals of Eleusis and of Thebes.

When the history of Freemasonry becomes possible by the possession of
materials, its chief philosophical interest centres in one country of
Europe; there is no doubt that it exercised an immense influence upon
France during that century of quakings and quickenings which gave birth
to the great revolution, transformed civilisation in the West, and
inaugurated the modern era. Without being a political society, it was an
instrument eminently adaptable to the sub-surface determination of
political movements. At a later date it may have contributed to the
formation of Germany, as it did certainly