THE TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA
THE BUILDER JUNE 1921

PART II - THE MASONIC CONCEPTION OF HUMAN NATURE

IF A MAN wishes to develop a swift race horse he must first understand
much about the nature of horses; if he would build a powerful engine he
must needs understand something of mechanics; if he would build a house
he must have at least a working knowledge of building materials, of
proportion, of stresses and strains, and what not.  Similarly, he who
undertakes to work with men must, unless he wishes to invite certain
failure, understand something of human nature, which is to say, what kind
of a being man is, what can be done with him, what one may hope from
him.  It is safe to say that the largest number of attempts to reform and
improve man fail because of ignorance concerning human nature.

The science which deals with human nature, which asks what man is, how
he came to be, what his destiny is, is known as Anthropology.

There is such a thing as a Masonic Anthropology, or Science of man.
Masonry deals with men: it is trying to do certain things with men, to shape
them in a certain way, by certain means. Unless Masonry understands the
nature of men, and is able to deal successfully with that nature, it will as
surely fail as the man fails who tries to operate a farm without any
knowledge of agriculture.

What kind of a being is man, as Masonry understands him? It is quite
impossible to give any adequate answer to this question inside the limits
of so brief an article as this.  It is quite impossible even barely to mention
all of the most elementary features of such an answer.  We are compelled
to deal in generalities, and very briefly at that.

We may say, first of all, that to Masonry man is a being that can be
educated. This is implied in the Masonic ritual from end to end, and it is
taken for granted in every phase of Masonic teachings.  The candidate
comes in the dark, ignorant, a child, needing to be led about by a guide,
and cared for by patent guardians.  At the end of initiation he stands on his
own feet, he sees the light, he has in him a new vision, a new nature.
Under the veil of symbolism the novice is presented as a shapeless stone,
or Rough Ashlar, fresh from the quarry.  When the "work" is done he is a
Perfect Ashlar, a stone hewn and finished, ready for its place in the wall. 
If this can happen to a man inside the lodge from it can happen outside;
if a man can be born again under Masonic influences, he can also be born
again under other equally powerful influences.  To Masonry man is not a
static being: he is educable, and by educable is meant, not that every man
can be given a school training, but that man, by his nature, is capable of
growth, of improvement, of development.

How would you define "anthropology"? How would you go about the
scientific study of human nature?  What would such a study include? Of
what value is it to us in our every day life?  Why do we have a "Masonic
Anthropology"? How would you answer the question, What does Masonry
teach concerning the nature of man?

This view of human nature is optimistic, and it is therefore unfortunate that
all cannot hold it.  But such is the case, for there are many who cling to
some form of fatalism about man.  These may not believe that man's life is
fixed by the stars, as the astrologers once believed, but it amounts to the
same thing.  They may believe that before man was created God
preordained all the details of his life; or they may with certain scientists,
hold that man's life is wholly shaped by environment; or they may think that
accident or luck shapes all. In any event these persons hold that man is a
being helpless to change himself: if he is strong he can never become
weak; if he is weak he can never become strong.  Man is a static being, of
a fixed and unchangeable nature; what he is, that he had to be, and will
ever remain.

To the Mason this is a cardinal error.  He is under no illusions about human
nature. He knows how weak we all are; how much viciousness remains in
the most saintly nature; how ignorant the average human being is and will
always remain.  He knows how often man is his own worst enemy; how the
generality prefer to be governed by others rather than themselves. Knowing
all this, a wise Mason will not expect the impossible but he will expect that
under the pleadings of a right influence most men will respond, and he
believes that we should do all we can to improve human life even though
we can never make it perfect, or even satisfactory.  More than that, a
Mason believes that on the whole the race progresses, and that in the long
hereafter of the race's life men and women will reach levels of development
now unattainable.  Human nature, as hinted forth by all the devices of
"progress symbolism" scattered through the three degrees, is not static,
stationary, fixed in its present form, like a cast of iron.

Do you believe that EVERY human being is educable? How do you explain
the fact that one set of men develop so much faster than another? Why, for
example, is the American Indian so much more backward than the
American white man?

Nor does Masonry teach that human nature is a depraved thing, like the
ruin of a once proud building.  Many think that man was once a perfect
being but that through some unimaginable moral catastrophe he became
corrupt unto the last moral fibre of his being, so that, without some kind of
supernatural or miraculous help from outside him, he can never of himself
do, or say, or think, or be aught but that which is deformed, vile, hideous. 
Those who hold to this kind of anthropology usually claim to know how
supernatural help may be brought to bear on that corruption which is
human nature, and they usually believe themselves to be of the party which
controls that help, and they also usually believe that only those who accept
supernatural intervention according to their own formula have any hope
whatever of escaping from the original sin into which every man is born.

Do you believe that a man's nature can be permanently changed for good
or ill; or do you believe that what a man is when he is born that he will ever
remain? What is fatalism? How many different forms of the theory of
fatalism can you recall? Do you believe that a man must remain the
helpless victim of heredity, luck, environment, etc.?

An individual Mason here and there may hold this "depravity view" of
human nature: that the Order not hold it or countenance it, is abundantly
proven by the ritual, and by all our Masonic principles. Masonry bases on
the organization and control of those very forces in human society which
are most natural: charity, association, mutual help, and all the thousand
moral influences which play ceaselessly about the human being.  It is time
that the lesson in the Third degree is the lesson of regeneration: the
candidate comes as one whose old self must die, in order that a new self
may be born; but this new life into which the candidate is born is not in any
sense supernatural.

Do you believe that the race progresses? What is progress? Do you believe
in the doctrine that man's nature is from birth a depraved and corrupted
thing? Where did this theory originate? What theory concerning man is held
by the Roman Catholic church? by the Protestant churches? How would
you convince a man that Masonry does not hold to the "depravity view" of
human nature?

What is the relation of Masonic teaching to the theory of Evolution? Can the
philosophy of the ritual be made to harmonize with the theory of Darwin?
Here is a question with which Masonic thinkers of our day are everywhere
confronted, and it is a question difficult to answer.  Answered it must be,
however, in some sense, for Evolution gives us a new and distinct and
challenging conception of human nature.  Man, as "Darwin pictured him, is
not the same being as that conceived in the mind of St. Paul, or Jean
Jacque Rosseau.

It is impossible for us here to grapple with this vast question, but there is
one phase of it too important for our purpose to be passed over. According
to some of the theories of Evolution "man is not man as yet." He is only a
part-being, a creature in process, with a nature unfinished and doomed
therefore to wait for fullness of life in some remote future.  The present
writer believes that there is not one iota of word or act in the whole ritual
of the Order to agree with such a reading of human nature.  To Masonry
human nature is far from complete and anything but perfect, nevertheless
it is man as he is now endowed who will strive for progress and perfection. 
With the faculties he now possesses, with the five senses, with his hands
and his head, with such endowment as each is now equipped he must
build his Temple, or unbuilded will it ever remain.  To consider man as in
a mere state of flux; to picture him as a jelly-like being always to assume
new shapes - this is to depart from all sound thinking.  Man, in the essential
structure of his being, is now all that he can ever be.  He will never have
wings like a bird, he will never possess fins and gills, to live in the water:
in all eternity he can have but two eyes, and two ears, and two hands.  He
will be divided by sex into male and female; he will be born into social
relations, and he will evermore live in the midst of what we call external
nature.  These are fixed and absolute realities and any thinking which plays
fast and loose with these realities is no thinking at all.  To learn what are
the fixed facts of our nature; to learn how human society and the external
world necessarily behave, and to adjust one's self accordingly, so that one
may live in harmony with the way things really are, that is wisdom.

What is evolution? Who first discovered the theory? Who was Charles
Darwin? Do you believe in evolution? Does Masonry ? Do you agree with
what the paper says of one aspect of the evolution theory ?

We live in certain fixed relations. God is, and we are bound to him in a
thousand ways.  Nature is omni-present, and to live is to live in relationship
with her. Always there are other human beings about us, and always will
there be.  To live in harmony with God, man and nature, is happiness.  It
is wisdom.  It is mastership.  The Master-man, the Master Mason, is not one
who has been granted a few secrets in some miserable occultism as some
vainly believe and teach; he is one who has so mastered and organized the
fixed and universal facts and conditions of normal human life that he is
happy in his living.  He could not be happy in his every day life if he
believed his nature itself to be corrupt.  He has too much common sense
to believe that in this world all is as it should be.  He sees no reason for
postponing life until he has somehow evolved into super-manhood. He
takes life and the world as he finds them, and does the best he can with
them.

Man is not an angel.  He is not a perfect being whose faults are always due
to an unfriendly environment, nor is he a debased, rotted creature,
wallowing in mire until touched by the arbitrary grace of some supernatural
power.  Nor is his nature in a state of flux, so that he may be human now,
and something other than human after millions of years.  We can not learn
what man is by the long roundabout of some abstract theory.  We must
take him as he is.  He can not be taught much, but he can be taught.  He
is incapable of receiving much light but he is able to use his intellect a little. 
He can never be an ideal friend or brother but he is always capable of
some brotherhood.  He has plenty of selfishness, cupidity, lust, ignorance
in him; but he has a lot of nobility in him for all that.  Only a sentimentalist
will abandon his part in the uplift of man merely because that enterprise
always fails.  Because a mature Mason has the commonsense view of
human nature he will never expect too much of the world by way of charity,
brotherhood, enlightenment and the like, but even so he will toil faithfully
all his days to those great ends, knowing that human nature is capable of
great things.

In what sense is man's nature now fixed and completed? What is
"wisdom"? How can a man learn to be happy? How would you define the
"commonsense" view of human nature ? do you believe in it? do you
believe that Masonry teaches that? 

SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES

Mackey's Encyclopedia-(Revised Edition):

Oliver, George, p. 527; Pike, Albert, p. 563; Preston, William, p. 579.  Three
Philosophic ritualists of highest excellence and of great industry.

Monitor, p. 489; Monitorial Instructions, p. 489.  These references explain
the differences between the secret and the openly told teachings, and also
inform the reader of the earlier examples of these very convenient books
of reference.

Catechism, p. 136; Lectures, p. 429; Lectures, History of the, p.430; Ritual,
p. 627.  The four studies are the means to impress upon the initiate the
fundamental facts and principles of the fraternity; the ritual is the form or
garment of the body of instruction, the lectures comprise the primer of the
institution, and the catechism is the method of displaying in a concise
fashion the real familiarity the Freemason possesses of the Masonic
alphabet of his science.

Knowledge, p. 416; Truth, p. 805.  These refer to the search indicated by
the Mysteries of old (see page 497) where under the guise of a simple
symbolism profound philosophies were communicated to those capable of
receiving them.  Seeking Truth, symbolized by the Word, and finding
Knowledge, is ever the real object of the Freemason's pursuit.

Ashlar, p. 80.  A study of the progressive stages wherein the candidate is
divested of the superfluous and becomes fitted for the nobler service of the
Great Architect.

Fellow, p. 251.

Fellow Craft, p. 261.

Master Mason, p. 474.

Theocratic Philosophy of Freemasonry, p. 782.

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