The history of freemasonry : its legends and traditions, its chronological history . system was accepted and practiced bythe founders of Speculative Freemasonry. But the discussion of this fact involves a thorough investigation,and can not be treated at the close of a chapter. The inquiry, so far as it has advanced, has, I think, satisfied usthat the Operative ritual was that which was at first adopted bythe founders of Speculative Freemasonry. When, afterward, they discarded this ritual as too simple and asunsuitable to their designs, they were obliged, in the constructionof their new system,
The history of freemasonry : its legends and traditions, its chronological history . system was accepted and practiced bythe founders of Speculative Freemasonry. But the discussion of this fact involves a thorough investigation,and can not be treated at the close of a chapter. The inquiry, so far as it has advanced, has, I think, satisfied usthat the Operative ritual was that which was at first adopted bythe founders of Speculative Freemasonry. When, afterward, they discarded this ritual as too simple and asunsuitable to their designs, they were obliged, in the constructionof their new system, to develop new degrees. The task, therefore, to which our attention must now be di-rected, is first to demonstrate that the primitive ritual accepted in1717 by the Speculatives consisted of but one degree, if for con-venience I may be allowed to use a word not strictly and grammati-cally correct; and, secondly, to point out the mode in which and theperiod when a larger ritual, and a system of degrees, was invented. And these must be the subjects of the two following CHAPTER XXXIII THE ONE DEGREE OF OPERATIVE FREEMASONS IN the articles of union agreed to in 1813 by thetwo Grand Lodges of England, the Moderns and the Ancients as they were called, it wasdeclared that pure Ancient Masonry consists ofthree degrees and no more. If by AncientMasonry it was intended to designate the systemthen existing, and no other and earlier one—»if the character of antiquity was to be circumscribed within the onehundred preceding years, or thereabouts—then the declaration mightbe accepted as an historical truth. But if it was designed to referby these words to the whole period of time, within which includedthe era of Operative, and of combined Operative and SpeculativeFreemasonry, as well as that later one when pure SpeculativeMasonry alone prevailed, then the assertion must be considered asapocryphal and as having no foundation in authentic history. If our judgment on this subje
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