Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

ETHICS
EUCLID 253
phy, which is altogether speculative, and derived
from and founded on man's speculations
concerning God and himself . There might be
a sect of philosophers who denied the existence
of a Superintending Providence ; but it would
still have a science of ethics referring to the relations
of man to man, although that system
would be without strength, because it would
have no Divine sanction for its enforcement .
And, lastly, we have the Ethics of Freemasonry,
whose character combines those of the
three others. The first and second systems in
the series above enumerated are founded on
religious dogmas ; the third on philosophical
speculations. Now as Freemasonry claims to
be a religion, in so liar as it is founded on a recognition
of the relations of man and God, and
a philosophy in so far as it is engaged in speculations
on the nature of man, as an immortal,
social, and responsible being, the ethics of
Freemasonry will be both religious and philosophical
.
The symbolism of Masonry, which is its
peculiar mode of instruction, inculcates all the
duties which we owe to God as being his children,
and to men as being their brethren .
"There is," says Dr . Oliver, "scarcely a point
of duty or morality which man has been presumed
to owe to God, his neighbor, or himself,
under the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, or the
Christian dispensation, which, in the construction
of our symbolical system, has been left
untouched ." Hence, he says, that these symbols
all unite to form "a code of moral and
theological philosophy" ; the term of which
expression would have been better if he had
called it a "code of philosophical and theological
ethics ."
At a very early period of his initiation, the
Mason is instructed that he owes a threefold
duty, to God, his neighbor, and himself,-
and the inculcation of these duties constitutes
the ethics of Freemasonry .
Now, the Tetragrammaton, the letter G,
and many other symbols of a like character,
impressively inculcate the lesson that there is
a God in whom "we live, and move, and have
our being," and of whom the apostle, quoting
from the Greek poet, tells us that "we are his
offapring." To him then as the Universal
Father, does the ethics of eemasonry teach
us that we owe the duty of loving and obedient
children .
And, then, the vast extent of the Lodge,
making the whole world the common home of
all Masons and the temple in which we all
labor for the building up of our bodies as a
spiritual house, are significant symbols, which
teach us that we are not only the children of
the Father, but fellow-workers, laboring together
in the same task and owing a common
servitude to God as the Grand Architect of the
universe-the Algabil or Master Builder of the
world and all that is therein ; and thus these
symbols of a joint labor, for a joint purpose,
tell us that there is a brotherhood of man : to
that brotherhood does the ethics of Freemasonry
teach us that we owe the duty of fraernal
kindness in all its manifold phases .
And so we find that the ethics of Freemasonry
is really founded on the two great
ideas of the universal fatherhood of God and
the universal brotherhood of man.
Ethiopia . A tract of country to the south
of Egypt, and watered by the upper Nile .
The reference to Ethiopia, in the Master's
Degree of the American Rite, as a place of
attempted escape for certain criminals, is not
to be found in the English or French rituals,
and I am inclined to think that this addition
to the Hiramic legend is an American interpolation
. The selection of Ethiopia, by the
ritualist, as a place of refuge, seems to be
rather inappropriate when we consider what
must have been the character of that country
in the age of Solomon .
Etymology. For the etymology of the
word Mason, see Mason, Derivation of the
Word.
Euclid . In the year of the world 3650,
which was 646 years after the building of King
Solomon's Temple, Euclid, the celebrated
geometrician, was born . His name has been
always associated with the history of Freemasonry,
and in the reign of Ptolemy Soter,
the Order is said to have greatly flourished in
Egypt, under his auspices . The well known
forty-seventh problem of his first book, although
not discovered by him, but long before
by Pythagoras, has been adopted as a
symbol in the Third Degree .
Euclid, Legend of. All the old manuscript
Constitutions contain the well known
"legend of Euclid," whose name is presented
to us as the "Worthy Clerk Euclid" in every
conceivable variety of corrupted form. The
legend as given in the Dowland MS . (q . v.) is
in the following words :
"Moreover, when Abraham and Sara his
wife went into Egypt there he taught the
Seaven Scyences to the Egiptians ; and he had
a worthy Scoller that height Ewcjyde, and he
learned right well, and was a master of all the
vij Sciences liberall . And in his dayes it befell
that the lord and the estates of the realme
had soe many sonns that they had gotten,
some by their wifes and some by other ladyes
of the realm ; for that land is a hott land and a
plentious of generation . And they had not
competent livelode to find with their children ;
wherefore they made much care . And then the
King of the land made a great Counsell and a
parliament, to witt, how they might find their
children honestly as gentlemen ; And they
could find no manner of good way . And then
they did crye through all the realme, if their
were any man that could informe them that
he shoud come to them, and he should lie soe
rewarded for his travail, that he should hold
him pleased .
"After that this cry was made, then came
this worthy clarke Ewclyde, and said to the
King and to all his great lords : `If yee will,
take me your children to governe, and to
teach them one of the Seaven Scyences, wherewith
they may live honestly as gentlemen
should, under a condicion, that yee will grant
me and them a commission that I may have