The Progressive Science of Masonry

During our ceremonies, Freemasonry is described as a progressive science. But, what exactly do we mean by the term “progressive science”. In my own experience and in conversations with masons far and wide, whenever a ‘new’ mason gets into an office and tries to implement something new, we are held back by the old addage of “thats not the way we’ve always done it”.

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It seems kind of strange how we call Masonry a progressive science, but when anyone tries to do something progressive, its met with opposition. We naturally object to this notion, but its rebuked with “there are to be no innovations in the body of masonry”.

My argument is, we don’t understand what a progressive science is (also we don’t understand Masonry— but that’s something we are working on through these articles) so we can’t know when to be progressive versus when something is an innovation.

What I find most ironic about the whole notion of “that’s the way we’ve always done it” is that it comes from the fact that Masonry is completely misunderstood to begin with. That many of these well meaning brethren, are desperately holding onto things not changing in their Masonic experience. Do they hold onto the ways of the past because the world around them has changed so rapidly. I wonder if, back when they were younger they tried to be progressive, but were shut down by their older brethren, thus, have become destined to repeat a perpetual cycle?

The text to our ceremonies is written in old english from the 1700’s to 1800’s. I call this King James English in reverence to the King James edition of the Volume of Sacred Law that’s present in Masonry. So when I am trying to understand the meaning of the words in our ceremonies, I consult several dictionaries from those times. Modern dictionaries have modern meaning, words have shifted their meaning over time. (The dictionaries I reference are listed at the end).

Le’s start with understanding the phrase, “Masonry is a progressive science”. Using the subject-verb-object word order. We can see that the subject is Masonry, the verb is progressive and the object is science. This tells us that the object or objective of the subject, Masonry, is science. This objective (the science of masonry — or also the science of geometry) is achived through the action of ‘progressive’ or progressively.

That may not make much sense now, it didn’t for me when I was processing it for the first 100 times. So this is where those dictionary definitions come in. Now I am going to paraphrase and selectively pick apart the several definitions:

Masonry:

• the art of building,

• practices and institutions of Freemasonry

• craftsmanship and construction techniques

• the skills, practices and guilds — as well as the Freemasons

Progressive:

• Move forward

• Advances

• Improves

• Rises in rank

• Becomes more valuable or more profitable

Science:

• System of knowledge or organised body of knowledge

• General truths

• Operation of general laws

• Systematic study of the physical and material world

• Study through observation and experimentation

From these several key words taken from the definitions, we can then explain the phrase of masonry being a progressive science to mean:

The art, building/construction, craftsmanship, and skills associated with Masonry are continuously moving forward, advancing, progressing, improving, rising in rank, becoming more valuable, and more profitable. This progress is achieved through a system of knowledge that encompasses general truths or the operation of general laws and involves the systematic study of the physical or material world through observation and experimentation. This highlights Freemasonry as an evolving discipline focused on moral and intellectual improvement, much like a scientific field.

What I take from this is that you have science being both a body of knowlegde, truths and laws being everything that comes from the ceremonies, such as that peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustratd by symbols. Where the operative meaning is the pratical, external or physical application and the speculative meaning is the philosophical, moral/ethical or internal application.

But the one key in the science definition is you have experimentation. So it’s not all theory. But you may say well most of the definition of science given is theoretical. Except, the practical or experimental nature of science is reinforced through the definition of masonry, being a physical and pratical activity.

Masonry is an active pursuit, not a passive one. Masonry is all about building, construction, craftmanship. Oh, but we are supposed to be “Free and Accepted or Speculative Masons” not Operative. Yes, but the correct interpretation of speculative masonry is the lessons are not about building a physical temple, rather the metaphorical temple. We’re not on the site of King Solomons Temple building it are we. So the temple we build is metaphorical for any pursuit or endeavour we want to undertake.

Then we have progressive. This is a verb, its action. It’s how we build the build or craft the body of knowledge (science) of Masonry, ie, progressively. Think of progressive as rather incremental. But progressive is also symbolic of how our operative ancestors built the physical temple. One stone at a time. They didn’t go and just produce the final temple in one action. They did it one brick at a time, but thousands of times over and over again. It’s a repetitive act. Like turning the rough ashlar into the perfect. It’s not done with one or two hits of the hammer and chisel, it’s done with repeated and multiple small hits. Gradually shaping the stone.

This is how we arrive at, Masonry as a body or system of knowlegde and pratice is incrementally built & improved through study, observation (analysis & interpreation of the rituals) and experimentation; or simply put Masonry is a progressive science.

Now we understand what the progressive science of Masonry is. We have no other option but to dismiss the notion of “that’s the way we have always done it” in the same dismissive manner that progress has been stiffled by. Except, wouldn’t this then compete with the landmark that there are to be “no innovations in the body of masonry”?

This is where we need to understand what is and isn’t the “Body of Masonry”. But that’s a topic for another day. Bazinga!

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”Masonic Dictionaries”

• Webster's Unabridged Dictionary 1828 - A Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language: With Vocabularies of Classical, Scripture, and Modern Geographical Names

• The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language: A Complete Encyclopedic Lexicon, Literary, Scientific, and Technological (1882 Revised and expanded edition by Charles Annandale)

• The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

• The Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary