In concluding this part of my treatise, I may here repeat what I have advanced in a late work,[16] viz., my conviction of the probability that a system of applying this law of nature in architectural construction was the only great practical secret of the Freemasons, all their other secrets being connected, not with their art, but with the social constitution of their society. This valuable secret, however, seems to have been lost, as its practical application fell into disuse; but, as that ancient society consisted of speculative as well as practical masons, the secrets connected with their social union have still been preserved, along with the excellent laws by which the brotherhood is governed. It can scarcely be doubted that there was some such practically useful secret amongst the Freemasons or early Gothic architects; for we find in all the venerable remains of their art which exist in this country, symmetrical elegance of form pervading the general design, harmonious proportion amongst all the parts, beautiful geometrical arrangements throughout all the tracery, as well as in the elegantly symmetrised foliated decorations which belong to that style of architecture. But it is at the same time worthy of remark, that whenever they diverged from architecture to sculpture and painting, and attempted to represent the human figure, or even any of the lower animals, their productions are such as to convince us that in this country these arts were in a very degraded state of barbarism—the figures are often much disproportioned in their parts and distorted in their attitudes, while their representations of animals and chimeras are whimsically absurd. It would, therefore, appear that architecture, as a fine art, must have been preserved by some peculiar influence from partaking of the barbarism so apparent in the sister arts of that period. Although its practical secrets have been long lost, the Freemasons of the present day trace the original possession of them to Moses, who, they say, “modelled masonry into a perfect system, and circumscribed its mysteries by _land-marks_ significant and unalterable.” Now, as Moses received his education in Egypt, where Pythagoras is said to have acquired his first knowledge of the harmonic law of numbers, it is highly probable that this perfect system of the great Jewish legislator was based upon the same law of nature which constituted the foundation of the Pythagorean philosophy, and ultimately led to that excellence in art which is still the admiration of the world.