Familiar Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Masonic Jurisprudence.

New York: Masonic Publishing Manufacturing Co, 1866. Full brown cloth hardcover binding with gilt lettering on the spine, stamped decorative borders on cover, gilding muted, endpapges soiled with previous owner's name and date, lacking front flyleaf and half title, steel plate endgraved frontispiece illustration of the author, John W. Simons. Overall in GOOD MINUS condition. Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation. Arising from obscure origins (theorised to be anywhere from the time of the building of King Solomon's Temple to the mid-1600s), it now exists in various forms all over the world, and claims millions of members. All of these various forms share moral and metaphysical ideals, which include in most cases a constitutional declaration of belief in a Supreme Being. The fraternity is administratively organised into Grand Lodges (or sometimes Orients) that each govern their own jurisdiction, which consists of subordinate (or constituent) Lodges. Grand Lodges recognise each other through a process of landmarks and regularity. There are also appendant bodies, which are organisations related to the main branch of Freemasonry, but with their own independent administration. Freemasonry uses the metaphors of operative stonemasons' tools and implements, against the allegorical backdrop of the building of King Solomon's Temple, to convey what is most generally defined as "a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." UncleAndy. Full Cloth. Good. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Hardcover.