The Arcane Schools

Book excerpt: A Review of their Origin and Antiquity ; with a General History of Freemasonry, and its Relation to the Theosophic, Scientific, and Philosophic Mysteries. The object of the work is to give a broad, but condensed view, of the various traces that are to be found amongst the ancients, in their religion, in their art, and in their buildings, civil, sacred and military, of a Speculative System such as is now embodied in Freemasonry. The work is necessarily a compilation of suitable information to be found in ancient and modern writers upon history, mystery, mysticism, and Freemasonry; but it also embraces the most recent views on these subjects which have been evolved by close and critical examination.