GEOMETRIC BULL
"There are a lot of things in Masonry," began the New Brother to
the Old Tiler.
"Bravo!" cried the Old Tiler, sarcastically. "Who told you all
that?"
"And some of them," continued the New Brother, "are more or
less bull. I yield to no one in my love for the order, but I see its faults. And
when I am expected to learn the science of geometry as a part of Masonry I know
I am being bulled. There is no more sense to including geometry in the second
degree than there would be including paleontology or..."
"I love to hear a man say he can see the faults of Masonry,"
interrupted the Old Tiler, "because then I am in the presence of a master
mind. Generations of philosophers have made Masonry what it is. When a new
brother can plainly see its faults he is greater than all of these."
"Of course I did not mean it that way. I just meant that I, er, you
know..."
"Do I? Well, then I suppose I'd better not mince words about it. To say
there is no sense to geometry in the second degree is to advertise the fact that
you know nothing and care less for the symbolism of the order. Take from Masonry
its symbolism and all you have left is a central thought with no means of
expression. Imagine a great musician, deaf, blind, and paralyzed, his heart
ringing with wonderful melodies and harmonies, yet unable to give them
expression, and you have a mental picture of Masonry without symbolism.
Symbolism is Masonry's means of expressing thought, and geometry, in the second
degree, is not an arithmetical study, but a symbol.
"Geometry was an outgrowth of the first science. The first glimpse brute
man had there was aught in nature but haphazard chance or the capricious doing
of a superior overlord was when he learned the stupendous fact that two and two
always make four.
"From that humble beginning and recognition of the master law of the
universe-which is, that law is universal, unchanging, and invariable-grew the
study of things; their surfaces, their areas, their angles, their motions, their
positions. Modern methods have gone farther than Euclid, but his work was
perfectly done and Euclid's geometry stands today as a perfect thing, as far as
he took it.
"Geometry is the science of order. Reaching back to the first
recognition that there was order in the world, it may stand for anyone who has
eyes to see, as it does stand in Masonry, for man's recognition of God in the
universe. It is a symbol of universality. By geometry we know that natural law
on earth is nature's law for the stars. There have been few atheists in the
world, but I venture to say that none of them have been geometricians or
astronomers. They know too much to deny the existence of the Great Geometer when
seeing His work.
"Geometry is everywhere. It is in the snowflake's measured lines of
crystallization. There is geometry of the honeycomb and a geometry of the cone
of a fir tree. Mountains stand or fall as they obey or disobey the laws of
geometry and the spider in her web and the planets in their orbits alike work
according to the universal laws of geometry.
"'I think God's thoughts after Him,' said the great astronomer Kepler,
looking through his telescope and thinking of the geometry of the skies.
"If we know two angles and one dimension, we can find the other
dimension. Man has angles and dimensions; and if we know enough of them we can
find the rest. One of a man's angles is his love of Masonry. Given a real love
of Masonry as one angle, a willingness to live her precepts as the other and we
can tell what sort of a man he is now, used to be, and will be in the future.
"It is a real geometry the second degree commends to you, my brother,
because it is a symbol of law and order, of Deity, of universality. But it is
spiritual geometry which you should study rather than the propositions of
Euclid, bearing in mind that they are symbols of that which Masonry most
venerates, most wisely teaches, and most greatly loves.
"Our ancient brother Pythagoras discovered the wonderful demonstration
of the Great Architect which is the forty-seventh problem of Euclid. And so when
I hear a young squirt of a Mason, with his eyes barely opened to the long path
which is Masonry winding through the stars to God, say that the geometry in the
second degree is bull, I wish I were young enough to take him out in the back
lot and treat him as I would a small boy who found humor in church and fun in
sacred things, and..."
"Oh, stop!" cried the New Brother. "I was wrong. I didn't
understand. Say, where can I get a geometry book? I want to know more about that
forty-seventh problem."
"In the reading room," growled the Old tiler. "And, say, son,
when you get it in your head, come back here and explain it all over again to
me, will you?"
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