concerning the mysteries of Freemasonry, the system inaugurated in 1717 had no existence before that date, but "was devised, promulgated, and palmed upon the world by Dr. Desaguliers, Dr. Anderson, and others, who then founded the Grand Lodge of England." Mr. Paton, in an admirable little pamphlet, has shown the futility of this contention and also the injustice of representing the founders of Grand Lodge as perpetrating so gross a deception.
This 1717 theory ascribes to men of the highest character the invention of a system of mere imposture.... It was brought forward with pretensions which its framers knew to be false pretensions of high antiquity; whereas ... it had newly been invented in their studies. Is this likely? Or is it reasonable to ascribe such conduct to honourable men, without even assigning a probable motive for it?
We have indeed only to study masonic ritual--which is open to everyone to read--in order to arrive at the same conclusion, that there could be no motive for this imposture, and further that these two clergymen cannot be supposed to have evolved the whole thing out of their heads. Obviously some movement of a kindred nature must have led up to this crisis. And since Elias Ashmole's diary clearly proves that a ceremony of masonic initiation had existed in the preceding century, it is surely only reasonable to conclude that Drs. Anderson and Desaguliers revised but did not originate the ritual and constitutions drawn up by them.
Now, although the ritual of Freemasonry is couched in modern and by no means classical English, the ideas running through it certainly bear traces of extreme antiquity. The central idea of Freemasonry concerning a loss which has befallen man and the hope of its ultimate recovery is in fact no other than the ancient secret tradition described in the first chapter of this book. Certain masonic writers indeed ascribe to Freemasonry precisely the same genealogy as that of