I proceed, then, to inquire into the historical origin of Freemasonry, as
a necessary introduction to any inquiry into the character of its
symbolism. To do this, with any expectation of rendering justice to the
subject, it is evident that I shall have to take my point of departure at
a very remote era. I shall, however, review the early and antecedent
history of the institution with as much brevity as a distinct
understanding of the subject will admit.

Passing over all that is within the antediluvian history of the world, as
something that exerted, so far as our subject is concerned, no influence
on the new world which sprang forth from the ruins of the old, we find,
soon after the cataclysm, the immediate descendants of Noah in the
possession of at least two religious truths, which they received from
their common father, and which he must have derived from the line of
patriarchs who preceded him. These truths were the doctrine of the
existence of a Supreme Intelligence, the Creator, Preserver, and Ruler of
the Universe, and, as a necessary corollary, the belief in the immortality
of the soul[1], which, as an emanation from that primal cause, was to be
distinguished, by a future and eternal life, from the vile and perishable
dust which forms its earthly tabernacle.

The assertion that these doctrines were known to and recognized by Noah
will not appear as an assumption to the believer in divine revelation. But
any philosophic mind must, I conceive, come to the same conclusion,
independently of any other authority than that of reason.

The religious sentiment, so far, at least, as it relates to the belief in
the existence of God, appears to be in some sense innate, or instinctive,