the fraternity of the latter; such distinctions are not perhaps quite correct in point of fact, but they will be sufficient to make the reader clearly understand of which party we are speaking, and with that view only are they adopted.

The sum of the Freemasons' doctrine, to simplify the subject as much as possible, is that their society combined originally two principles, - the practical part of building, which they also used as a myth, and a knowledge of certain divine and philosophic truths denied to the rest of mankind. According to some of them, both the mystery and the order itself originated in the building of the tower of Babel; according to others, they both came from Adam, who, whatever else he may have been, certainly does not seem, for anything we know, to have been a builder. We had better therefore begin at Babel, whence they tell us the art was carried into Egypt, and there Hiram, the grand master, learnt it and brought it to Jerusalem. But here in the outset we come suddenly upon a stumbling-block. Did the Egyptians receive only that part of Freemasonry, which relates to building, or did they also receive the diviner and philosophic portions? If we adopt the latter supposition, we must then believe that the idolatrous Egyptians had a purer code of morals, and a nearer knowledge of the Deity than any Christians, who have not the good fortune to be Freemasons. As such a creed would hardly suit the brotherhood, we will imagine that the building part of the story alone came from Babel through the Egyptians. But how then was the diviner part of the mystery transmitted from Adam to Solomon? It is plain too that the Jewish monarch knew nothing of practical masonry, since he was obliged to call in Hiram to his assistance. Are we then to suppose that Solomon united his speculative wisdom to the mechanic knowledge of the Tyrian, and thus produced Freemasonry? What on earth was gained by the union of speculative wisdom with

a mechanic occupation? But, say the Freemasons, it was the Masons who taught mankind every art and science. Aye, indeed! in that case, as Solomon was not a mason, it must have been the pagan Hiram—the builder of temples to Hercules and Astarte, the worshipper of Jupiter,— who first taught the Christian art of Freemasonry, and not Solomon.

As we proceed the same sort of difficulties follows us, and increases at every step. The art of Masonry never was a secret, since it was openly practised and taught both by Greeks and Romans, and therefore could have formed no essential part of Freemasonry; here then breaks down all connexion between the brotherhood and the building of Solomon's temple, except as a a mere myth, under which they concealed their philosophy. But where and with whom did the secret lie hid through those ages, when the whole civilized world was either Pagan or Judaic? if not preserved amongst the heathens-a very untenable position-it must have remained in the hands of the Jews, and this, as regards its preservation up to a certain period, seems to be the masonic doctrine, for Oliver in his Antiquities (p. 16,) tells us that Pythagoras*

*

Surely this philosopher has been much over-rated. It has been considered a great merit in him that he discovered the earth went round the sun; but did he discover it, or only imagine it? was it a proved calculation, or a mere suggestion of the fancy? the two things are widely different. Friar Bacon many hundred years ago imagined the possibility of human beings flying, but this supposition was no discovery. In the same way any one may have an idea that the principle of a perpetual motion is no fallacy, but he has not the more for that found it out.

As regards the metempsychosis, it is hard to say what Pythagoras understood by it. If he really believed that the soul was a self-existent entity, independent of matter, and flying from one organization to another, as each was dissolved, he must have been a mere dreamer. But this may possibly have been nothing more than a mode of conveying to the uninformed the simple and sublime truth that soul is

learnt the secret of the Lux, i.e. freemasonry, in Judæa, and afterwards communicated it to the Druids, who of course then must also have been Freemasons. Now, everything in this statement is mere unsupported hypothesis, and that too of the most improbable kind. It is a supposition that the Jews were Freemasons; it is a supposition that Pythagoras learnt the craft from the Jews; it is a supposition that he taught it to the Druids; it is a supposition that the Druids ever knew any thing about such a pretended mystery. Even if we admit these unproved and very improbable assertions, we have to learn how the secret was transmitted from the priests of paganism to the followers of Christianity? Where are the evidences of such a transmission? and in the total absence of any thing of the kind, by what rule of logic are we to be led into the belief of so monstrous an improbability? Nor is this the only absuronly an attribute or property of matter, inherent in it and inseparable from it-that quality in fact which compels matter perpetually into fresh organizations, and which differs from life only as life is a result, seen in a particular combination of atoms, while soul is the allpervading principle. It could not have escaped the early philosophers that break up matter as you will, you cannot crush the vital principle out of it, though mind and the sentient power are strictly dependent upon organization. They must have seen that though the human brain mouldered into a myriad forms, all equally full of life, yet none of these forms had the same degree of intelligence with the atoms in their former combination. In this sense nse-namely as an attribute of matter-soul is intelligible enough; but as an independent entity we can have no idea of it, and they who have talked the most positively upon the subject-the deceived or the deceivers of all times-have never explained what they meant by soul. It was not matter, it was not life, it was not intelligence. Then what was it? they could not say. How were they conscious of its existence? they did not know. In other words, they had an idea of something of which they had no idea, a very satisfactory and philosophical conclusion. Let me not, however, be misunderstood; I am neither calling in question the beautiful doctrines of Christianity, nor denying the immortality of the soul. My arguments rather go to maintain both.

dity of the fiction. If Pythagoras obtained the lux, the real light, he must have been able to distinguish truth from error. But he believed in the metempsychosis, and his belief therefore is a sufficient voucher for its truth. Will the Freemasons allow this? did they receive from him the doctrine of metempsychosis,* a genuine part and parcel of his system, and do they now put any faith in it? Let my words, however, be taken as intended; I do not for a moment deny the possibility of the Druids having been taught a part at least of what they knew by Pythagoras; it has been so affirmed by Higgins and other writers, and we know from Cæsar that they made use of the Greek letters.†

Even then the Freemasons will have to show their connexion with the Druids. But this they can not do. Whenever they have attempted to give a history of their brotherhood prior to 1630, it has always been a history of architecture. They have traced the various buildings, and styles of building, from one period to another, as if that established the existence of their order. Wherever they could find any society, of which architects, or masons, were members, they have always affected to consider it as a branch of their fraternity. Thus Higgins, who, with little faith in anything else, is yet a stanch believer in the free-masonic nonsense, would fain connect his brotherhood with the so-called mathematicians, that is astrologers, that gave so much trouble in Rome. To be sure both Tacitus and Suetonius describe them as having

Some have endeavoured to give another signification to the metempsychosis, and suppose it means, not the transmigration of the soul from one body to another, but a new birth in another cycle or world. (See Higgins's Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 790.) But this leaves the great point of absurdity undisturbed.

† De Bello Gallico, lib. vi.-xiv.

been a set of vagabonds,* against whom the senate found it requisite to enact severe laws in the vain hope of expelling them from the city. But we are to disbelieve all such authorities and hold fast by the new faith.

In the same way Higgins will have it that the Freemasons were connected with the Templars, who had also the misfortune of labouring under a particularly bad character. In claiming the relationship, therefore, it became a matter of policy to make their faces white, as a Persian would say, and above all to repel the ferocious attacks of Von Hammer, who had certainly made out a very ugly case against them. The laborious German sets out with saying that no doubt there were many good and simple folks among them, who were acquainted with the exoteric doctrines only

*" Facta," says Tacitus, “et de mathematicis magisque Italia pellendis, Senatus consulta, quorum e numero L. Pituanius saxo dejectus est." Annalium, lib. ii. s. 32. Again "Urgentibus etiam mathematicis, dum novos motus et clarum Othoni annum observatione siderum affirmant; genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus fallax, quod in civitate nostrâ et vetabitur semper, et retinebitur." Hist. lib. i. sec. 22. A pretty set of kinsfolk the Freemasons must have had by their own showing. Even if we suppose the historian to have been too severe a judge, still the law against these vagabonds cannot be denied, and the whole Roman senate thus become witnesses against them. Nor can we attribute this edict to the ill will of the emperor, for at a yet earlier period similar enactments had been made against them. Valerius Maximus in his chapter upon Religion says, "C. Cornelius Hispallus, prætor peregrinus, M. Popilio Lænate, Cn. Calpurnio Coss. edicto Chaldæos-(this is the same fraternity) intra decimum diem abire ex urbe atque Italia jussit : levibus et ineptis ingeniis, fallaci siderum interpretatione, quæstuosam mendaciis suis caliginem injicientes." Val. Maxim, de Deitis, &c. lib. i. cap. iii. s. 2. But I might go on and fill pages with authorities for the utter worthlessness of these Mathematici or Chaldæi, who yet, according to Higgins, were Freemasons under another name.

+ Fundgruben des Orients. Sechster Band. Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum.