Speculative Masonry. At one time, each was an integrant part of one
undivided system. Not that the period ever existed when every operative
mason was acquainted with, or initiated into, the speculative science.
Even now, there are thousands of skilful artisans who know as little of
that as they do of the Hebrew language which was spoken by its founder.
But operative Masonry was, in the inception of our history, and is, in
some measure, even now, the skeleton upon which was strung the living
muscles, and tendons, and nerves of the speculative system. It was the
block of marble--rude and unpolished it may have been--from which was
sculptured the life-breathing statue.[52]

Speculative Masonry (which is but another name for Freemasonary in its
modern acceptation) may be briefly defined as the scientific application
and the religious consecration of the rules and principles, the language,
the implements and materials of operative Masonry to the veneration of
God, the purification of the heart, and the inculcation of the dogmas of a
religious philosophy.




XII.

He Symbolism of Solomon'S Temple.



I have said that the operative art is symbolized--that is to say, used as
a symbol--in the speculative science. Let us now inquire, as the subject
of the present essay, how this is done in reference to a system of