The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy Volume 18; Discourses Delivered Before the Royal Society. Elements of Agricultural Chemistry, PT. I (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...tracing the origin of Masonry in Egypt and the East." There are, therefore, two questions that perhaps more than others have attracted the attention of the Masonic student; the first is how far the supposed antiquity of the Order is true? the second, what are the secrets, if any, which are, or were, supposed to be known only to the initiated? The fascination of historical enquiry is to work from the known to the unknown, to gather up the fragments of evidence that Time, the great destroyer, has permitted to come down to us, and to piece these fragments together so as, if possible, to arrive at the truth. There ought to be enough to guide the enquirer, but not too much. There is no historical interest in searching the pages of yesterday's newspaper, but if we had a fragment of a journal that was published B.C. in Rome or Athens how full of interest it would be, every line would be the subject of debate and criticism. How many different schools would be found to express opinions, all perhaps, equally wrong or equally right. Without any evidence history becomes fabulous, with too much it is commonplace. Now what is the evidence of the antiquity of our Order and of the secret instructions it imparted. The first no doubt turns upon whether we are of opinion that the great buildings of tl. eWorld which required the services of practical Masons were raised by an organised body of Masons who wandered from country to country wherever their services were required, who took apprentices and initiated them and taught them their craft and looked after them till they became masters, and they in their turn took and educated apprentices, and so was created a continuing body who not only wandered through the earth, but came down in a more or less unbroken succession thr...