Mystic masonry, or, The symbols of freemasonry and the greater ...

Postscript to the Fifth Edition. 269
POSTSCRIPT TO THE FIFTH EDITION
The original thesis of ''Mystic Masonry" may be defined
as follows:
To show and illustrate the profound wisdom embodied
in the philosophy that underlies and runs like a golden
thread throughout the whole Institution of Freemasonry.
To demonstrate through this philosophy and its use,
illustrations, dramatic representations and symbolism,
that the "Work of the Lodge" constitutes a Great School
oj Instruction for its candidates and Praters, in the real
meaning of life, and the basic principles of human conduct,
so as to secure the highest and most noble results
ever revealed to man: To render absurd and illogical
any other inference from the references to, and all that
we know of, the real Masters of the past, and the Schools,
and the "Greater Mysteries" of antiquity.
Masonry seems to have embodied, crystallized, preserved
and adapted to the present age, these Jewels of
all the past, divested of all extraneous or irrelevant
matters.