From the Quarries

What is Freemasonry really for? Its symbols and ceremonies are familiar, but the purposes they serve have received remarkably different explanations.

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Freemasonry (1915), Roscoe Pound examined four influential answers:

William Preston’s conception of the lodge as a school of knowledge; Karl Christian Friedrich Krause’s account of moral development and social cooperation; George Oliver’s belief in the preservation of an ancient religious tradition; and Albert Pike’s search for the fundamental principles of existence.

Each interpretation reflected the intellectual concerns of its author and age.

This From the Quarries lecture follows those arguments before considering Pound’s own proposal: that Freemasonry should preserve, advance and transmit human civilisation. His account raises a question that remains pertinent to the Craft: how can an institution remain faithful to its inheritance while putting that inheritance to useful work in a changing world?

Source: Roscoe Pound, Lectures on the Philosophy of Freemasonry (Anamosa, Iowa: National Masonic Research Society, 1915).