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

6o
Mystic Masonry.
proceeds in a natural order, and advances by specific
"degrees." The candidate must always be worthy
and well qualified, duly and truly prepared. That
is, he must perceive that such knowledge exists;
must desire to possess it; and must be willing to
make whatever personal sacrifice is necessary for its
acquirement. He must have passed beyond the
stage of blind belief or superstition, the bondage of
fear, the age of fable, and the dominion of appetite
and sense. This is the meaning of being "duly and
truly prepared." He must have proved his fitness
in these directions, no less than the absence in him
of that subtler form of intellectual selfishness which
comes from the possession of knowledge, and the
desire for dominion through it over others less highly
endowed, for selfish purposes of his own. His motive,
therefore, alone, can determine that he is
"worthy and well qualified."
It is true on every plane of life, that in the process
by which knowledge is acquired—always by experience—man
becomes the thing which he knows ; that
is, knowing is a progressive becoming. There results,
therefore, a continual transformation of the
motives, ideals, and perceptions of the individual,
whenever in his daily experience in life he is placed
on the lines of least resistance or the Natural Order