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The Ancient Secret

 © Silas H. Shepherd, Henry A. Crosby and George C. Nuesse, members of Wisconsin Grand Lodge Committee on Masonic Research; and George B. Goodwin and Fred W. Russell associate members.

Michelet, in his History of France, says on the subject of the secret of the mediaeval Masons, that it was geometrical, and consisted of an application of the science of numbers, used in a mystical sense, to the art of building according to the principles of Gothic architecture. This was the peculiar style of the Freemasons, says Dr. Mackey in his History of Freemasonry. He says that this geometry of beauty, as he calls it, is conspicuous in the type of Gothic architecture, as exhibited in the cathedral of Cologne. This is a regular body which has grown in its appropriate proportions with a regularity equal to that of the formation of crystals. Links to Freemasonry continue, in the cross of this church, which is strictly deduced from the figure by which Euclid constructs the equilateral triangle.