Equally so was it with the art of building--a living allegory in which man imitated in miniature the world-temple, and sought by every device to discover the secret of its stability. Already we have shown how, from earliest times, the simple symbols of the builder became a part of the very life of humanity, giving shape to its thought, its faith, its dream. Hardly a language but bears their impress, as when we speak of a Rude or Polished mind, of an Upright man who is a Pillar of society, of the Level of equality, or the Golden Rule by which we would Square our actions. They are so natural, so inevitable, and so eloquent withal, that we use them without knowing it. Sages have always been called Builders, and it was no idle fancy when Plato and Pythagoras used imagery drawn from the art of building to utter their highest thought. Everywhere in literature, philosophy, and life it is so, and naturally so. Shakespeare speaks of "square-men," and when Spenser would build in stately lines the Castle of Temperance, he makes use of the Square, Circle, and Triangle:[101] /P The frame thereof seem'd partly circulaire And part triangular: O work divine! Those two the first and last proportions are; The one imperfect, mortal, feminine. The other immortal, perfect, masculine, And twixt them both a quadrate was the base, Proportion'd equally by seven and nine; Nine was the circle set in heaven's place All which compacted made a goodly diapase. P/ During the Middle Ages, as we know, men revelled in symbolism, often of the most recondite kind, and the emblems of Masonry are to be found all through the literature, art, and thought of that time. Not only on cathedrals, tombs, and monuments, where we should expect to come upon them, but in the designs and decorations of dwellings, on vases, pottery, and trinkets, in the water-marks used by paper-makers and printers, and even as initial letters in books--everywhere one finds the old, familiar emblems.[102] Square, Rule, Plumb-line, the perfect Ashlar, the two Pillars, the Circle within the parallel lines, the Point within the Circle, the Compasses, the Winding Staircase, the numbers Three, Five, Seven, Nine, the double Triangle--these and other such symbols were used alike by Hebrew Kabbalists and Rosicrucian Mystics. Indeed, so abundant is the evidence--if the matter were in dispute and needed proof--especially after the revival of symbolism under Albertus Magnus in 1249, that a whole book might be filled with it. Typical are the lines left by a poet who, writing in 1623, sings of God as the great Logician whom the conclusion never fails, and whose counsel rules without command:[103] /P Therefore can none foresee his end Unless on God is built his hope. And if we here below would learn By Compass, Needle, Square, and Plumb, We never must o'erlook the mete Wherewith our God hath measur'd us. P/