Items related to The History of Freemasonry, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint)
Synopsis
History amiA ntiquities ofF reemasonry 7|t have been involved in a clond of darkness and uncertainty. Treated as a rule jwith a thinly veiled contempt by men of letters, the subject has been, for the -, -is most part, abandoned to writers with whom enthusiasm has supplied the place of vt learning, and whose sole qualification for their task has been membership of the %M fraternity. On the other hand, however, it must be fairly stated that the few literati who have taken up this uncongenial theme, evince an amount of credulity which to say the least, is commensurate with their learning, and by laying their imaginations under contribution for the facts which are essential to the theories they advance, have confirmed the pre-existing belief that all masonic history is untrue. The vagaries of this latter class have been pleasantly characterised as the sprightly and vivacious accounts of the modern masonic annalists, who display in their histories a haughty independence of facts, and make up for tlie scarcity of evidence by a surprising fecundity of invention. Speculative Masonry, as they call it, seems to have favoured them with a large portion of her airy materials, and with ladders, scaffolding, and bricks of air, they have run up their historical structures with wonderful ease. The critical reader is indeed apt to lament that leaders of the creationist school have not followed the example of A ristotle, whose wisdom and integrity Lord Bacon commends, in ha ing cast all prodigious narrations which he thought worthy the recording into one book, that such whereupon observation and rule was to be built, should not be mingled or weakened with matter of doubtful credit. The curious subject ofF reemasonry has unfortunately been treated of only by panegyrists or calumniators, both equally mendacious (H allam sM iddle A ges, 1856, vol. iii., p. 359). Dr Armstrong (aft
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- PublisherForgotten Books
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 1440040443
- ISBN 13 9781440040443
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages280
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