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

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Introduction.
antique and simple degrees now stand like the
broken columns of a roofless, Druidic temple in
their mutilated greatness :
many parts also corrupted
by time, and disfigured by modern additions
and absurd interpretations." Morals and Dogma,
p. 1 06.
Here, then,
are two causes that have operated to
render the old wisdom difficult of recovery, viz.,
concealment, and ignorant alteration or misinterpretation.
To these must be added a third source of
obliteration, viz., the direct efforts of interested parties
to utterly destroy all records. "Let one only
think of the thousands, and perhaps millions, of
MSS. burnt; of monuments with their too indiscreet
inscriptions and pictorial symbols pulverized to dust
of the bands of early hermits and ascetics roaming
about among the ruined cities of Upper and Lower
Egypt, in desert and mountain, valley and highlands,
seeking for and ready to destroy every obelisk
and pillar, scroll or parchment they could lay
their hands upon, if it only bore the symbol of the
tau or any other sign borrowed and appropriated by
the new faith:—and he will then see plainly how it
is that so little has remained of the records of the
Past." Secret Doctrine, p. xl., vol. I.
Every intelligent and unbiased Mason is more or