THE BUILDER JANUARY 1916

REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALBERT PIKE

BY BRO. FRANK W. ELLIS, IOWA

FREEMASONRY has been defined as a science which includes all other
sciences. The study of Morals and Dogma will lead to a keen
appreciation of such a definition and that it is not only the most
concise but one of the most comprehensive and furnishes an
illustration of the immense scope of Morals and Dogma.

Dogma, according to Pike himself, is to be construed as doctrine or
teaching, and so we have in Morals and Dogma a book which
comprehends Masonic morality and teachings; usually expressed in a
more scholarly and dignified way as Pike's Philosophy of Masonry.

The Philosophy of Masonry, or any particular Masonic writer's
philosophy, means the unfolding of the wisdom of Masonry. That is,
we as Masons use the terrn philosophy as a science which treats of
our particular system of teaching. We gather this knowledge or
wisdom as a science or a philosophy from numerous sources; one can
safely say it flows from innumerable fountains. Symbols,
allegories, legends, occurrences from the Bible and many dramas,
dress this wisdom attractively. The meaning of the symbols, the
pictures produced by its allegories and legends and Bible
occurences make clear the lessons of Masonry which are called
Masonic Philosophy. Why, certain symbols and allegories and
occurences teach these lessons, carries us into a broader and more
diversified domain of philosophy, yea, even into the storehouses of
knowledge of all time, which means a research that only the sage or
profound scholar can ordinarily undertake. It might be well to
remark, however, in this connection, that, given a fairly calm
judgment and good mind, such a research will produce a scholarly
result in one not blessed with book knowledge attained in colleges
or schools. If the ordinary mind of the ordinary Mason is not
roused or stimulated to activity for deep learning, he can
nevertheless acquire and absorb the Masonic meaning and come to a
Masonic understanding of the all instructive, all fruitful and all
entrancing beauties of the symbols, the pictures made by the
allegories and occurences depicted in Masonry. And when he gazes
into the limpid depths of the streams that flow from these
fountains and interprets and construes their songs and harmonies,
the note that strikes his responsive chord is not difficult of
comprehension.

THE PURPOSE OF MASONRY

It is not the purpose of Masonry to supplant or supersede religion.
Masonry is only a help to religion. It is to teach us to have a
firm belief in God and the immortality of the soul. Masonic
philosophy has this end in view, and works for that consummation.
Belief in the unity of God and immortality of the Soul is its
basic, fundamental law, its eternal lesson and foundation. Its
morals follow necessarily as a postulate, inevitably as a sequence.
It is not the purpose of this paper to endeavor to strike the keys
in perfect harmony with all the conceptions of Pike, borrowed or
original, in his moral teachings or his philosophy, but rather to
find some of them as one would hold to his ear the shell listening
for the faint refrain of the cadences of the sounding deep. It is
an effort to pluck and inhale the perfume and observe the beauty of
some only of the flowers which grow in the garden of the Philosophy
of Morals and Dogma.

Undoubtedly, as learned scholars have declared, the philosophy
taught in Morals and Dogma is the reduction of all forces or
impulses, spiritual and material, to dependency for their existence
upon the Absolute. The Being who is Being, always was Being and
always will be Being. The universe with all its ramifications,
including life and inanimate matter, came from or emanated from
God, the Absolute. Interpret our individual tenets as we may,
nevertheless they lead to the final Unity, which is the Absolute.
That as a necessary deduction from this doctrine of all springing
from or owing existence to the Absolute or God, there is a doctrine
of harmony arising from the action of contrary forces in
everything, whether spiritual or material.

DOCTRINE OF EMANATION

The doctrine of the Absolute was taught by nearly all sages,
philosophers, savants, oracles and learned men of all time. It was
the doctrine of nearly all the esoteric institutions of all ages.
And Pike skillfully deduces from the writings of nearly all learned
men the theory of the operation of contrary forces producing
harmony. Most commentators on Pike are content to state his
philosophy in the most meager way or as a key to understand his
Morals and Dogma and refer you to a study of his work, which is
complimentary not only to his philosophy but also to the wealth of
learning with which his pages glisten.

A cold or unadorned statement of the Doctrine of Emanation of
everything from God, or the Absolute, and that such emanations or
manifestations operated by the combined action of contraries, is an
arid and barren harvest of the poetry and beauty and wisdom of
Pike's philosophy. Such is the doctrine of the philosophy of Pike,
and bare mention of it may be a sufficient clew or hint or
incentive for the learned and the scholarly or the philosopher. It
does not suffice, however, if we are to stimulate the ordinary
Mason to a study of Pike's philosophy of Masonry. His philosophy is
set in many constellations each composed of many different stars,
many of the first magnitude.

The doctrine of the Absolute, if it may be called such for brevity,
is not a new philosophy. It is older than written language and
stretches away back to the first method of teaching by symbols and
yet further into the dim recesses of remote and unknown antiquity
when mortal thought first took form; if indeed it was not a part of
the first mortal thought and there had its origin. Belief in God
has been intuitive always. It is instinctive, a part and parcel of
humanity, if perchance it is not more and came from communion with
God by the patriarchs.

Harmony as a product of spiritual action must be the law of
creation of all things because it could not be otherwise. That
sacred subject cannot be solved by the human mind for the reason
that it deals with the infinite which is above and beyond the human
mind. Just so, the blue sky is a name only because it is not there.
We look into infinity which the human eye cannot see. Neither can
the human mind comprehend the operations of the Infinite. The grace
and loveliness of Infinite Creation producing exquisite harmony in
every form and shape and mould stimulates the human mind to
endeavor to penetrate its mysteries, and every force of the human
brain is strained to comprehend. It is the far and futile hope of
science. It has agitated the highest and best and brightest and
most profound intellects of all time who have endeavored to explain
it by every symbol that the ingenuity of man could invent.
Language, which is itself a symbol of thought, has been exhausted
and tortured, to give clearness to an explanation. But all in vain.
Human reason has its limit in human understanding. Pristine Truth
is not within the purview of man's comprehension.

GOD AND IMMORTALITY

For the ordinary man the philosophy of Masonry as taught by Pike
can bring him belief in the Unity of God and Immortality of the
Soul resting upon human reason and human faith. This Pike's
philosophy teaches its student on nearly every page. One can read
and. study Morals and Dogma and discard the particular doctrine of
every philosopher mentioned therein or to whom reference is made,
and even the philosophy of the Book itself, and still its pages
fairly teem with and pour forth a radiance of morality, founded
upon the logic of immutable laws, which light the way to the goal
of human perfection, or the Utopia of human excellence, because
they are based or founded upon our law;--the Unity of God and
Immortality of the Soul.

Why the morality of mankind, whether in an individual or nation, is
founded upon these immutable principles is our philosophy. Pike
warns us again and again that nature does not explain, that simple
things only are explained. The revelation itself, while revealing,
conceals because it cannot be otherwise. A real mystery is not a
mystery because it is understood by only a few, the select. It is
a mystery for the reason that it cannot be explained by language,
for if it could be made plain or evidenced by words it never would
have been a mystery, and would have been exposed when born. Hence,
symbols convey a meaning which can exist only in the thought and in
the mind or in the judgment of the intellect. Multiplying words
does not reveal them. That process only covers or conceals them.
For instance, in nature we know only the effect of fire, we do not
know the cause. We know the effect of lightning or electricity, but
not its cause. We may be able in such phenomena to discover the
combination of the elements which compose them, but what acts upon
these elements to produce the effects is a mystery yet unsolved.
Likewise, another mystery, it does not seem that our comprehension,
our wisdom, is intended to solve them. The more we use words to
explain the insolvable, the unknown and the inscrutable the more we
re-cover them with an opaque cloak or veil.

FORCE OF ELECTRICITY

God and the Immortality of the Soul are far more hidden and
impenetrakle to the human mind than movement of matter. Fire and
electricity are matter because it takes time for them to act. The
marvelous force of electricity which comes and goes, with its
terrifying effects, almost instantaneously, a cataract of fire from
the sky, nevertheless is visible and takes time. The shrouded and
obscure ether which we call void or space, by its friction, or for
some other cause, retards light because though light travels with
inconceivable rapidity time is consumed before it reaches the earth
from the distant stars.

Our human reason is perhaps partially defined as meaning proof.
Proof appeals to the judgment, to the intellect, in such manner as
to be convincing. In other words, reason is, in our mind, the
certainty of some existence or phenomena we can appreciate and
understand. We all know there are such material things as dew,
light, earth, plants, moon, stars, sun and buildings, trees or
objects of any kind, or rainbows, or clouds or colors because we
see them. Science explains many things indisputably. Many other
effects we feel. We are certain that such things are true and that
they exist. Our reason makes them known to us.

When reason ceases we must rely on faith, whether faith precedes or
follows reason or operates with it simultaneously. A faith that is
blind, that is covered or a matter of habit or an inheritance, is
not a real faith. We should have a faith founded upon reason, that
is, the certainty of conviction that never fears or trembles at the
approach of doubt. Otherwise we are groping in the dark or walking
in the shadows or in a perennial mist or fog.

STARS OF FAITH

Faith in God and the immortality of the Soul is one of the stars of
first magnitude in the constellations which form the entire
Philosophy of the Morals and Dogma, as it is in any philosophy of
Masonry. Can we acquire by any philosophy a real conviction based
upon never yielding faith ? Or must we abjure wisdom and always
falter through the darkness? Or can we find a reason for the faith
within us ? Pike says, yes ! Many other learned men say the same.
Why? The Bible is a reason for faith and is entirely sufficient for
many thousands. There can, however, be no harm in cumulating
reasons for faith, if there can be any such piling up of proof
outside the Bible. Likely, to all the proof for faith is there, if
we would but find it.

The most appealing foundation for a faith founded upon reason is
nature. Nature teaches by symbols; it does not explain. By analogy,
if not otherwise, the lessons of Nature will produce an unyielding
and inevitable faith. Nature, the Universe, is the work of the
Absolute, the evidence of the thought of the Cause of Causes, God.
Matter is never destroyed. The soul or spirit of man is from the
Supreme Light and is indestructible by every demonstration of the
Infinite.

The philosophy of Pike, aside from certain profound conclusions,
aside from its beautiful lessons of morality, and aside from its
innumberable excursions into the theory of every effort at
government and social problems and their effect, and aside from the
worked over and quoted philosophy of the sages and scholars,
reveals a lesson to the ordinary mind of the ordinary Mason so
bright, so resplendent and so lovely as to be fascinating, even
though he does not pretend to be metaphysical. And this is so
whether or not Pike uses that lesson as an illustration or argument
for his final consummation and whether original or borrowed or
moulded in the crucible of his astounding mind.

FAITH AND REASON

Faith standing parallel with reason are certainly two of the great
columns which Pike's philosophy constructs. Exercise your reason or
judgment to make your faith strong. If your faith in God and
immortality is proved to you, it is immutable and unchangeable !
The strongest winter winds of doubt will never make it cold or
frosty, the hottest tropic blasts of vacillation will never make it
shrivel or shrink, and no atmosphere of hesitation can ever warp or
change its melodious cogency. The fixed certainty of faith must be
acquired by yourself. It is yours instinctively and it needs only
its refinement and education to make it manifest to you. All the
accumulated knowledge of all the libraries of the world are
powerless to transfer faith from their pages to your mind, but only
one book may create in you that inestimable human gift; but without
even one book you may gather the harvest of faith from one seed of
wisdom planted by nature.

The great, so called, concealed mystery of Masonic philosophy is
revealed by faith. The meanings of its symbols are made obvious by
faith. When once acquired the conqueror may see the seven steps of
the ladder, and as he climbs, looking upward, the clouds break, the
horizon broadens and the light shines more and more clearly until
it becomes the refulgence of certain immortality. Such a faith will
reconcile existing evil with God's absolute wisdom and goodness.
Faith with reason are not alone for the profound scholar sitting
perched upon a pinnacle of inaccessible seclusion, but they are
also for him who toils in the valley or works upon the
mountainside, if his thoughts scale the heights along the way that
nature has blazed with perpetual tokens. So reads the philosophy of
Pike. Read, and reflect. Stimulate your mind by reading and
exercise it by reflection.

THE SPAN OF LIFE


The span of life is so brief, that the wonderful mechanism of man
seems hardly worth while, but when we come to consider the wonders
of nature; that the most minute forms of life like the infusoria or
the animalcula, some of which live for an hour or a day only, and
on the other hand the unspeakable and stupendous duration of the
solar systems, we can gather some idea or conception by comparison
of the microscopical and infinitesimal importance of man. It is
largely this appreciation of the insignificance of self that leads
to a real appreciation of the marvelous magnitude and prodigious
phenomena of nature. Time blots out material life as we crush an
ant with our heel or as a blotter takes up the ink. The brevity of
life has been the theme of the bard and the inspiration of the
philosopher. Every lesson of morality and truth and the virtues
have been painted and sung and prosed from the inspiration of the
shortness of life and the insignificance of man. However, because
life is short and self is nothing is not a reason to decline to
make the most of life. To improve our moral nature and find the
means of multiplying our beneficence and to use our best effort for
the improvement of our spiritual nature by the worship of the Grand
Architect of the Universe, the interpretation of God's writing on
the great pages of the Book of Nature and the amelioration of the
evils of mankind are the great work of Masonry through its
Philosophy. The pages of Pike shine with this philosophy and faith
and reason, and apparently contraries working co-ordinately, are
its beacon light. True there are many coruscations rising and
falling, from and to the great central radiance or light of faith
in God and the immortal Soul founded upon reason. For illustration
let us take two quotations from Pike.

THE MIRACLE OF LIFE

"Here are two minute seeds, not much unlike in appearance, and two
of larger size. Hand them to the learned Pundit, Chemistry, who
tells us how combustion goes on in the lungs, and plants are fed
with phosphorus and carbon, and the alkalies and silex. Let her
decompose them, analyze them, torture them in all the ways she
knows. The net result of each is a little sugar, a little fibrin,
a little water--carbon, potassium, sodium, and the likc one cares
not to know what.

"We hide them in the ground; and the slight rains moisten them, and
the Sun shines upon them, and little slender shoots spring up and
grow;--and what a miracle is the mere growth !--the force, the
power, the capacity by which the little feeble shoot, that a small
worm can nip off with a single snap of its mandibles, extracts from
the earth and air and water the different elements, so learnedly
catalogued, with which it increases in stature, and rises
imperceptibly toward the sky.

"One grows to be a slender, fragile, feeble stalk, soft of texture,
like an ordinary weed; another a strong bush, of woody fibre armed
with thorns, and sturdy enough to bid defiance to the winds; the
third a tender tree, subject to be blighted by the frost, and
looked down upon by all the forest; while another spreads its
rugged arms abroad, and cares for neither frost nor ice, nor the
snows that for months lie around its roots.

"But lo ! out of the brown foul earth, and colorless invisible air,
and limpid rain-water, the chemistry of the seeds has extracted
colors--four different shades of green, that paint the leaves which
put forth in the spring upon our plants, our shrubs and our trees.
Later still come the flowers--the vivid colors of the rose, the
beautiful brilliance of the carnation, the modest blush of the
apple, and the splendid white of the orange. Whence come the colors
of the leaves and flowers ? By what process of chemistry are they
extracted from the carbon, the phosphorus, and the lime? Is it any
greater miracle to make something out of nothing?

ACID AND ALKALIES

"Pluck the flowers. Inhale the delicious perfumes; each perfect,
and all delicious. Whence have they come? By what combination of
acids and alkalies could the chemist's laboratory produce them ?

"And now on two comes the fruit--the ruddy apple and the golden
orange. Pluck them--open them ! The texture and fabric how totally
different! The taste how entirely dissimilar--the perfume of each
distinct from its flower and from the other. Whence the taste and
this new perfume? The same earth and air and water have been made
to furnish a different taste to each fruit, a different perfume not
only to each fruit, but to each fruit and its own flower."

"We are all naturally seekers of wonders. We travel far to see the
majesty of old ruins, the venerable forms of the hoary mountains,
great water-falls, and galleries of art. And yet the world-wonder
is all around us; the wonder of setting suns, and evening stars, of
the magic springtime, the blossoming of the trees, the strange
transformations of the moth; the wonder of the Infinite Divinity
and of His boundless revelation. There is no splendor beyond that
which sets its morning throne in the golden East; no dome sublime
as that of Heaven; no beauty so fair as that of the verdant,
blossoming earth."

One of these paints with language colored as highly as the foliage
and flowers and with an aroma as beguiling as the perfume of his
flowers, the force of material agencies like air, earth, water and
light. Another comprehends the wonders of the sky, like the
countless lamps of heaven hung out at night, or the wondrous beauty
of the chromatic sunset which could only be painted with colorings
from the angels' studio.

THE ETERNAL LAW

The fact that the earth is spherical, which we should never forget,
and therefore has no beginning and no end in our minds, is
symbolical of its Author; furthermore, its most material part, its
dirt, is part even of the great celestial plan of the Universe and
in combination with other agencies is obeying the same law of
harmony as the solar systems or the same impulse or cause which
agitates the human mind to think or the muscles to move or the worm
to live.

Here again the lesson, the same eternal immutable law governs the
growth of the blade of grass or the trembling leaf as it does the
overarching heavens in which is displayed the refulgence of the
midday sun or the calm glow of the moon or the patient reflections
from the planets or the peaceful scintillations from the distant
stars.

Faith is founded upon the sphere which our reason tells us has no
end and no beginning; the highest and most perfect symbol and
expression of harmony. The Soul, a manifestation of the infinite,
indefinable, insolvable, the great mysterious gift from God--we
cannot understand without solving the impossible and drawing aside
the dark veil which covers immortality. If we cannot have
demonstrated to us by indubitable proof one manifestation of the
Infinite, the absurdity of any finite comprehension of the Infinite
or Absolute is apparent. Faith is a human necessity, without it
there is only a combination of fortuitous circumstances which we
blindly call chance. Faith is the result of the reason and works
with it hand in hand, as "light and darkness are the eternal ways
of the Universe," now unfolding the morning dawn, or the brilliant
day, now painting the heavens with beautiful colors and now
shrouding the earth like the realms of Erebus, as a never ending
panorama of eternal harmony. Faith is the companion and friend of
reason and each are different but dependable one upon the other as
the hemispheres of the brain. The arc of one is the arc of the
other. They are both a part of the same circle which comprehends
everything. The blade of grass is a part of the circle and so is
the milky way, vast in extent and distance, yet only a pathway in
the heavens. Space above is equal to space below. Space is balanced
whether you stand upon the earth or upon the sphere so far away
that its light has not yet reached us. The zenith and the nadir,
the most remote points in the imagination, are also centers of
circles so far away that space or distance become immeasurable as
the immeasurable becomes the illimitable. The same unchangeable
laws govern and control the throb of your heart as guide the
destinies of the heavenly bodies whirling along on their voyage
through space. Appreciate this and faith springs spontaneously from
the reason! Science has demonstrated the unchangeableness of these
laws. Nature reiterates again and again in the noiseless
revolutions of the spheres or in the silent continuous growth of
trees the immutability of these laws in thousands of years of never
changing perfection. Faith is born from the reason that sees and
appreciates the logical never ending panorama of nature's calm and
peaceful and serene operation through the law of harmony in all
cycles of infinite time.

"Do not consider the principle business of the Lodge to procure fun
and entertainment for its members; but to neglect to provide for
entertainment at all is still worse."


