n shall
hereafter be accepted a Freemason but such as are of _able_ body."[57]

Twenty years after, in the reign of James II., or about the year 1683, it
seems to have been found necessary, more exactly to define the meaning of
this expression, "of able body," and accordingly we find, among the
charges ordered to be read to a Master on his installation, the following
regulation:

"Thirdly, that he that be made be able in all degrees; that is, free-born,
of a good kindred, true, and no bondsman, and that _he have his right
limbs as a man ought to have."_[58]

The old charges, published in the original Book of Constitutions in 1723,
contain the following regulation:

"No Master should take an Apprentice, unless he be a perfect youth having
no maim or defect that may render him uncapable of learning the art."

Notwithstanding the positive demand for _perfection_, and the positive and
explicit declaration that he must have _no maim or defect_, the remainder
of the sentence has, within a few years past, by some Grand Lodges, been
considered as a qualifying clause, which would permit the admission of
candidates whose physical defects did not exceed a particular point. But,
in perfection, there can be no degrees of comparison, and he who is
required to be perfect, is required to be so without modification or
diminution. That which is _perfect_ is complete in all its parts, and, by
a deficiency in any portion of its constituent materials, it becomes not
less perfect, (which expression would be a solecism in grammar,) but at
once by the deficiency ceases to be perfect at all--it then becomes
imperfect. In the interpretation of a law, "words," says Blackstone, "are
generally to be understood in their usual and most known signification,"
and then "perfect" would mean, "complete, entire, neither defective nor
redundant." But another source of interpretation is, the "comparison of a
law with other laws, that are made by the same legislator, that have some
affinity with the subject, or that expressly relate to the same
point."[59] Applying this law of the jurists, we shall have no difficulty
in arriving at the true signification of the word "perfect," if we refer
to the regulation of 1683, of which the clause in question appears to have
been an exposition. Now, the regulation of 1683 says, in explicit terms,
that the candidate must "_have his right limbs as a man ought to have_."
Comparing the one law with the other, there can be