THE BUILDER OCTOBER 1925

What Is Symbolism?
By BRO. R. J. MEEKREN

A SUBJECT that perennially crops up among Masons whenever they are
discussing the more serious aspects of the Institution is
symbolism. It might well appear, judging by the flow of books and
articles on the symbols and symbolic teaching of Masonry, that the
subject must be worn quite threadbare, yet even a casual
acquaintance with what has been written will show that this is not
the case, indeed it will often appear that the would-be expositors
are more in need of explanation than the symbols of which they
treat. It would, therefore, seem that it might be better to attack
the problem from a different angle, for a problem Masonic symbolism
has certainly become. To adopt the words of Paul the Apostle, it is
foolishness to some and to others a cause of stumbling and
misapprehension.

Mackey, whose explanations of Masonic symbolism, in spite of much
that is questionable, are probably still the best and safest,
speaks of a "Science of symbolism," and he would define Masonry as
a "system of morality developed and inculcated by the science of
symbolism." Strictly speaking, in the present day sense of the
word, there is no such thing, and what it is proposed to do in the
present article is to approach the subject from the strictly
scientific point of view.

Those who are at all acquainted with the story of the development
of our modern science, the really great achievement of our
civilization, are aware that the great strides that have been made
in all directions in recent years have been in part due to the
breaking down of the old water-tight compartments that separated
one science from another. The comparative method has been the
potent apparatus by which so much has been done in the latest
investigations, especially in subjects dealing with man himself,
individually and collectively. It fact, many subjects not long
since regarded as quite insusceptible to scientific treatment have
been elevated into sciences properly so-called through the
application of this method alone. The problems of the different
forms of religion among the various races and peoples of the earth
have very largely been elucidated by comparing them together, and
obscure survivals in one explained by cases where the custom or
belief was still in full force. And later still much has been done
by considering them in the light of psychology. Nothing is actually
isolated in the world, we have to distinguish and separate, analyze
and abstract, in order to deal with the raw material of knowledge,
the multitudinous phenomena of the world around us. This is the
only way in which we can deal with it, and our minds are formed
innately and by habit to so function. But when this has been done,
if we forget (as it is so very easy to do) that our subject, our
generalization or abstraction, is intimately connected with other
things at every point we lose all sense of balance and proportion,
and what knowledge we have gained becomes in truth more or less
falsified because we have lost the reality of its place and
connection in relation to the whole.

As an example, a very simple and obvious one we distinguish in our
own bodies various members and organs. In this case we are not
likely to forget the connection we are not likely to deem the hand
an entity apart from the arm to which it belongs, or the brain that
directs it according to sensations received by the eye or ear. But
a mountain is as much a part of the earth as the hand is of the
arm, or the earth part of the solar system. The abstract formulae
of mathematics or chemistry are no more than representations of the
normal, usual or habitual way in which things behave, as much so as
when we generalize about our fellows in saying one is generous, or
another irascible, or another virtuous. Usually we prefer to say,
speaking of inanimate things. the invariable mode of action rather
than habitual. But we cannot logically use this or like terms
absolutely, for our knowledge is based on a quite limited amount of
experience, and we are never likely to be able to demonstrate that
there are not minute variations in the reactions of material
objects. Human beings, and even animals, as individuals, show much
variation, but in the mass can quite well be covered by cut and
dried rules as statistical research has shown. So many individuals
in a thousand will die in a certain time, so many will be born, so
many get married and so on. It is true that the rates are variable
from place to place and time to time, but we are dealing with
groups of individuals all of whom are highly variable in
themselves. If such groups can be so accounted for in useful
fashion, if they exhibit a tendency to act as a whole according to
a rule or law, much more will groups of individuals or units whose
variations are very small, such as the supposititious systems of
molecules that form the material objects of every-day life
according to the accepted hypothesis of physical science. The point
is that the tendency of thought is always to make absolute and
invariable entities out of limited generalizations. We speak of
justice, or fortitude, and immediately that principle of action or
disposition of mind assumes a separateness and distinctiveness that
it has not really got in itself. This is true all through the whole
field of experience, from a boy's interest in batting averages to
the business man's rules for disposing of routine matters in his
office, from the infant's first distinctions of distance between
the toy offered to it that it can grasp and the electric chandelier
for which it reaches in vain, to the biologist's classifications of
living organisms into groups and families and varieties. And so in
dealing with Freemasonry, those who are seeking further light, once
they have acquired the rudiments of the subject as taught in the
lodge, can hardly have it too often impressed upon them, that
Masonry cannot be understood fully as an isolated fact. Its history
cannot be properly understood in ignorance of the secular history
of the countries and communities in which it has appeared, its laws
cannot be appreciated without reference to the science of
jurisprudence in general, its objects, its raison d'etre must be
interpreted in the light of social organization in general, and so
too with regard to its symbols.

THE MEANING OF THE WORD DISCUSSED

As a first step it may be useful to see what the word symbol
actually means. Generally of course everyone knows its
signification, but the history of a word and its use often gives
fresh light upon it. Webster's dictionary tells us it is "the sign
or representation of something moral or intellectual by the images
or properties of natural things," gives as synonyms, emblem,
figure, type. A sentence from Samuel Taylor Coleridge is quoted in
further elucidation: "A symbol is a sign included in the idea it
represents--an actual chart chosen to represent the whole, or a
lower form or species used as the representative of a higher in the
same kind." It is also used in place of letter, or character, as in
algebra and mathematics generally.

The word itself is pure Greek, transliterated without any change
but the dropping of the case ending. Symbolon. (the Greek letter
"u" is usually represented by "y" in English) is "a sign by which
a thing is known or inferred," it is used generally in Greek in the
sense of sign, mark or token. Sumbola, symbols, in Greek, were the
same thing as the Latin Tesserae hospitalis, pieces of bone, coins,
or other objects broken in two, part being kept by each of two
parties as a pledge and proof of friendship. In principle these
were essentially the same thing as the medieval "tally," which was
a piece of wood split in two, after various notches had been cut on
it, as a mutual record of an account. Or the original form of
cheque in which the paper was torn in two, the fitting together of
the two pieces being a proof of its genuineness. The derived
meanings of the word in Greek thus came to be the half of anything,
a corresponding part, a ticket, a permit or license, a verbal
signal, a watchword, any distinctive mark, such as the "Confession
of faith" in the Christian Churches, or the outward sign of a
conception or idea.

An allied word Symbolaion had the meaning of "a mark or sign from
which a conclusion is drawn" and came to be used for a covenant,
contract or bond. Both of these words were derived from Symballein,
which is literally "to throw together," a word used in very many
ways, as to meet together, to fight. But among the secondary
meanings are those of guess, conjecture, interpret, understand,
compare, reckon, compute and agree upon.

From all this we can see the line of development of meaning in this
term, from things put together, compared together, to things taken
as representing other things with which they have previously been
put, compared or associated. There is nothing mystical, abstruse or
far fetched about all this. It is a matter of every day usage.
Limiting the meaning of the term in accord with ordinary usage, to
objects or representations of objects, that are taken to mean some
other thing or group of things not so easily described or depicted,
we can still find plenty of symbols in every day use wherever we
choose to turn. Some are very modern, as for example the trademarks
of manufacturers, the badges of societies, and some very ancient,
as the letters of the alphabet. As is well known the latter were in
their origin pictures of actual objects, which were
conventionalized into pictographs such as were many of the Egyptian
hieroglyphs, and then by further simplification becoming ideograms,
like the characters of Chinese writing. How far we should be
justified in calling such designs, or graphs, symbols in the
stricter sense above defined, is open to question, but when these
characters ceased to be taken as representing an idea but were used
to designate a specific soul, they certainly became symbolical. The
letter "A" in Greek is Alpha, from the Semitic, Aleph, which meant
ox. The original form of the letter was a drawing of a bull's head.
In the course of transmission, after it had become purely
symbolical, the letter got turned upside down. "B" is Beta in
Greek, which is from the Semitic Beth, a house, and was originally
an outline drawing of a house.

This process, however, does not altogether fit the definition given
by Coleridge, as here we have the greater representing the less,
instead of the reverse, as he postulates. Yet though the sound of
the letter "A" is a simpler and a lesser thing than Aleph, the ox,
of which it is the first phonetic element, yet as a whole the use
of alphabetic writing is an enormous advance on pictographic or
ideographic. In any case whether the meaning ascends or descends
the principle of using one thing to stand for another is the same.

SYMBOLS ARE NOT OBSOLETE

Modern symbolical devices, such as the use of a wheel in design for
the badge of an automobile association, of a wing to represent an
aviator, or a word made up of the initial letters of the full name
of a firm or company, all these are too much in evidence to need
more than a bare notice in passing. Arbitrary designs or trademarks
would not, in the restricted sense, properly be called symbols, but
rather emblems or tokens (in the general sense). though whether
there are many such things as purely arbitrary marks or devices is
doubtful. In the minds of those who adopt them there is usually
some connection or association that would tend to bring them into
the class of symbols properly so-called. And here we reach the
psychologic aspect of the subject. Though by usage we limit the
word symbol to an actual object, or the representation of an object
visible and tangible (or at the least a reference in words to such
an object as being real and actual) which is taken to mean
something else, yet we must not allow ourselves to be led to
isolate the process of symbolizing from the other mental processes
or modes of expression in which one thing is compared or associated
with another and then used to represent, describe or suggest it.
Such rhetorical devices for example as metaphor, simile, allegory
and like figures and modes of speech are psychologically exactly
the same kind of thing as symbols.

WORDS ARE SYMBOLS

As a matter of fact, many, perhaps the majority of words are the
fossilized relics of forgotten analogies, metaphors and symbolisms.
For example, take the word cylinder, which to most men will at once
recall an essential part of an engine. It is derived from a root
meaning to roll, and from that root was named a form of solid that
would easily roll, a roller that is. This is perhaps a secondary
development, but let us take the word pipe, which probably makes
most people think of another mechanical artifact, a hollow piece of
metal usually. The root of this word is the same as that of "peep,"
a chirping or whistling noise. This is itself probably
onomatopoeic, that is, derived from a conventionalized spoken
reproduction of the kind of sound intended. From this it is applied
to a musical instrument devised to make such sounds, such as the
flute, whistle, or panpipes, and as these were all essentially
pieces of wood, metal or other material with hollow ducts, the word
finally comes to mean such objects for whatever purpose formed.
Take another word at random, the word "attend" will do. A meaning
that will perhaps first occur to mind is that of being "present
at," not however just being present somewhere, but at a special
kind of occasion, nearly always implying the presence of other
people as well. The root of the word means simply to stretch. From
mechanical or physical stretching it is applied metaphorically to
a stretching or tension of the mind, to pay attention to something.
From this it passes to the sense in which one gives attention to
another person, as a physician attends his patient, and from that
to attending a meeting, or a church service where attention will be
given to the proceedings. This sort of thing could be illustrated
from half the words that might be found in the pages of a
dictionary, and very likely if we knew more of ultimate derivations
from the great majority of words in all languages. Figurative and
symbolical language is especially the province of the poet and
orator, but every metaphor and simile, even of the most commonplace
character and used by most matter-of-fact people, is of the same
kind thing. Either original or secondhand symbols are our counters
of conversation, and even in the driest and most precise of
technicalities may be traced what originally were fresh and poetic
comparisons and analogies. Except for an irreducible minimum of
purely imitative word is probably the most of our words were thus
formed, and even the former really follow the same principle, as to
imitate a bird's note, a dog's barking, a cow's lowing, brings
those creatures to mind, the characteristic call or cry of each
standing as a representative of the individual. Some words in use
among us are patently thus originated--as the names of a chickadee
and bob-o-link and whippoorwill.

SYMBOLISM BASED ON ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS

Indeed the principle thus seen to be the underlying ground of
symbolism is possibly the characteristic mode of operation of our
minds. Some psychologists have referred all thinking to the
association of ideas. This as a theory is probably not now very
widely accepted, but it, does undoubtedly have a large place in our
mental processes and it includes the kind of comparison that we are
specifically dealing with. Psycho-analysts would have us believe,
not without considerable warrant in fact, that we are all of us
symbolists without knowing it, that our dreams are elaborate and
intricate systems of symbols representing unconscious and repressed
tendencies and wishes. Whatever judgment may be passed on this
theory such explanations it least again bear witness to the
universality of the principles involved, for even if they import a
symbolic meaning into phenomena in which it really does not exist,
it at least is an instance of the faculty of symbolizing, of
setting one thing to mean another.

The net result then of this preliminary survey is to show that the
use of symbols is a normal resource of humanity in the expression
or recording of thoughts and ideas. If this be so why is it that so
many are moved to impatience and even disgust with the elaborate
symbolical explications of Masonry that form such a considerable
part of the literature of the Craft? This is a question that could
only be fully answered in detail, but in general this aversion and
impatience are probably very frequently due to a feeling that these
intricate systems are either not true, or if true are of no
importance. Such an impression is, we must confess, in many cases
more than justified. But the fault lies not with the employment of
symbols but with the manner or purpose of their employment. We do
not quarrel with language or condemn its use because some people
tell us lies, or others bore us with uninteresting relations of
unimportant events. The fundamental trouble with most of the
elaborate interpretations of Masonic symbols is that their authors
have tried to read something into Craft teaching that was not
properly there. Perhaps it is not quite accurate to say properly
there. It was Adam Weishaupt who said in defense of his system that
no one had propounded an explanation of Masonry or an account of
its object that received the consent of anyone else and that in
such a confusion of opinions he felt quite justified in adding
another. The truth must be confessed that Masons have never been
agreed just what the teaching of Masonry really is, or perhaps more
accurately, what it should be; and every would-be Masonic prophet
and teacher has assumed, or attempted to give the impression, that
his explanation was the original and authentic one, and was
concealed in the symbols of the Fraternity by the mythical sages
who founded it.

THE POWER OF SYMBOLS

However, these brothers are not to be condemned without
deliberation; the ground of their offending may turn out to be a
trivial matter, or one of detail only. One of the essentials of
symbolism, of metaphor and simile, is suggestiveness, which means,
worked out in fact, that everyone has suggested to him not wholly
what the speaker or teacher has in mind, but largely what he has of
his own to bring to its interpretation. In technical language, and
most of our everyday language is the same kind as what is strictly
called technical, suggestiveness, vagueness, is as far as possible
eliminated. When a surgeon speaks of making an incision, or of the
articulation of a joint, though the words were originally
figurative, in usage they have come to designate very definite
ideas. So when the mechanic speaks of a rivet, a bolt and nut, or
the exhaust of an engine; again all these words were originally
applied figuratively but understood very precisely. So also in such
everyday words and phrases as eating, getting up, cutting, and
hundreds of others, the meanings are so clearly defined that we all
probably have about the same mental reaction to them, that is, they
have the same import to the hearer as to the speaker. But when one
describes the heat of summer, and says the "air in the streets was
like the blast of a furnace," we all realize that he means it was
very hot, but we all picture it differently according to our own
experience. One who knows furnaces will conceive it differently
from one who knows only the kitchen fire.

It would be easy to select scores of illustrations from literature
of this kind of thing. Certain metaphors become fashionable, and
then they start on the downward path, and may eventually desiccate
into technicalities. In general it is unsafe for anyone to use a
figure or a symbol that is out of his own experience, the chances
are a thousand to one he will not get it quite right. That has been
one great fault of many writers on Masonic subjects. They have
attempted to develop the allegorical use of Craft symbols with no
knowledge of operative Craft technique; as, for instance, when
Mackey speaks of the squaring of stones being less skilled work
than that of setting them and therefore left to the apprentices,
whereas in fact it is rather the reverse. It is easily seen that
here he was constructing a supposed technical fact out of the
allocation of working tools to the three degrees in Speculative
Masonry. Some such errors are even to be found in our rituals, as
where in one degree something is said to be done "on the point of
the chisel under the pressure of the mallet." This almost reminds
one of the famous definition of a crab, that it is a red fish that
walks backward. A chisel is a tool with an edge not a point, and a
mallet gives rather an impact than a pressure.

This kind of mistake is more likely however to be made in the
secondary development of a symbol or group of symbols than in the
original choice, and for a good reason. A symbol or emblem (we are
still using the words in their widest sense) is first adopted to
express some idea, and to express it intelligibly; for by this time
it should be clear that the primary function of symbolism is to
express, to reveal, not to conceal. Medieval craftsmen were at one
in this with Greek sculptors and primitive picture writers. One
universal kind, that in a restricted sense might not be allowed the
name symbol, is the attribute. An object which serves as a label.
For instance a statue of a woman with a bow and quiver is Artemis,
with spear and helmet probably Athene. A naked man with a harp is
Apollo, with club and lionskin Hercules. So the Medieval artist put
in the wheel of St. Catherine, the lamb of St. Agnes, the keys of
St. Peter. This is quite elementary and due to simple association
of such objects in the story of the person represented, but it
leads on to the symbolic representation of abstract ideas. Before
the writer lies a plate showing insignia adopted for the Army of
the United States. For the medical service is a winged staff with
serpents twined round it--the attribute of Aesculapius, the god of
healing. For foreign service is a partial view of the statue of
Liberty, for the musical service a conventional lyre, for the
engineers a castle, for aviation a perspective outline of a flying
plane. This last and several others not mentioned are on the first
or pictographic level merely. The second of those mentioned
suggests that those who have been on foreign service will have seen
the statue of Liberty. The castle of the engineers represents one
of their chief functions, the designing of protective works. We see
in this modern instance a great variety of reason for adopting the
specific designs, and this has always been the case. The choice of
an emblem or symbol is due very largely to accidental
circumstances, which also accounts for the fact that the same
object can represent different ideas, as the anchor is the badge of
naval service and also an emblem of hope. And on the other hand the
same idea can be symbolized in many different ways. We may have an
inflamed heart for charity, or a woman caring for little children.
A torch or a lamp or a book may represent knowledge. The torch
again may mean truth. Justice is represented by the balance, and
also by the sword. The one thing is that there should be some
direct or indirect association that gives an intelligible and
natural connection between the thing represented and the object
representing it. This, of course, is contrary to the received
doctrine that symbols were chosen to conceal secret doctrines from
all but the initiated. That they have never been used in this way
would, of course, be going too far. But even here the general rule
holds good? the symbol must be obvious in meaning to those in the
secret. The appropriateness of a symbol depends on a common
experience. The pictographic aeroplane is obvious in meaning to all
of us today. The more subtle symbol of the statue of Liberty would
be clear on reflection to most Americans, but might be very obscure
or unintelligible to people in other countries. The staff of
Aesculapius requires a knowledge of ancient mythology to appreciate
fully, though it of course has become almost as conventional as the
letters of the alphabet.

The symbol then is intelligible naturally and obviously to the
group with the same kind of experience as the one who chooses it.
If the early Christians used the fish as a secret sign it was
obvious to them, it had references to baptism as well as
representing in a kind of picture puzzle a confession of faith.
Jesus Christ the son of God, the Saviour. For the initials of this
phrase in Greek, Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter, spell Iethus,
the word for fish. The drawing of a fish therefore became at once
a symbol of the faith and a token of recognition.

The conclusions then that we must come to are that Masonic
symbolism, in the first place, is no mystical or abstruse thing
apart from everyday life, but rather quite normal and inevitable;
and secondly that the primary meaning of these symbols is an
obvious one so long as we keep in touch with reality. It may not be
always obvious to the uninitiated because he has not had the same
experience. It may not always be obvious to the uninstructed Mason
because the original fitness of the choice may have lain in a state
of affairs now passed away. To understand such as these wider
knowledge is required parallel to that necessary for the full
explanation of the badge of the medical service, or how "B" came to
represent a certain consonant. But after this it must be remembered
that the advantage of symbolism is in suggestiveness, and that
everyone brings some new element to its interpretation, every one
if he looks can see some new shade of meaning. For those who like
definite statements we can conclude by saying that the primary,
simple and obvious meaning is the authoritative and authentic one,
so far as these qualifying words apply, but that any meaning the
individual can find for himself is also just as legitimate so long
as it is in accord with the primary significance.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

For the purely Masonic aspect of the subject Mackey's Symbolism of
Masonry and Haywood's Symbolical Masonry are recommended. The
latter work is the result of two years intensive research in which
about everything ever written on the subject was examined. Mackey's
Encyclopedia also has much on the subject under appropriate
headings.

The psychological aspect has been extensively discussed in recent
years by the psycho-analytic school. Dreams and Myths by K.
Abraham, Dreams and Totem and Taboo by Freud, the originator of the
method, and a Brief Outline of the Freudian Theory by Barbara Low.
Readers are, however, warned that they may find much in books on
this subject to repel them.

On characters and symbols used in writing, the article on alphabets
in the Encyclopedia Britannica may be consulted. Of modern symbols
there is a useful list in Symbolism for Artists by H.T. Bailey and
Ethel Pool.

On the symbolism of primitive magic Tyler's Primitive Culture and
Frazer's Golden Bough will be found useful as an introduction to
the subject, more especially as they are written with quite other
purposes in view.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
What is a symbol? On what principle are symbols chosen? How and by
whom are they selected and why are they employed? Is symbolism as
a means of expression obsolete? What is it real function?

