From the Quarries

William Harvey’s The Altar of Freemasonry, first published in 1919, is a compact but remarkably rich exploration of the symbolism of the First Degree.

Beginning with the altar at which the Initiate kneels, Harvey gradually expands his attention across the whole symbolic landscape of the Lodge: the Volume of the Sacred Law, Square and Compasses, the Lodge as an emblem of the Universe, Jacob’s Ladder, the Mosaic Pavement, the tassels and Cardinal Virtues, the pillars of Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, and the Rough and Perfect Ashlars.

For Harvey, these are not merely pieces of ceremonial furniture. Each becomes part of a larger moral system in which architecture, operative craft and ritual symbolism are used to consider education, self-discipline, equality, virtue, honour and mercy.

The lecture was written specifically to accompany the First Degree and to explain the symbols represented upon its Tracing Board. More than a century later, it remains an unusually coherent example of the way an earlier generation of Masonic writers understood the relationship between ritual, symbolism and the moral purpose of the Craft.

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