e unchangeable, the individual meanings are the
variegated and the changeable. [As for the masonic symbolism in
particular, I am in agreement with Robert Fischer (Kat. Erl., III, fin.).
"Freemasonry rests on symbols and ceremonies; in that lies its superior
title to continued existence. They are created for eternal verities and
peculiarly adapted thereto; they are fitted to every grade of culture,
indeed to every time, and do not fall like other products of the time, a
sacrifice to time itself.... Therefore a complete abolition of our symbols
can meet with assent as little as an enfeeblement of them can be desired.
Much more must we strive in order that a clear understanding may sift out
the abstract, corresponding to our spiritual eye, from the concrete
necessary for our physical eye, so that the combined pictures shall be
resolved in the simple fundamental truths. By this means the symbols
attain life and motion and cannot be put down for things that decay with
time."] Therefore the symbols should never be changed in favor of a
particular meaning, which becomes the fashion (or be brought closer to it
over and above the given relation). What is to be maintained through
variations of meaning, is not the meanings but the symbols themselves.

To each person symbols represent his own truth. To every one they speak a
different language. No one exhausts them. Every one seeks his ideal
chiefly in the unknown. It matters not so much what ideal he seeks, but
only that he does seek one. Effort itself, not the object of effort, forms
the basis of development. No seeker begins his journey with full knowledge
of the goal. Only after much circulation in the philosophic egg and only
after much passing through the prism of colors does that light dawn which
gives us the faint intimation of the outline of the prototype of all
lesser ideals. Whoever desires hope of a successful issue to this progress
must not forget a certain gentle fire that must operate from the beginning
to the end, namely Love.

Whom these teachings cheer not,
Deserves not to be a man.

NOTES.

Note A (80). I put here not merely those comparisons of motives which are
alike at the beginning, but also those that are important for our further
consideration. My rendering of them is partly abridged. Signs of
similarity are, as Stucken explains, not employed to express an absolute
congruence, but predominantly in the sense of "belongs with" or "or is