ANDREW MICHAEL RAMSAY.
341
as incapable of keeping a secret. But their presence might insensibly corrupt the purity
of our maxims and manners.
The fourth quality required in our Order is the taste for useful sciences and the liberal
arts. Thus, the Order exacts of each of you to contribute, by his protection, liberality, or
labour, to a vast work for which no academy can suffice, because all these societies being
composed of a very small number of men, their work cannot embrace an object so ex-
tended. All the Grand Masters in Germany, England, Italy, and elsewhere, exhort all the
learned men and all the artisans of the Fraternity to unite to furnish the materials for a
Universal Dictionary of the liberal arts and useful sciences, excepting only theology and
politics.1
The work has already been commenced in London, and by means of the union of our
brothers it may be carried to a conclusion in a few years. Not only are technical words
and their etymology explained, but the story of each art and science, its principles and
operations, are described. By this means the lights of all nations will be united in one
single work, which will be a universal library of all that is beautiful, great, luminous, solid,
and useful in all the sciences and in all noble arts. This work will augment in each cen-
tury, according to the increase of knowledge, and it will spread everywhere emulation and
the taste for things of beauty and utility.
The word Freemason must therefore not be taken in a literal, gross, and material sense,
as if our founders had been simple workers in stone, or merely curious geniuses who wished
to perfect the arts. They were not only skilful architects, desirous of consecrating their
talents and goods to the construction of material temples; but also religious and warrior
princes who designed to enlighten, edify, and protect the living Temples of the Most High.
This I will demonstrate by developing the history or rather the renewal of the Order.
Every family, every Kepublic, every Empire, of which the origin is lost in obscure anti-
quity, has its fable and its truth, its legend and its history. Some ascribe our institution
to Solomon, some to Moses, some to Abraham, some to Noah, and some to Enoch, who
built the first city, or even to Adam. Without any pretence of denying these origins, I
pass on to matters less ancient. This, then, is a part of what I have gathered in the annals
of Great Britain, in the Acts of Parliament, which speak often of our privileges, and in
the living traditions of the English people, which has been the centre of our Society since
the eleventh century.
At the time of the Crusades in Palestine many princes, lords, and citizens associated
themselves, and vowed to restore the Temple of the Christians in the Holy Land, and to
employ themselves in bringing back their architecture to its first institution. They agreed
upon several ancient signs and symbolic words drawn from the well of religion in order to
recognise themselves amongst the heathen and Saracens. These signs and words were only
communicated to those who promised solemnly, and even sometimes at the foot of the altar,
never to reveal them. This sacred promise was therefore not an execrable oath, as it has
been called, but a respectable bond to unite Christians of all nationalities in one confrater-
nity. Some time afterwards our Order formed an intimate union with the Knights of St.
1 The proposed Dictionary is a curious crux—it is possible that the Royal Society may have
formed some such idea? But at least Kamsay's express exclusion of theology and politics should
have shielded him from the accusation of wishing to employ Freemasonry for Jesuitical and Jacobite
purposes. With the exception of the constant harping on the Crusades, there is so far nothing in
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