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Rout ledge Approaches to History
TELEOLOGY ANO MODERNITY

Edited by
William Gibson, Dan O'Brien and Marius Turda
Teleology and Modernity
The main and original contribution of this volume is to offer a discussion of

teleology through the prism of religion, philosophy and history. The goal is to
incorporate teleology within discussions across these three disciplines rather
than restrict it to one as is customarily the case. The chapters cover a wide
range of topics, from individual teleologies to collective ones; ideas put forward
by the French aristocrat Arthur de Gobineau and the Scottish philosopher
David Hume, by the Anglican theologian and founder of Methodism, John
Wesley, and the English naturalist Charles Darwin.
William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Director of the

Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History at Oxford Brookes
University.
Dan O’Brien is Reader in Philosophy and Subject Co-ordinator for Philosophy

at Oxford Brookes University.
Marius Turda is Professor in 20th Century Central and Eastern European

Biomedicine at Oxford Brookes University.
Routledge Approaches to History
The Work of History

Constructivism and a Politics of the Past
Katie Pililainen
History and Sociology in France

From Scientific History to the Durkheimian School
Robert Leroux
Universal History and the Making of the Global

Edited by Hall Bjornstad, Helge Jordlieim and Anne Regent-Susini
Cowrie Shells and Cowrie Money

A Global History
Bin Yang
A Personalist Philosophy of History

Bennett Gilbert
Historical Parallels, Commemoration and Icons

Edited by Andreas Leutzsch
Historians Without Borders

New Studies in Multidisciplinary History
Edited by Eawrence Abrams and Kaleb Knoblauch
Leopold von Ranke

A Biography
Andreas D. Boldt

Edited by William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and Marius Turda
For more information about this series, please visit; www.routledge.com/

Routledge-Approaches-to-History/book-series/RSHISTHRY
Edited by William Gibson,

Dan O’Brien and Marius Turda
ROUTLEDGE
LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an in forma business

© 2020 selection and editorial matter, William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and
Marius Turda; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and Marius Turda to be

identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or

registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cata!oging-in-Pid)lication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-8153-5103-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-14188-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Beiiibo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of contributors Vll
Introduction
WILLIAM GIBSON, DAN O’BRIEN AND MARIUS TURDA
SECTION I
Religion 17
1 ‘We apply these tools to our morals’: eighteenth-century

freemasonry, a case study in teleology
RICHARD (RIG) BERMAN
2 Teleologies and religion in the eighteenth century 40

WILLIAM GIBSON
3 John Wesley and the teleology of education 56

LINDA A. RYAN
SECTION II
History 75
4 Teleology and race 77

MARIUS TURDA
5 Charles Darwin and the argument for design 94

DAVID REDVALDSEN
6 Teleology and Jewish heretical religiosity: Nietzsche

and Rosenzweig 112
DAVID OHANA
vi Contents
SECTION III
Philosophy 129
7 Can the sciences do without final causes? 131

STEPHEN BOULTER
8 Hume, teleology and the ‘science of man’ 147

LORENZO GRECO AND DAN O’BRIEN
9 What is the function of morality? 165

MARK CAIN
10 Is intuitive teleological reasoning promiscuous? 185

JOHAN DE SMEDT AND HELEN DE CRUZ
Index 204
Contributors
Richard (Ric) Berman has been a Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes Uni¬
versity since 2013 and was previously a Senior Visiting Researcher at the
Modern European History Research Centre at Oxford University. He holds
a master’s degree in economics from Cambridge University, a doctorate in
history from the University of Exeter and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical
Society Ric is the author of numerous academic papers and books focusing
on eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century freemasonry within its
social and political context. They include The Fomidations of Modern Freema¬
sonry, a study of the political, religious and philosophical influences in play;
Schism, an analysis of how social and economic factors impacted freemason¬
ry’s development in England and North America; and Espionage, Diplomacy
and the Lodge.
Stephen Boulter is Reader in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. His

main research interests are in metaphilosophy, metaphysics, metaethics, the
philosophy of law and the scholastics. His current work focuses on the ethi¬
cal implications and regulation of emerging technologies associated with
Blockchain and AI in general. He is author of The Rediscovery of Common
Sense Philosophy (2007), Metaphysics from a Biological Point of View (2013) and
Why Medieval Philosophy Matters (2019).
Mark Cain is Reader and Programme Lead for Philosophy at Oxford Brookes
University. His research interests are in the areas of philosophy of cognitive
science, philosophy of language and moral psychology. He is the author of
two books, namely Fodor: Language, Mind and Philosophy (2002) and The Phi¬
losophy of Cognitive Science (2015). He is currently completing a book entitled
Innateness and Cognition that is to be published by Routledge.
Helen De Cruz is Danforth Chair in Philosophy at Saint Louis University.

She works in philosophy of religion, philosophy of cognitive science and
experimental philosophy. Her publications include Religious Disagreement
(2019), A Natural History of Natural Theology (with Johan De Smedt, 2015)
and the edited volume Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science and Experimental
Philosophy (with Ryan Nichols, 2016). She is currently principal investigator
viii Contributors
of the Templeton-funded project Evolution, Ethics, and Human Origins: A

Deep-Time Perspective on Human Morality (2017—2020), which provides a
naturalistic account of morality by looking at the archaeological evidence
for morally relevant behaviour in hominin evolution. She serves on the edi¬
torial boards of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Religious Studies,
is the executive editor for the Journal of Analytic Theology and is a commit¬
tee member for the American Philosophical Association’s Committee for
Public Philosophy.
Johan De Smedt is Lecturer in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. His

areas of specialisation include philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of
religion and philosophy of the historical sciences. He is co-investigator of
the project Evolution, Ethics, and Human Origins. He has co-authored A Nat¬
ural History of Natural Theology (with Helen De Cruz, 2015) and, forthcom¬
ing, The Challenge of Evolution to Religion (with Helen De Cruz, Cambridge
University Press). He has published papers in journals such as Philosophical
Studies, Biology & Philosophy, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science and the
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion.
William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Director of the Oxford

Centre for Methodism and Church History at Oxford Brookes University.
He has written widely on religion, politics and society in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. His most recent books are The Oxford Haiidbook
of the British Sermon, 1689-1900 (2012) and Sex and the Church in the Long
Eighteenth Century (2018). He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and
the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Lorenzo Greco is Tutor in Philosophy and Associate Member of the Faculty

of Philosophy of the University of Oxford. His areas of interest include eth¬
ics, moral psychology, political philosophy and the philosophy of Hume.
He is the author of L’io morale: David Hume e Vetica contemporanea (Liguori).
His work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of the History of Phi¬
losophy, the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Utilitas and in various
collections.
Dan O’Brien is Reader in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. He is

the author and editor of seven books, including The Bloomsbury Companion
to Hume (with A. Bailey, 2015) and An Introduction to the Theory of Knowl¬
edge (2nd edition, 2016). The latter has been translated into Korean and
Portuguese. He works on Hume, epistemology and the philosophy of reli¬
gion, and has published in the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, The Philosophical
Quarterly, Philosophia and the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion. He
is currently writing a monograph for Routledge on Hume on Testimony. He
is founder of the Oxford Hume Forum and epistemology editor for The
Philosophers’ Magazine.
David Ghana is Professor of Modern European History at the Ben-Gurion

University of the Negev, Israel. He has been affiliated with the Hebrew
Contributors ix
University, Jerusalem, Israel, the Paris-Sorbonne, Harvard University and the

University of California at Berkeley. He specialises in comparative national
mythologies. His recent publications include Nihilist Order: The Intellectual
Roots of Totalitarianism (2016); The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaan-
ites Nor Crusaders (2014) and The Dawn of Political Nihilism (2012).
David Redvaldsen is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social

Work at the University of Agder, Norway. He is the author of various arti¬
cles on Darwinism and eugenics as well as the monograph The Labour Party
in Britain and Norway: Elections and the Pursuit of Power between the World Wars,
published by LB. Tauris in 2011. In 2014, he was joint winner of the Emile
Lousse Essay Prize for the best article on parliament or a representative
assembly. More generally, he is an historian of Britain and Norway in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Linda A. Ryan is an independent scholar with an interest in early Method¬

ism and, more specifically, eighteenth-century attitudes to children, edu¬
cation and gender. Her book, fohn Wesley and the Education of Children;
Gender, Class and Piety, was published by Routledge in 2017. Her research
locates Wesley’s philosophy of education, informed as it was by contempo¬
rary notions of social class and gender roles, in the context of revolutionary
changes in the understanding of childhood in eighteenth-century England.
She has also previously published in Wesley and Methodist Studies and The
fournal of Religious History, Literature and Culture.
Marius Turda is Professor of Biomedicine and Director of the Centre for

Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes University. His recent publications
include Science and Ethnicity II: Biopolitics and Eugenics in Romania, 1920-1944
(2019), Religion, Evolution and Heredity (2018), Historicizing Race (with Maria
Sophia Quine, 2018; Romanian translation 2019), and The History of Eugenics
in East-Central Europe: Texts and Commentaries, 1900-1945 (2016, 2018). He
is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Gabon Institute.
Taylor Francis
Taylor S*. Francis Group
http://taylorandfrancis.com
Introduction
William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and Marius Turda
The foundation for this volume originates in two workshops organised by

the Centre for Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes University, the Oxford
Centre for Methodism and Church History and the Oxford Hume Forum.
These were devoted to the exploration of the relationship between science, his¬
tory, religion and philosophy Thus, the main and original contribution of this
volume is to offer a discussion of teleology through the prism of religion, phi¬
losophy and history. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, from individual
teleologies to collective ones; ideas put forward by the French aristocrat Arthur
de Gobineau and philosophers David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche, by the
Anglican priest John Neville Figgis and the English naturalist Charles Dar¬
win. During the workshops and the conversations that followed, we became
aware that teleology remains an important concept across disciplines, and across
historical periods. This volume therefore, draws attention to ambiguous and
contested relationships between teleology and modernity (broadly defined),
highlighting debates and questions which are rarely seen from the individual
vantage points of religion, history and philosophy.
Section I: religion
Examination and discussion of historical teleologies have not been fashion¬

able of late. And this was probably the general view of Christians and non-
Christians for much of human history. Consequently, historical teleology
excluded considerable parts of the historical endeavour, and especially those
that have become increasingly fashionable. In discussions of teleology, there
is little or no room for economic historians or for historians of material cul¬
ture and their associated progeny. Indeed, the discussion of teleology has been
largely confined to the borders, or perhaps the margins, between history and
philosophy.^ Yet there have been scholars who have addressed teleology. David
Womersley has argued against the use of teleological narratives about the nature
of history and its purpose, and suggested that there is a danger in seeing history
as separate from religion.-
One of the problems in the discussion of historical teleology is that the term
has a broad and a narrow meaning. For historians of religion, and perhaps also
2 William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and Marins Tnrda
for intellectual historians, the term has tended to be associated with a strict
translation of 'telos’ — focusing on the idea of a goal, a completion or a deter¬
mined end-point. So a teleological understanding of history is one in which an
end-point is assumed, and that end-point is often the salvation of the individual
or the end of the world. This is an eschatological and soteriological interpreta¬
tion of teleology, and one which should not be easily dismissed. The broader
use of the term is more familiar and assumes a guiding purpose to history, or
a directional narrative.'^ In such cases, historical narratives take on meaning
because they anticipate a pre-determined future. A classic example of this is the
Whig interpretation of history, in which events are selected to demonstrate a
progressive advance to parliamentary democracy and liberal social principles.
These two approaches to teleology often do not overlap or connect. Indeed,
the latter, with a tendency towards secularisation and the elimination of reli¬
gion in human history, sometimes consciously distances itself from the former.
The latter is also often associated with a form of anachronism, what Quentin
Skinner has called ‘prolepsis’,"^ that projects contemporary concerns and preoc¬
cupations back onto the past — or sometimes propels from the past to the future.
But it is important for scholars to recognise that eschatological and soteriologi¬
cal teleology, narrative teleology and prolepsis may have features in common
but they are very different things. An example of such crossover can be found
in the debate on American exceptionalism, and the ‘manifest destiny’ of the
United States. The concept is deeply rooted in eschatology and is profoundly
religious in origin; it has also exerted a powerful grasp on freighted narratives of
American historical development, and contains all those anachronistic present-
centred elements that are so familiar to historical films and fiction.
One of the assumptions about teleological historical writing is that it is a bad
thing. Herbert Butterfield was in no doubt that historians should try to shake
off and avoid Whig historicism — though, as John Walsh has often pointed out,
there were few who were not Whigs in 1688, however quickly they shed those
views.^ There can be few academic historians of the early modern and mod¬
ern periods who do not warn students against the blight of Whiggism in their
writing and ideas. A recent collection of essays on historical teleology seems
similarly to regard teleology as a feature of historical writing to be deprecated.*"
The problem with this is that scholars often end up trading one transgression
for another. Perhaps the best example of this is the historical treatment of the
Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is often presented as a replacement of pas¬
sionate and inflamed ideas of superstition, magic and irrational religion with
the cool reason of logic, science and naturalism. Until recently, historians of
the Enlightenment were part of the secularisation agenda who saw the period
since the eighteenth century as an onward march to rationality and modernity.
But, of course, this simply replaces an eschatological teleology with a narra¬
tive secular teleology. Only in the last two decades has a new field of historical
endeavour sought to point out that the so-called Enlightenment and religion
had some proponents in common, grew at the same time and were embraced
by the same societies in equal measure.^
Introduction 3
A similar trade in teleologies exists in the consideration of empire. Imperial¬

ism has been treated as a scourge and a great evil. And in such features as slavery
and economic exploitation it clearly was. Imperialism is also seen as rooted in
the colonisation that followed the religious strife of the English Civil War in
the seventeenth century and was motivated often by the soteriological teleol¬
ogy of missionaries and conversion. In the case of the eighteenth century — as
is suggested in Gibson s essay — colonial expansion was a symptom of the ‘elect’
status of Britain as a second Israel, with a favoured place in Providence. But the
opponents of imperialism and empire, of whatever sort, tend to treat its disso¬
lution and collapse as an alternative narrative teleology, not the negation of the
eschatological one. In such works, decolonisation and withdrawal from empire
have an inevitability: they are the telos to which all colonies ultimately progress.
The overthrow of empire came in America in 1776, and almost two centuries
later in Africa with the ‘Wind of Change’ of the 1950s. So historians of this
sort dismiss the teleology of empire building, but replace it with the teleology
of empire dissolution.
William Gibson’s chapter considers teleology from three perspectives in the
eighteenth century — the century in which the word ‘teleology’ was coined.
First, that of the individual; second, that of society; and finally, the perspective
of national identity. These are themes taken up by Berman and Ryan as well
as other writers in this collection. Individual teleology, for most Christians
in the period, meant the point at which their temporal lives ended and at
which they were judged before admission to eternal life. The historiography
of religion in the eighteenth century has undergone a dramatic revision in the
last three decades, revealing a much more pious and faith-focused society in
which the Church played a powerful role in political life and society. Conse¬
quently, it is possible to see the ways in which people focused on the telos of
individual salvation. In wider society, there was a growing expectation at the
end of the seventeenth century that the biblical Millennium was approaching —
the thousand-year reign that would bring the world to an end. This collective
telos meant that attention was paid to teleological forms of religion such as
prophecy and miraculous events. In this environment, divine intervention was
a powerful force in the world. Last is the ‘national telos' of Britain as a Protes¬
tant ‘elect nation’, which was rooted in the narrative of the survival of Prot¬
estantism despite numerous attempts to return England to Catholicism. This
potent narrative meant that by the middle of the eighteenth century there was
a sense of Britain as a ‘second Israel’ — a nation marked by the exceptionalism
of divine sanction. This presaged the justification of the spread of British values
in empire and colonisation. The survival of this ‘national telos' was principally
in the drive for empire in the nineteenth century and in the absorption of the
idea of exceptionalism into the United States. This last telos has been one with
lasting effects for global politics and international relations from the nineteenth
century on.
Richard (Ric) Berman’s chapter considers the teleology of eighteenth-
century freemasonry whose thought was based on Enlightenment principles
and Newtonian science; indeed, almost half of the fellows of the Royal Soci¬
ety were freemasons. English freemasonry promoted religious toleration, self-
improvement and spiritual self-awareness. Berman shows that teleology lay
behind the changes to masonic ritual introduced around 1720, the scientific and
other lectures given in lodges in the 1720s and 1730s and in the development of
European freemasonry and Swedish Rite. Berman shows how teleology influ¬
enced the development of freemasonry from medieval guilds to its expansion
to North America, where teleology was similarly embraced. Freemasonic ritual
advocated a life ‘modelled by virtue and science’ in which an individual uses
freemasonry to contemplate his existence ‘through the intricate windings of this
mortal life’. Berman argues that English freemasonry was one of the engines
of the internationalisation of teleology because it was emulated internation¬
ally. Berman shows that Freemasonry also provided a means of visualising and
defining an individual’s role and place in a changing society. It offered a quasi¬
spiritual alternative to traditional theology that embraced the advance of science
and secularism by positing that an objective and rational interpretation of the
natural world offered a route to truth. The result was a teleological construct
that was both extrinsic and intrinsic and that redefined and evangelised the tra¬
ditional formulation of personal responsibility and external authority.
Einda Ryan argues that John Wesley’s educational work, whether individual¬
istic, familial or evangelical, was grounded in two fundamental and congruent
tenets. The first was his belief that the teleology of education was salvation, and
his Arminian conviction that salvation was available to all. Wesley’s educational
programme was far-reaching. He established schools, encouraged female edu¬
cation, promoted learning for his preachers and encouraged education for the
poor. By applying a teleological argument to Wesley’s thinking, this essay dem¬
onstrates that intrinsic in the teleology of Wesleyan education was individual
salvation; its extrinsic value centred on evangelism and a desire for universal
salvation. The nature of Wesleyan education, therefore, became a temporal
experience which prepared a child for their eventual spiritual end. In a century
in which lives were shorter and infant mortality higher, such principles were
powerful in society. Ryan’s chapter is a contribution to the idea of teleology as
one which was a lived experience for people in the eighteenth century, rather
than a remote and abstract idea.
Section II: history
Since its coinage in the eighteenth century by the German philosopher Chris¬
tian Wolff, the term ‘teleology’ has been identified with the part of natural
philosophy that explains the purpose and the ends of things. In a teleologically
organised universe, every historical process exists for the sake of another his¬
torical process, in mutually reinforcing ways. To some extent, Wolff’s teleology
was a re-enactment of the Aristotelian notion of function or purpose in nature
(with the oft-quoted example that an acorn’s destiny is to grow into an oak
tree).®
Introduction 5
This classical version of teleology, summarised in the aphorism ‘nature does

nothing in vain’,^ describes the universe, including the human species, as fun¬
damentally biological. Not only is each individual subservient to the species,
but also the species has but one purpose: to continue to exist. But as Hannah
Ginsborg argues.
The ‘new science’ of the seventeenth century, associated with such figures
as Galileo, Hobbes, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton, had constituted a sig¬
nificant break from Aristotelian science, in which the paradigm of natural
explanation was teleological. The alternative explanatory paradigm offered
by the new science, was one by which all natural phenomena were to be
explained ‘mechanically,’ that is, without the assumption of guidance by
ends or purposes.^®
As the forces of political modernity, most notably the American and the French
revolutions of the eighteenth century, put mounting pressure on the ancien
regime, the Newtonian strategy was called into question. Yet, as known — and as
will be discussed in Section III of this volume — scientists of the so-called Sci¬
entific Revolution such as Isaac Newton rejected Aristotle’s conception of final
causality. While philosophers such as Francis Bacon and David Hume excised
teleology and any form of final causality from natural philosophy, biologists
and natural scientists remained committed to it. The leading biologist Ernst
Mayr did not exaggerate when he remarked, ‘Perhaps now other ideology
has influenced biology more profoundly than teleological thinking. In one
form or another it was the prevailing world view prior to Darwin.’^^ Indeed,
the celebrated polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe believed in nature’s
directionality and that life and art exist in a symbiosis, understood in terms of
their purposive functions. To achieve perfection, whether through respect¬
ing God’s laws or human rationality, meant accepting that there was a purpose
to life. Testifying to its resilience, Immanuel Kant engaged with teleology in
his ‘Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View’, noting,
‘All natural capacities of a creature are destined to evolve completely to their
natural end.’^'"* This was as much an anthropological as a moral transformation,
not of the individual but of the entire species. To overcome the brutal telos of
history, Kant encourages us to lead a goal-oriented life, pursuing good for its
own sake.^*^ As scholars have noted, the system of ethics that Kant put forward
relied on teleology^^ but there is another aspect of human history that attracted
him, namely the idea of perfectibility. This is a Kantian idea that shaped the
nineteenth-century attitude towards culture and civilization. Yet much of this
interpretation of progress and presupposed development remained decidedly
Eurocentric, informed by (his views concerning) the intellectual superiority
of the Europeans. Kant admitted to the existence of a hierarchy of races in his
1788 text ‘On the Use of Teleological Principles in PhilosophyAnd he also
opposed, as Arthur de Gobineau would do later, racial mixing. Couched in a
philosophical bouquet of arguments about ethics and morality, Kant’s belief in
the cultural progress of white people added more legitimacy to views expressed
by a host of European authors about their alleged superiority. As Robert Ber-
nasconi noted, ‘The fact that Kant did not solve the problem of how, within
the framework of a universal history, cosmopolitanism can be reconciled with a
view of White superiority meant that he left to posterity a dangerous legacy’
Kant loomed large over nineteenth-century debates concerning human nature
and the ‘race question’. The clash between traditional ideas of evolution and
change and the new currents of thought is revealed in the attitude to teleology
which accompanied the growth of modern thinking on race, both underlying
it and building upon it. Indeed, the relationship between teleology and moder¬
nity developed at two different levels: the one, a commentary on and vindica¬
tion of the Aristotelian view on becoming what you are meant to be; the other,
a more intellectual, Kantian (and later on, Hegelian) approach to the question
of historical destiny and universal history. In this context, then, Gobineau’s
idea about the decline of civilization played itself out, with an unbroken natu¬
ral hierarchy of races paralleling the cultural gradations of their intellectual
achievements. By the time he published his Essai sur Vinegalite des races liumaines
in 1853, such an interpretation was gaining momentum.
This discussion about teleology, and the study of nature and man which
informed it, must, therefore, be set against a background where all science was
intimately linked with the whole cosmic hierarchy as evidenced by the work
of William Paley and others. An intimation of order was fundamental to this
world view. Yet it was not simply a framework passively received from the
natural theologies of the eighteenth century, it was also one capable of dynamic
adjustment and rethinking. Religion, of course, continued to play an impor¬
tant role in shaping the debate about human purpose and cultural achieve¬
ment, moral advancement and telos. In many ways, the turning point in this
debate came in 1859 when Charles Darwin published The Orighis of Species.
Darwinist evolutionary theory was increasingly accepted as a practical guide to
nature’s active and passive goals. The discussion about purpose and teleology
passed from philosophers such as Immanuel Kant — for whom teleology was
philosophical — to biologists for whom it was historical.
The topic of teleology is an important one to historians, as illustrated by
the recent volume edited by Henning Triiper, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Sanjay
Subrahmanyam on Historical Teleologies in the Modern World. They focus on the
plurality of modern historicities and teleological patterns in historical thought
since the Enlightenment. However, the approach adopted in the three chapters
dealing with teleology and history included in this volume is different from the
one adopted in the aforementioned book. David Redvaldsen, David Ghana
and Marius Turda do not discuss the teleological view of history; rather, they
engage with the problem of teleology historically. They do so by looking at
three authors who, both separately and together, defined the discussion about
the purpose of human life and human society during the nineteenth century.
The first author, Arthur de Gobineau, is a diplomat who had enjoyed rec¬
ognition in diplomatic circles and some degree of literary success; by con¬
trast, the second author, Charles Darwin, is often referred to as the ‘father
Introduction 7
of modern evoludon’, and finally, the third author, Friedrich Nietzsche, is a

classical philologist and arguably one of the most influential philosophers of
modern times. Between 1850 and 1900, these three authors put forward care¬
fully crafted teleological arguments concerning human evolution, civilization
and destiny, heralding a radically different intellectual climate from the one of
the previous half-century and indeed of the century before that. Scientists and
philosophers such as Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Paley and
Kant helped redefine teleological concerns at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, but by the middle of the century, their progressive view of history,
of a path of human development that had a ‘visible direction’, came under
attack from various corners of the humanities and natural sciences. As shown
in these three chapters, the new interpretation of human evolution, culture and
civilization which materialized during the 1850s drew its sustenance from vari¬
ous scientific disciplines and intellectual pursuits. These different approaches —
cultural (Gobineau), biological (Darwin) and philosophical (Nietzsche) — share
structural similarities, particularly regarding the problem of teleology and its
role in understanding human history.
How do Gobineau, Darwin and Nietzsche think in teleological terms about
race, evolution and modernity? Seeking new ways to explain the purpose of
human culture and civilization, while beleaguered by anxieties and uncertainty,
Gobineau viewed human history through the prism of race. His work, as Mar¬
ius Turda suggests in his chapter, was characterised by fatalism and nihilism, not
surprisingly, perhaps, given Gobineau’s aristocratic pretensions and his aversion
to the growing democratisation of European politics. The historical process
that Gobineau persistently stigmatised was racial mixing. For him, racial mix¬
ing was an end in itself, and on that assumption he built a view of the future
which was depressingly pessimistic.
Gobineau challenged the progressive version of universal history of his con¬
temporaries and posited a teleology which was both provocative and idio¬
syncratic. As ethnic mixing had been occurring for centuries, it was set to
continue, he believed, even more so in a period when the old social, cultural
and political barriers were cast aside, as had happened to France, in particular,
and Europe more broadly, after the revolutions of 1789 and 1848. Progress
was meaningless, he argued, unless the degeneration of the race was brought
to an end. Such a narrative leads us to conclude, more generally, that in one
significant domain, that of the history of race and racism, Gobineau’s teleo¬
logical argument failed to attract many adherents. Even those who respected
his audacity and who shared his obsession with race departed from his fatalism
and from his refusal to accept the possibility of racial renewal and, in effect, the
historical durability of European civilization.
In fact, much of the additional support for criticising Gobineau’s view of
human history as involution, and as inexorably moving towards its decaying
finale, was adduced from the authoritative field of evolutionary science. Only
a few years after Gobineau’s two volumes of the Essai sur Vinegalite des races
humaines appeared in France, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in
1859. Can we find a teleological world view in Darwin’s theory? Scholars are
widely divided over how to understand Darwin’s teleological nihilism; that is

to say, that without a Creator, there is no meaning to the universe and that the
only purpose of human life is the preservation of the speciesd®
In his chapter, David Redvaldsen discusses Charles Darwin’s theory of evo¬
lution and its teleological implications. He argues that it is important to retain
the concept of teleology when attempting to understand Darwin’s views on
selection and adaptation. As he notes, natural selection is purposeful in that
it demonstrates that only those organisms who are able to breed will survive
and thus pass on their characteristics to the next generation. This observation
echoes the remark made by biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, who noted that
Darwinism proposed ‘a wider teleology’ different from that of his predecessors,
most notably Paley, and one which was ‘actually based upon the fundamental
proposition of evolution’.That Darwin’s contemporaries saw the teleological
dimension of his theory of natural selection is further explored by Redvaldsen,
who notes that Darwin’s revision of Paley’s teleology and his thoughts on design
emphasised aspects of adaptation that were seen by many religious authors to
confirm their Christian belief, in effect reinforcing rather than undermining
their scientific commitment to the theory of natural selection. Whilst averse to
the idea of design, Darwin recognised that evolution is not without a purpose
and its intention is to achieve a certain goal, that is, the survival of the species.
One important aspect of this interpretation of human evolution was a certain
fatalism about life and the individual. This theme of nihilism, which is echoed
by both Gobineau’s racial fatalism and Darwin’s emphasis on the primacy of
the species over the individual, returns with Friedrich Nietzsche. The German
philosopher shared Gobineau’s view of modern decline and of Europe’s lack of
racial vitality; more importantly, perhaps, around the late 1860s, Nietzsche had
wanted to write a study on the relationship of teleology and nature, and some
of his ideas were then integrated into The Birth of Tragedy, published 1872.
Although in The Gay Science, which came out a decade later, Nietzsche denies
the natural world any purpose apart from generating ‘chaos’, his form of philo¬
sophical naturalism and his positions on teleology are more ambiguous than
that,“‘^ particularly regarding various traditions of philosophical thought that
emerged in Germany and Central Europe at the beginning of the twentieth
century.”^ As explored by David Ghana in his chapter on Nietzsche’s influence
on the German Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig, the battle cry ‘God is
dead!’ was not just heretical — it also announced a new beginning, and with it
a refashioning of teleology. It was, however, not for the benefit of the race (as
fantasised by Gobineau) or the species (as Darwin suggested), but for the indi¬
vidual that a new purpose in life and a new destination in history was needed.
Section III: philosophy
A dramatic story is sometimes told about the demise of teleological thinking

in the early modern period. We shall see, though, that the real picture is some¬
what different.
Introduction 9
Aristotle argued that a full explanation of the causal order of nature required
four kinds of causes. To understand why a certain event occurred or why a
certain thing exists, we first need to know its ‘material cause’, that is, the
material of which it is composed. Part of the explanation for why the billiard
ball bounced off the cushion involves a description of the ivory of the ball and
the rubber of the cushion, along with the form taken by these materials, for
example, the ball’s spherical shape (the ‘formal cause’). The ‘efficient cause’ is
the source of change in the billiard ball and in this case this is the billiards player
who strikes the cue ball with the intention or end of attempting to win the
game (the ‘final cause’). In this example, the end for which the ball moves is
plausibly identified with the intentions of an agent — the billiards player. How¬
ever, Aristotle thinks final causes also explain occurrences in the natural world
where no such intelligent agents are involved. According to such natural tele¬
ology, part of the essence of what it is to be an apple tree is for it to bear fruit,
specifically, apples (and thus for apple trees to persist). This is the end of an
apple tree, the sake for which it exists. A full account of the apple tree includes
this final cause, along with a description of the biological material and form of
which the tree is composed and of the efficient causes involved in the produc¬
tion of its fruit and seeds. One might say that such ends pull nature forward,
rather than push it forward, as efficient causes are seen to do.
This account — the story goes — was overturned by the rise of the new
science and mechanical explanation. For mechanists such as Galileo, Hobbes
and Descartes, in order to make the world intelligible, all that is required is
mechanistic explanation involving the contact and impact of particles of matter -
interactions that are explicable in terms of just one kind of causation, that is,
efficient causation. Teleological thinking and final causes were banished.
However, the actual interplay of Aristotelianism, science and religion is much
more complex and nuanced than this story suggests. Aristotelianism was offi¬
cial Church doctrine through the middle ages up to the early modern period,
filtered through a myriad of interpreters, most importantly Thomas Aquinas.
The scholastics were intensely focused on demonstrating how Aristotle’s logic
and metaphysics were compatible with Christianity. The rise of mechanism,
then, could be seen as leading to the downfall of Aristotelian explanation, and
therefore to the separation of science from the Church, the latter acquiescing in
outdated Aristotelian metaphysics, while the sciences move on. Such a division
may today be a familiar way of characterising the relation between religion and
science, but we must be careful not to project this sharp demarcation back into
this past, distorting the relationships that there were between religion and the
new science.
To begin to understand the period, one must distinguish between Aristote¬
lian and theological notions of teleology. The new science was opposed to the
former, and its mechanistic laws described the behaviour of inert matter, that
devoid of Aristotelian essences or forms. The explanation for natural processes
lay not in the things themselves, but in the laws that describe their behaviour.
However, the beautiful and complex picture that mechanistic thinking revealed
10 William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and Marius Turda
was taken by most key thinkers of the period to be revelatory of divine work¬
manship, and thus revelatory of teleology in a theological sense. Such teleology,
though, is that imposed from without, by the intentions and goals of an intel¬
ligent agent, in this case God, rather than that lying within, or immanent in,
matter, as is the case with Aristotelianism. The words of Psalm 19 — ‘The heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work’ — were
not antithetical to science, but consistent with developing mechanistic accounts
of nature. Robert Boyle’s Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things is
one of the most forthright and explicit presentations of this approach.-^ Boyle
argues that the new science reveals the teleological order of nature and that it
therefore motivates divine worship. Kepler and Newton had a similar approach:
the study of what is now called ‘physics’ bringing us closer to knowledge of
God’s creation and purposes.-^ Margaret Osier puts it thus: ‘It was only by
studying the intricate details of the creation that the natural philosopher could
come to appreciate the manner in which they were designed to achieve their
ends’ and Andrew Cunningham expresses such interdependence even more
forcefully: ‘No-one ever undertook the practice of natural philosophy without
having God in mind, and knowing that the study of God and God’s creation —
in a way different from that pursued hy theology — was the point of the whole
exercise.’“^ Theology and science were deeply entwined.
Notwithstanding these claims, and the more ragged picture they give of
the decline of teleological thinking, there has been, in the last century or so,
a re-emergence of teleology.“^ This is in Darwinian form: the organs, cellular
structures and metabolism of animals and plants have an end or purpose of
contributing to the biological fitness and survival of those organisms. There
are parallels here with theological notions of teleology in which the organs and
parts of creatures have the end of contributing to the flourishing of the creature
that possesses them (and creatures themselves have the end of contributing to
the perfection of the universe). Darwinian teleology, though, is metaphysi¬
cally light: there is no place for Aristotelian essences or for God and, in order
to distance itself from such disreputable notions, it is sometimes referred to as
‘teleonomy’.
It is upon this background that the philosophy essays in this volume attempt
to shed more light. Stephen Boulter’s chapter sets out to answer three specific
questions regarding so-called final causes. First, what is to be understood by
the scholastic claim that ‘all things act for an end’? Second, what reasons did
the scholastics provide for this claim? As we shall see in the contribution by
Lorenzo Greco and Dan O’Brien, David Hume is an enemy of teleology in
all its forms. Boulter, however, argues that the unwitting genius of Hume’s
account lies precisely in exposing the full implications of abandoning final
causation in the natural order. Appreciating why such problems do not arise
within the Aristotelian context is crucial to understanding precisely what final
causation was taken to be by the scholastics themselves, and what they meant,
and what they did not mean by the claim that ‘all things act for an end’. Third,
and perhaps most importantly, can the traditional scholastic view be defended
Introduction 11
today? Boulter’s thesis is that once answers to these questions have been set
out, the answer to the question that forms the title of this paper becomes
readily apparent, namely, the successful prosecution of the scientific project
presupposes final causes. Boulter outlines the Aristotelian account of causa¬
tion in general, and efficient and final causation in particular, as understood by
the scholastics themselves, the essential point being to show how this account
avoids the problems associated with Hume while providing the framework
necessary for science. This does not constitute a knock-down argument against
Hume, but it does highlight the costs of endorsing his version of empiricism,
and suggests that scholastic ideas should not be dismissed. Last, Boulter consid¬
ers what the scholastics themselves took to be problematic in final causation.
The problems that worried them are associated primarily with the role of final
causes in the explanation of human action — precisely where moderns are most
inclined to admit final causation without demure.
Lorenzo Greco and Dan O’Brien clarify and defend Hume’s rejection of
teleology. The subtitle to Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature is ‘An Attempt
to Introduce an Experimental Method of Reasoning into Human Subjects’,
and they begin by showing how this methodology leads to Hume rejecting
teleological accounts of metaphysics, the lives of individuals and political states.
Their main focus, though, is on Hume’s account of human nature and moral¬
ity, one that is divorced from all teleological elements. In the final section,
they speculate concerning the attitude Hume would take to contemporary
naturalistic attempts to incorporate teleology into accounts of human nature
in the form of evolution by natural selection. There is little doubt that Hume
would have accepted a Darwinian account of the evolution of man. The title
of his essay ‘Of the Reason of Animals’"'^’ may have been shocking in the eigh¬
teenth century, but not so today, where the image of God hypothesis has been
replaced by a deflationary Humean account of our cognitive powers, no dif¬
ferent in kind from those of animals. However, we suggest that Hume would
have resisted teleological accounts of reasoning and of morality. Such forms of
thinking may have contributed to our success as a species and so, in one sense,
evolution will explain why we think in these ways (although this is something
that Mark Cain questions in his contribution to this volume), but, we argue,
both causal and moral reasoning is not for biological fitness and our consequent
evolutionary success. For Hume, the normativity constitutive of morality is
grounded in the perspective afforded by our ability to sympathize with our
fellows, and not by the biological fitness with which such thinking (arguably)
endows our species.
Mark Cain’s chapter focuses on such an evolutionary account of morality.
He starts from the premise that humans are unique amongst animals in being
moral agents; much of our behaviour is subject to moral evaluation, and we
routinely morally evaluate the behaviour of our fellows and ourselves. The
question he considers is whether morality can be understood in teleological
terms. A prominent line of thought in contemporary philosophy and cognitive
science offers an affirmative answer to this question: morality has a function.
12 William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and Marius Turda
namely that of facilitating co-operation by offering a solution to the problems

that free-riding and cheating pose to co-operative endeavours. Here the notion
of function is understood in natural rather than theological or scholastic terms.
More specifically, the function of morality is grounded in the process of evolu¬
tion by natural selection. Such a view is held by Michael Tomasello, who has
developed a detailed and sophisticated version of the popular view that moral¬
ity has a cooperative function that promises to dominate the literature for years
to come. Cain raises a number of objections to Tomasello’s account. In particu¬
lar, he argues that moral judgment does not plausibly have the required impact
upon behaviour to accrue a cooperative function; typically, the demands of
morality agree with those of self-interest and where they clash it is usually the
demands of self-interest grounded in our strategic reasoning capacities that win
out. Moreover, given the human capacity to learn conventions and the power
that learned conventions have, there are far more effective means of ensuring
that we behave in a way that supports our cooperative endeavours.
Johan De Smedt and Helen De Cruz focus on the fact that humans have a
tendency to reason teleologically. This tendency is more pronounced under
time pressure, in people with little formal schooling and in patients with
Alzheimer’s. This has led some cognitive scientists of religion, notably Deborah
Kelemen, to call intuitive teleological reasoning promiscuous, by which they
mean teleology is applied to domains where it is unwarranted. De Smedt and
De Cruz examine these claims using Kant’s idea of the transcendental illusion
in the Critique of Pure Reason and his views on the regulative function of teleo¬
logical reasoning in the Critique of Judgment. They examine whether a Kantian
framework can help resolve the tension between the apparent promiscuity of
intuitive teleology and its role in human reasoning about biological organisms
and natural kinds.
Notes
1 J. R. Torre, ‘“An Inward Spring of Motion and Action”: The Teleology of Politi¬
cal Economy and Moral Philosophy in the Age of the Anglo-American Enlighten¬
ment,’ Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8(3), 2010, pp. 646-71 and
M. Pittock, ‘Elistory and the Teleology of Civility in the Scottish Enlightenment,’ in
S. Manning and P. France (eds.), Eidightonnetit and Emancipation, Bucknell Studies in
Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press,
2006.
2 D. Womersley, ‘Against the Teleology of Technique,’ in P. Kewes (ed.), The Uses of His¬
tory in Early Modern England, San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press, 2006.
3 M. Mandelbaum, History, Man, and Reason: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought, Bal¬
timore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971.
4 Q. Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,’ History and Theory,
8(1), 1969, pp. 3-53.
5 Of course, even this has its perversities with the appearance of some recent Tory histori-
cism presenting Janies II as a paragon of modernity and religious toleration.
6 H. Triiper, D. Chakrabarty and S. Subrahmanyam (eds.). Historical Teleologies in the Mod¬
ern World, London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Introduction 13
7 W. Gibson, Enlightenment Prelate: Benjamin Hoadly 1676-1761, Cambridge: James

Clarke & Co, 2004; L. Laborie, Enliglitenhig Enthusiasm, Prophecy and Religious Experience
in Early Eighteenth Century England, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015; and
P. Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightemnent: Gender and Emotion in Early Method¬
ism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
8 M. R. Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
9 P. Gottlieb and E. Sober, ‘Aristotle on “Nature Does Nothing in Vain”,’ HOPOS:
The Jouriial of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 7(2), 2017,
pp. 246-71.'
10 H. Ginsborg, ‘Kant’s Biological Teleology and Its Philosophical Significance,’ in G. Bird
(ed.), A Companion to Kant, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006, p. 455.
HE. Mayr, ‘The Idea of Teleology,’of the History of Ideas, 43(1), 1992, pp. 117-35,
117.
12 J. E Cornell, ‘Faustian Phenomena: Teleology in Goethe’s Interpretation of Plants and
Animals,’ The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 15(5), 1990, pp. 481-92.
13 I. Kant, ‘Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View,’ in J. Rundell
and S. Mennell (eds.), Classical Readings in Culture and Civilization, London and New
York: Routledge, 1998 [1784], pp. 39-47, 40.
14 See H. E. Allison, ‘Teleology and History in Kant: The Critical Foundations of Kant’s
Philosophy of History,’ in A. Oksenberg Rorty and J. Schmidt (eds.), Kant's Idea for
a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009, pp. 24-45.
15 J. H. Zammito, ‘Teleology Then and Now: The Question of Kant’s Relevance for Con¬
temporary Controversies Over Function in Biology,’ Studies in History and Philosophy of
Scietice (Part C), 37(4), 2006, pp. 748-70. See also I. Coy and E. Watkins (eds.), Kant's
Theory of Biology, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2014 and P. Guyer, ‘Ends
of Reason and Ends of Nature: The Place of Teleology in Kant’s Ethics,’ The Jotmial of
Value Inquiry, 36(2-3), 2002, pp. 161-86.
16 I. Kant, ‘On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy (1788),’ tr. G. Zoller, in
R. Louden and G. Zoller (eds.). Anthropology, History, and Education, Cambridge: Cam¬
bridge University Press, 2007, pp. 192-218.
17 R. Bernasconi, ‘Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism,’ in J. K. Ward and T L. Lott
(eds.), Philosophers on Race: Critical Essays, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002, p, 160.
18 T. Sommers and A. Rosenberg, ‘Darwin’s Nihilistic Idea: Evolution and the Meaning¬
lessness of Life,’ Biology and Philosophy, 18(5), 2003, pp. 653-68.
19 T Huxley, Critiques and Addresses, London: Murray, 1873, p. 305. See also J. Beatty,
‘Teleology and the Relationship between Biology and the Physical Sciences in the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,’ in F. Durham and R. Purrington (eds.), Some
Truer Method: Reflections on the Heritage of Newton, New York: Columbia University Press,
1990, pp. 113-44.
20 S. Gardner, ‘Nietzsche on Kant and Teleology in 1868: “Life Is Something Entirely
Dark . . Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 62(11), 2019, pp. 23-48.
21 See, for example, S. A, Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890-1990, Berke¬
ley: University of California Press, 1994.
22 R. Boyle, Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things, London: John Taylor,
1688. For discussion, see L. Carlin, ‘The Importance of Teleology to Boyle’s Natural
Philosophy,’ British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 19(4), 2011, pp. 665-82, and
T. Shanahan, ‘Teleological Reasoning in Boyle’s Disquisition about Final Causes,' in M.
Hunter (ed.), Robert Boyle Reconsidered, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994,
pp. 177-92.
23 J. Kepler, Epitome of Copernican Astroiiomy, tr. C. Wallis, Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1995 [first published 1617-1621] and 1. Newton, Opticks, or a Treatise of the
Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light, London: William Innys, 1730.
14 William Gibson, Dan O'Brien and Marius Turda
24 M. Osier, ‘Whose Ends? Teleology in Early Modern Natural Philosophy,’ Osiris, 16,
2001, p. 163 and A. Cunningham, ‘How the Principia Got Its Name: Or, Taking Natural
Philosophy Seriously,’M5rery of Science, 24, 1991, p. 388.
25 E J. Ayala, ‘Teleological Explanations in Evolutionary Biology,’ Philosophy of Science,
37(1), 1970, pp. 1-15.
26 D. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Hunian Understanding, ed. T L. Beauchamp, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000, section 9 [first published 1772].
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Introduction 15
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Taylor Francis
Section I
Religion
Taylor Francis
1 ‘We apply these tools to
our morals’
Eighteenth-century freemasonry,
a case study in teleology
Richard (Ric) Berman
Introduction
One is hesitant to apply the term ‘teleology’ to eighteenth-century freemasonry

given that freemasonry’s remoulding in the 1720s was driven principally by the
political fallout from the Glorious Revolution and the proximate threat to
Hanoverian England from the Jacobite supporters of James Stuart, the ‘king over
the water’. Yet it is the case that much of the phraseology and content of free¬
masonry’s reworded liturgy was based intentionally and conceptually on self-
improvement, and incorporated Enlightenment principles. Eighteenth-century
freemasonry referenced the rational objectivity of Newtonian science as pros¬
elytised by the Royal Society, some half of whose Fellows were freemasons, and
in particular by the Rev. Dr Jean Theophilus Desaguliers, a Fellow appointed at
Newton’s behest and the Royal Society’s demonstrator and curator.^
From the early 1720s, English qua Whig freemasonry centred on a handful
of tenets among which religious toleration was pre-eminent, with freemasonry
embracing deism and latitudinarianism, and accepting dissenters. Catholics and
Jews. Masonic ritual was modified to proselytise support for ‘the supreme leg¬
islature’, that is, the then novel if not radical concept of a sovereign parliament,
independent judiciary and constitutional as opposed to absolute monarchy.
Freemasonry also evangelised the ideal of self-improvement through education
and spiritual self-awareness.
It is such features that support the exploration of a teleological analysis. And
this chapter considers three relevant elements in eighteenth-century freema¬
sonry: first, the changes to EngHsh masonic ritual that were introduced in the early
1720s; second, the self-improving lectures given in masonic lodges from the
1720s through to the 1730s and beyond; and third, the adoption of elements of
medieval chivalry into European freemasonry. The last found its apogee in the
Swedish Rite, an exclusively Christian order that epitomised spiritual freemasonry
and was constructed using a combination of masonic and medieval ritual.
The medieval origins of modern freemasonry
Eighteenth-century English freemasonry had its roots in the mid-fourteenth cen¬

tury when what had been primarily religious guilds morphed into embryonic
20 Richard (Ric) Berman
trades unions as workers sought to preserve the rise in real earnings driven by
an extreme labour shortage following the Black Death which had led to the
mortality of some 30—40% of the population. Despite adverse parliamentary
legislation and the judicial edicts that followed,- it proved hard to regulate
away the laws of demand and supply. Tradesmen and artisans countered repres¬
sive and wage-depressing legislation cleverly using charters designed to demon¬
strate their loyalty to the establishment and its hierarchy, and arguing that their
wage demands were validated by time and tradition.
These Old Charges date from around 1400 and detail traditional histories of
stonemasonry that emphasise longevity and tradition while simultaneously jus¬
tifying wage rates with reference to what supposedly had been ‘agreed’ centu¬
ries before by St Alban and King Athelstan.'^
The conflict between the divergent interests of capital and labour was a recur¬
rent theme throughout the medieval period, especially when real wage rates
fell below expectations during periods of rampant inflation. The widespread
strikes and riots that occurred in the mid-sixteenth century marked an inflexion
point. In several cities, including Chester, Coventry and York, building workers
refused to work for the stipulated 6d per day, a rate that had been determined
half a century earlier. Although their leaders were jailed, protests continued and as
the prospect of widespread insurrection grew. Parliament was obliged to adopt a
more conciliatory approach. The outcome was the Statute of Artificers, passed
in 1563. The act created a new framework for wage regulation, with justices of
the peace for the first time given the authority to settle labour rates taking into
account local market conditions."^
Over the following decades, power became a function of the interplay between
local incorporated guilds, which regulated labour supply through apprenticeship
structures and ‘quality control’ mechanisms that excluded non-guild labour, and
the local municipalities that controlled the issuance of guild charters. Over time,
the two sides developed a symbiotic relationship. In return for granting a
guild the privileges of a local monopoly and a legal remit to influence the price
at which labour was made available,^ the town or city corporation received fees,
taxes, and a share of guild fines. It created an economic interdependency that
was cemented further by invitations to fraternal guild feasts, a social and politi¬
cal synergy recognised at the time
when the master and wardens met in a lodge, if need be, the sheriff of the
county, or the mayor of the city, or alderman of the town, in which the
congregation is held.^
Membership of a guild became synonymous with membership of the local

elites and by the late seventeenth century many masonic lodges in England
contained a majority of gentlemen members who perpetuated their influence
through invitations to friends and successive generations of family.^ Such lodges
became principally social clubs whose function was networking, drinking and
dining. In Lewis and Thacker’s words, the lodge provided a forum for ‘well-off
‘We apply these tools to our morals’ 21
employers, notably in the building trades’ and for the gentry.® And although
operative lodges continued to exist, their influence diminished as certain trade
monopolies were outlawed under Charles II and additional restrictions placed
on City livery companies by James II.^ The move was in part a function of an
increasing disquiet at the guilds’ opposition to innovation and free trade which
saw them denigrated politically as constraints on economic development.
The Hanoverian succession
The years that followed the accession of George I instigated a step-change

within English freemasonry with the creation of a ‘grand lodge’ and ‘grand
officers’; the introduction of a federal governance structure; and the publica¬
tion and dissemination in 1723 of a new set of Constitutions, which modified
substantially the medieval masonic regulations, oaths and charges that ‘gov¬
erned’ local freemasonry.^*^
The most important aspect of the 1723 Constitutions was not the traditional
history which continued to place freemasonry within a historical landscape that
stretched back to Adam, ‘our first parent’; nor the regulations governing the
internal operations of the lodge and grand lodge. It was a new and radical set of
oaths or ‘charges’. These established fresh foundations for English freemasonry
that were embedded in contemporary Enlightenment values, and they initiated
a tectonic shift in organisational culture and philosophy. Equally important,
and a function of its desire to consolidate its growing authority, the new grand
lodge insisted that its tenets be applied across English freemasonry as a whole:
‘all the Tools used in [masonic] working [should be] approved by the Grand
Lodge’.**
The charges
The first charge — Concerning God and Religion — was to be freemasonry’s corner¬
stone. It was a paean to religious tolerance and personal morality, and replaced
the medieval invocation to the Holy Trinity and past masonic declarations in
favour of Christian belief.*” As amended, the charge obliged freemasons only
to ‘obey the moral law’ within a new framework of‘that religion in which all
men agree’.*** It was no longer necessary for a freemason to ‘be of the religion
of that country or nation’ where he resided but only to believe in God and be
a moral person — a ‘good man and true’.
The charge was not supportive of any specific religious denomination or
church. As written, it was a simple and powerful declaration of faith in a divine
being without a stated preference for any specific form of worship. The charge
was latitudinarian, if not deist, and was at the time a radical denial of doctrine and
a repudiation of ecclesiastical organisation:
A Mason is obliged ... to obey the Moral Law, and if he rightly under¬
stands the Art he will never be a stupid atheist nor an irreligious libertine.
’niiMUtSI
. •
ct r'.vv ':^
TT’.r.TI.f-
‘.WWW
Figure 1.1 Frontispiece

Source: 1723 Coiistitiitioiis
Engraved by John Pine
But though in ancient times Masons were charged in every Country to be

of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet ’tis now
thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which
all Men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves; that is, to
be good Men and true, or Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever
Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguished; whereby Masonry

becomes the Centre of Union, and the means of conciliating true Friend¬
ship and Persons that must have remained at a perpetual Distanced'^
The charge implicitly and explicitly gave backing to religious tolerance, not
least the right to hold to Protestant beliefs in a Catholic country. This had been
and remained a long-standing element of Huguenot philosophy and was simul¬
taneously an Enlightenment sensibility shared by many Whigs.
At the same time, freemasonry openly embraced teleology on both a per¬
sonal and a social level. Freemasons were enjoined to become ‘moral persons’
and ‘men of honour, purpose and integrity’, and freemasonry — ‘the Craft’ —
would be advanced as a mechanism through which personal differences could
be healed, becoming ‘the means of conciliating true Friendship’.
Desaguliers, the then deputy grand master and the probable author of the
charges, was one of the foremost advocates of such an approach. And his
views were shared by many others within his circle, including Martin Folkes,
a vice-president of the Royal Society and later its president. For such men, a
belief in God, ‘the All-wise and Almighty Architect of the Universe’, and in
Newtonian science, a world interpreted through rational observation, were not
in conflict. Indeed, they were one and the samed^
Natural Philosophy is that Science which gives the Reasons and Causes of
the Effects and Changes which naturally happens in Bodies. . . We ought
to call into question all such things as have an appearance of falsehood, that
by a new Examen we may be led to the Truth.
Within a decade this teleological concept had become an integral part of

freemasonry;
As Masons we only pursue the universal Religion or the Religion of Nature.

This is the Cement which unites Men of the most different Principles in
one sacred Band and brings together those who were most distant from one
another.
Replacing the medieval invocation to the Trinity and traditional obeisance to

the church had a disadvantage in that it provided the basis for later political and
religious attacks on freemasonry, including In Eminenti, the 1738 papal encycli¬
cal.Although the papal buU acknowledged that freemasonry was interdenomi¬
national, composed of‘men of any religion or sect, satisfied with the appearance
of natural probity, [and] joined together, according to their laws and the statutes
laid down for them, by a strict and unbreakable bond’, private discussion in
societies where debate was circumscribed was not tolerated well. And, in addi¬
tion, ‘if they were not doing evil they would not have so great a hatred of the
light’.““ Rome’s response was almost inevitable. As a latitudinarian and qua deist
organisation, freemasonry could — almost by definition — be viewed as seditious

and heretical, and thus undermining the temporal and spiritual authority of the
Catholic Church.
Regardless, the new English grand lodge combined a radical approach to
religion and a belief in a Divine Creator — the ‘Almighty Architect’, with Enlight¬
enment science. For freemasons, ‘the essential part of religion [would be]
grounded upon immutable reason [and] religion may therefore be called the
Moral Eaw of all nations’."^ The doctrine was central to an intellectual and
philosophical approach that pursued a rational interpretation of the natural
world as a pathway to divine truth. Sympathetic contemporary texts, includ¬
ing Long Livers, reflect a similar pantheistic approach. Dedicated to the free¬
masons and to ‘Men excellent in all kinds of Sciences’, Long Livers proudly
proclaimed that ‘it is the Law of Nature which is the Law of God, for God is
Nature’."^
The second Masonic charge — Of the Civil Magistrate Supreme and subordinate —
addressed the sovereignty of a constitutional parliament, the validity of the
Hanoverian succession, and the real and imagined threats posed by the Catho¬
lic Pretender, James Stuart, and his Jacobite supporters:“^
A Mason is a peaceable Subject to the Civil Powers, wherever he resides

or works, and is never to be concerned in Plots and Conspiracies against
the Peace and Welfare of the Nation, nor to behave himself undutifully to
inferior magistrates ... So that if a Brother should be a Rebel against the
State, he is not to be countenanced in his Rebellion, however he may be
pitied as an unhappy Man; and, if convicted of no other Crime, though
the loyal Brotherhood must and ought to disown his Rebellion, and give
no Umbrage or Ground of political Jealousy to the Government for the
time being; they cannot expel him from the Lodge, and his Relation to it
remains indefeasible.^*’
It was a radical proposition that a freemason could be ‘a rebel against the

state’ and although his rebellion would not be approved and his opinions may
be disowned by the brotherhood, such views alone would not provide ade¬
quate grounds for expulsion ‘if convicted of no other crime’. The philosophi¬
cal logic follows from the first charge, where freemasonry is positioned as the
means of conciliating true friendship among persons that would otherwise have
remained at a perpetual distance. Nevertheless, an obligation to be obedient
to the state was core to the new charges and ritual, and in his admission to
the lodge, each new member or ‘entered apprentice’ was enjoined to ‘behave
as a peaceable and dutiful Subject, conforming cheerfully to the Government
under which he lives’.”^
At a more fundamental level, the second charge echoed the changes to the
English Constitution that followed the Glorious Revolution. Where absolute
allegiance to the crown — ‘to be a true liege man to the king’, a testament to
divine right, had been fundamental to the Old Charges, the 1723 Constitutions
stated instead that freemasons were subservient not to the king but to the
‘supreme legislature’ and the civil powers.
For Desaguliers and his circle at the helm of the new grand lodge, the defini¬
tive political structure was not an absolute monarchy but that ‘which does most
nearly resemble the Natural Government of our System’.-®
Freemasonry was to be supportive of a constitutional monarch allied to a
parliamentary government and an independent judiciary. It was an argument
and approach that Desaguliers would later express allegorically in a poem, The
Newtouian System of the World:
The Primaries lead their Satellites,

Who guided, not enslav’d, their Orbits run.
Attend their Chief, but still respect the Sun,
Salute him as they go, and his Dominion own.-*^
The implication was clear. Resistance to the crown could be justified where a
king was in breach of his Lockean moral contract with those he governed. It
was this argument which had provided the intellectual foundations for the Glo¬
rious Revolution and the justification for replacing James II with William and
Mary. No longer would it be necessary to be a ‘true liegemen to the King of
England without any treason or falsehood’freemasons would instead ‘attend’
and ‘respect’, but be ‘guided, not enslaved’.
The 1723 Constitutions mirrored mainstream Whig thinking. And it advanced
a position fundamentally different from that stated in the Old Charges which
required a pledge to report immediately any plot against the crown.
The third Masonic charge — Of Lodges — emphasised that although member¬
ship was open. Masonic Society remained select:
The persons admitted Members of a Lodge must be good and true Men,
free-born, and of mature and discreet Age, no Bondmen, no Women, no
immoral or scandalous men, but of good Report.
The sentiment was reinforced by the fourth charge — Of Masters, Wardens, Fel¬
lows and Apprentices — which proffered a radical approach to preferment at a
time when rank and precedence were integral to polite society, and advance¬
ment based rarely on other factors:
All preferment among Masons is grounded upon real Worth and personal
Merit only; that so the Lords may be well served, the Brethren not put to
Shame, nor the Royal Craft despised ... no Master or Warden is chosen
by Seniority, but for his Merit.
The fifth Masonic charge — Of the Management of the Craft — continued the
long-standing practice of applying allegory to operative stone masons’ working
tools. This would remain a core component of freemasonry, with allegorical
explanations of the operative masons’ ‘working tools’ central to masonic lit¬

urgy: ‘We apply these tools to our morals.’
In this sense, freemasonry adopted a teleological view of man as morally
perfectible. New entrants to the lodge — entered apprentices — were candidates
for enhancement whose moral worth could and would be elevated through
appropriate training and mental and moral discipline. Merit and meritocracy
were and are strongly teleological in concept, and both were used in that sense
throughout eighteenth-century masonic ritual, and that which followed.
Teleology in eighteenth-century masonic ritual
The various explanations of the masonic ‘working tools’ are a key component
in each of the three masonic degree ceremonies, the first of which. The Work¬
ing Tools of an Entered Apprentice, contains multiple references to education as
the pivot on which self-improvement turns. A similar theme appears in and is
reinforced by the second, or ‘Fellow Craft’ degree ceremony. And in the third,
which reiterates that ‘we apply these tools to our morals’ with the intention of
attaining a ‘straight and undeviating line of conduct’.
The catechism begins with a statement concerning an ‘operative’ stonema¬
son’s tools. It is given at the end of a ceremony concerned with the allegorical
‘birth’ of the candidate as he enters freemasonry:
The Working Tools of an Entered Apprentice are the twenty-four inch

gauge, the common gavel and chisel. The gauge is to measure our work,
the gavel to knock off all superfluous knobs and excrescences, and the
chisel to further smooth and prepare the stone and render it fit for the
hands of the more expert workman.
And it continues with an introduction of the allegorical functions of each work¬

ing tool:
But as we are not all operative masons but rather free and speculative, we
apply these tools to our morals: the gauge represents the twenty-four hours
of the day, part to be spent in prayer, part in labour and refreshment, and
part in serving a friend or brother in time of need; the gavel represents the
force of conscience which should keep down all vain and unbecoming
thought; and the chisel points out the advantages of education by which
means alone we are rendered fit members of regularly organized society.^”
A similar approach is taken in the second degree, whose subject is how life
should be lived masonicaUy, that is, ‘with square conduct, level steps and upright
intentions’, ‘that we may live respected and die regretted’:
The Working Tools of a Fellowcraft are the square, the level and the plumb
rule. The square is to try and adjust rectangular corners of buildings and
assist in bringing rude matter into due form; the level to lay levels and
prove horizontals; the plumb rule to try and adjust uprights while fixing
them on their proper bases.
But as we are not all operative masons but rather free and accepted, or
speculative, we apply these tools to our morals: the square teaches moral¬
ity, the level equality and the plumb rule justness and uprightness of life
and actions.
And in the third, which reflects that one’s conduct in life will be judged and
rewarded or punished on death — ‘when we are summoned from this sublunary
abode’:
The Working Tools of a Master Mason are the skirret, pencil and com¬
passes . . .
But as we are not all operative masons but rather free and accepted, or
speculative, we apply these to our morals: the skirret points out that straight
and undeviating line of conduct laid down for our pursuit in the sacred law;
the pencil teaches us that our words and actions are observed and recorded
by the Almighty Architect; and the compasses remind us of His unerring
and impartial justice. Thus the working tools of a master mason teach us to
bear in mind and act according to the laws of our Divine Creator.
Education and entertainment - scientific and self-improving

lectures in the lodge
The second degree ceremony, that is, the fellow-craft degree, guides the
masonic candidate to ‘contemplate the intellectual faculty and to trace it from
its development, through the paths of heavenly science’, and alludes to the
seven liberal arts and sciences: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry,
music and astronomy.
The concept of self-improvement through education was driven both by
those at the centre of the grand lodge in London and by a number at its periph¬
ery. Edward Oakley (d.l765), an architect, a warden at the Nag’s Head lodge in
Carmarthen, Wales’s leading lodge, and warden and later master of the Three
Compasses lodge in Silver Street London, offers one example.
Oakley argued that educational lectures should be made available to the
widest possible extent within the lodge. The text of his teleological discourse
at the Three Compasses tavern on 31 December 1728 was considered to be of
such importance that it was incorporated within Benjamin Creake’s 1731 edi¬
tion of freemasonry’s Book of Constitutions, which suggests that his views were
popular and probably widely supported:
Those of the Brotherhood whose Genius is not adapted to Building, I

hope will be industrious to improve in, or at least to love, and encourage
some Part of the seven Liberal Sciences ... it is necessary for the Improve¬
ment of Members of a Lodge, that such Instruments and Books be pro¬
vided, as be convenient and useful in the exercise, and for the Advancement
of this Divine Science of Masonry, and that proper Lectures be constantly

read in such of the Sciences, as shall be thought to be most agreeable to the
Society, and to the honour and Instruction of the Craftd^
Oakley’s desire to focus on the ‘intent and constitution of the sciences’ and
reduce the emphasis on ‘merry songs [and] loose diversions’ may not have been
shared by a majority of freemasons but it was nonetheless part of mainstream
thought. Reports on and advertisements for scientific lectures and demonstra¬
tions, including those at the Royal Society, featured widely in the news and
classified sections of the London and provincial press, and rubbed shoulders
with numerous printers’ notices announcing the publication of educational
books, and academic, mathematical and scientific treatises.
Scientific lectures and demonstrations had become immensely popular. Larry
Stewart points to the connections between scientific education, finance and the
wealthy aristocrats and upper middling.The number of patrons attending
such events, and the high fees that the more eminent lecturers commanded,
underline their status and perceived value. Wigglesworth makes a similar point.
Scientific lectures, many in a lodge environment, disseminated knowledge
across provincial England and continental Europe.'"^'" And they served a political
purpose, emphasising the pre-eminence of Newtonian thought and, by exten¬
sion, British scientific and political achievement.
As part of this process, science became bound up with freemasonry and with
cultural and commercial aspiration: ‘Knowledge is now become a fashionable
thing and philosophy is the science a la mode: hence, to cultivate this study, is
only to be in taste, and politeness is an inseparable consequence.’'^^
William Stukeley, a member of the fountain Tavern lodge and a Fellow of
the Royal Society (FRS) who proposed at least seven freemasons for mem¬
bership of the Royal Society, recorded similar sentiments in his journal: ‘By
this time [1720] courses of philosophical experiments with those of electricity
began to be frequent in several places in London, and travelled down into the
country to every great town in our island.’^^
As Elliott and Daniels comment, freemasonry became quite rapidly the ‘most
widespread form of secular association in eighteenth-century England’.And
within 1730s London, at least a fifth and perhaps as many as a quarter of the
gentry, upper middling and professional classes became freemasons, some 3,000
to 4,000 men."^*^’
For many of its new members, Desaguliers epitomised and was synonymous
with science qua Enlightenment freemasonry. Desaguliers had started public
and private lecturing in London in 1713, following the award of his MA from
Oxford, and by 1717 had become an established speaker. Desaguliers contin¬
ued to lecture until the early 1740s, stopping only shortly before his death in
1744, with multiple courses of lectures and demonstrations that ran daily or
weekly for months at a time.’^^ An indication of his stature can be seen in the
fees he commanded, with one lecture series in Bath in May 1724 proving so
popular that he was able to charge three guineas per head, grossing Desaguli-
ers around 120 guineas per night, a vast sum and testament to the lectures’
perceived economic and social value/- and the cost of the apparatus and scien¬
tific machinery Desaguliers employed!"^^
Few masonic minute hooks survive from the 1720s and 1730s, but one which
does is that of the lodge at the King’s Arms Tavern in the Strand, whose mem¬
bers were mainly middling professional men, with a leavening of landed gentry.
Under the de facto leadership of Martin Clare, its acting master and senior war¬
den, a leading educator, author and another FRS,^"^ the lodge was renowned
for its lectures. These were given not only by Clare but also by members and
their guests, and centred on a range of subjects in which they were either prac¬
titioners or hobbyists. The lodge offers a strong example of what Clare terms
‘useful and entertaining conversation’ designed to encourage an understanding
of ‘the grand design’.At least thirty-six lectures are recorded at the King’s
Arms lodge in the decade 1733—1743, including nine that explained new sci¬
entific discoveries, inventions, techniques and apparatus; other lectures covered
art, architecture and mathematics.
Clare’s educational objectives within freemasonry were in line with those of
Desaguliers: using ‘experiments performed with accuracy and judgment’ to
create ‘principles . . . built on the strongest and most rational basis, that of
experiment and fact; which cannot but be acceptable to those, who admire
demonstration, and delight in truth’."^^'
Clare had a substantial influence on eighteenth-century education. His Soho
Academy had opened in 1717 and his textbook, Youth’s lutroductioii to Trade and
Business, published in 1720, ran to at least twelve editions through to 1791.^^
Clare’s approach to education was summed up succinctly as a function of prac¬
ticality: whereby his students might ‘be fitted for business’. The Academy
became one of London’s most popular and successful boarding schools, and
Clare’s emphasis on practical learning as well as the social graces set a pattern
for education with a syllabus that combined natural and experimental philoso¬
phy, mathematics, geography and languages, with dancing, fencing, morality
and religion.
Clare’s Motion of Fluids, a collection of papers given as lectures in the lodge,
was financed mainly by the members of the King’s Arms, described by Clare
as ‘a set of gentlemen ... so indulgent both to their matter and form as to
encourage their publication’."^^ The book was dedicated to Lord Weymouth,
the master of the lodge and subsequently the grand master of the Grand Lodge
of England, and in line with his example its subscribers included other promi¬
nent freemasons. In keeping with this precedent, the second and third editions
were dedicated respectively to Richard Boyle, Lord Burlington, and Henry
Herbert, ninth Earl of Pembroke, both well-known affluent freemasons.
Clare’s intellectual standing in masonic circles was underpinned by his Dis¬
course, a teleological lecture given to the grand stewards’ lodge and subsequently
to the grand lodge itself. Its central message expressed what was regarded as the
core of eighteenth-century freemasonry, and it was celebrated for so doing:
The chief pleasure of society — viz., good conversation and the consequent
improvements — are rightly presumed ... to be the principal motive of our
first entering into then propagating the Craft . . . We are intimately related
to those great and worthy spirits who have ever made it their business and
aim to improve themselves and inform mankind. Let us then copy their
example that we may also hope to attain a share in their praise.
The combination of entertainment — ‘good conversation’ — education — and

‘the consequent improvements’ — encapsulated what was now a central tenet of
freemasonry. Its purpose was wholly teleological — ‘to improve . . . and inform
mankind’. And its efficacy was enhanced by a publicly lauded, highly fashion¬
able milieu of dining, drinking and ‘ancient’ masonic ritual.^®
The combination of Enlightenment and antiquarian mores, an opportu¬
nity for self-improvement and financial betterment, and its open association
with the ruling elites, gave freemasonry a uniquely attractive set of aspirational
characteristics. And its desirability was not limited to England, Wales, Ireland
and Scotland. In continental Europe, freemasonry would be taken to a higher
level, positioned as a synthesis of fraternalism, social exclusivity, and arcane and
Enlightenment knowledge, all within a framework of faux medieval ritual and
chivalry.
Freemasonry in Europe
European freemasonry differed from its Anglo-Saxon counterpart in that it

embraced a more theatrical and spiritual format, albeit that it also incorpo¬
rated elements of self-improving chivalric ritual. The European aristocracy’s
penchant for medieval chivalry and myth was exploited by Desaguliers, who
adapted his masonic deliveries accordingly. A letter to the Duke of Richmond
from Thomas Hill, the duke’s former tutor, then a member of his household,
explains how Desaguliers intended to alter the ritual at a forthcoming meeting
of the duke’s lodge at Aubigny to make it more appealing to an audience of
French nobility:
I have communicated to . . . Dr J Theophilus Desaguliers, your Grace’s

command relating to the brotherhood of Aubigny sur Nere . . . When I
mentioned the diploma he immediately asked me if I had not Amadis de
Gaula or some of the old Romances.I was something surprised at his
question, and begun to think as the house was tiled our brother had a mind
to crack a joke.^“ But it turned out quite otherwise. He only wanted to
get a little of the vieux Gaulois in order to give his style the greater air of
antiquity and consequently make it more venerable to the new lodge . .
What the production will be you may expect to see soon.^"^
An oration given at Paris two years later in December 1736 by Andrew Michael
Ramsay^^ — ‘Chevalier Ramsay’ — at the exiled Eord Derwentwater’s masonic
lodge,^^ had much in common with Desaguliers’ approach. In his address,
Ramsay took the opportunity to embellish the Old Charges, combine them
with the new 1723 Constitutions, and extend the ‘traditional history’ to embrace
aristocratic continental moresd^
Ramsay intentionally exaggerated and embellished freemasonry’s lineage,
tracing it to Abraham and the Jewish patriarchs, and to ancient Egypt. But his
coup de theatre was to place freemasonry directly within a medieval European
context, dating the origins of the modern version of freemasonry to the Cru¬
sades, when ‘many princes, lords and citizens associated themselves and vowed
to restore the Temple of the Christians in the Holy hand, to employ themselves
in bringing back their architecture to its first institution’.^®
Ramsay stated that the holy knight crusaders had ‘agreed upon several ancient
signs and symbolic words drawn from the well of religion in order to recognize
themselves amongst the heathen and Saracens’, and that ‘these signs and words
were only communicated to those who promised solemnly, even sometimes at
the foot of the altar, never to reveal them’. The masonic promise was thus a
‘bond to unite Christians of all nationalities in one confraternity’. And the
essence of Ramsay’s chivalric — ‘muscular’ — freemasonry was ‘after the example
set by the Israelites when they erected the second Temple who, whilst they
handled the trowel and mortar with one hand, in the other held the sword and
buckler’.
In addition to extolling freemasonry’s medieval chivalric antecedents, Ram¬
say argued that the nature of freemasonry was intrinsically teleological: that it
epitomised all that could be regarded as virtuous, namely, a sense of humanity,
good taste, fine wit, agreeable manners and a true appreciation of the fine arts,
science and religion. He offered an attractive and holistic form of freemasonry
that appealed to Europe’s elites and validated their sense of self-worth. At the
same time, Ramsay posited that ‘the interests of the Brotherhood are those of
mankind as a whole’, and that ‘the subjects of all kingdoms shall learn to cher¬
ish one another without renouncing their own country’. In common with
Desaguliers, Ramsay positioned freemasonry as a movement that could unite
individuals ‘of all nations’ and actively proselytised it as such, albeit that his tar¬
get audience was limited to the aristocracy and wealthy upper middling.
Paul Monod and others have argued that Ramsay’s 1736 oration ‘fired the
starting gun’ for the introduction of what are termed the higher Masonic
degrees, and the roll-out of complementary quasi-masonic orders across Europe.
This is partly true, although such higher degrees were already in use in Scot¬
land and Ireland, frequently for fund-raising purposes. And one cannot ignore
continental European aristocracy’s enduring obsession with chivalric orders,
something that dated back at least six centuries. Among many examples are
the Knights Hospitallers formed in 1099, the Order of Saint Lazarus (1100),
the Knights Templars (1118) and the Teutonic Knights (1190). Certain degrees
and orders were especially select, among them the Order of the Golden Fleece,
founded in Bruges in 1430 by Philip III, Duke of Burgundy, and limited to
fifty knights plus the sovereign.
Intentionally or otherwise, Ramsay’s masonic appropriation of medieval
chivalry allowed him to push at an already open door. Partly as a consequence.
freemasonry was successful in attracting adherents among the nobility and in

court circles across Europe, most notably within the German states, Austria,
Hungary, Russia and Sweden, where it had been introduced from France in the
1730s and was later transformed by Charles XIII into the Swedish Rite, argu¬
ably the zenith of Masonic spirituality and teleological self-discovery.
The Swedish Rite
The Swedish Rite was formalised in the late eighteenth century and has remained
virtually unchanged since that time. The ceremonies are based on a combi¬
nation of Scottish and French masonic ritual, both of which have roots in
and similarities to English ritual, and elements of Rosicrucianism. But unlike
English (and American) ritual, Swedish Rite is an exclusively Christian order.
The rite contains ten principal degrees as compared to the three ‘blue’ degrees
of English freemasonry and the fourth Royal Arch or ‘red’ degree, which is
deemed to complement and ‘complete’ the first three degrees.*’'^’
The Swedish Rite begins with three St John’s or Craft degrees. It progresses
to a further two St Andrew’s or Scottish degrees,*"^ and then to five Chapter or
Templar degrees.*"^ Members of the Grand Council of Swedish Rite take an
eleventh degree, becoming Knight Commanders of the Red Cross.
The system is based on the concept of personal spiritual progression over
an extended period of time, often a decade or more. Advancement from a
St John’s lodge to a St Andrew’s lodge to Chapter is not automatic, and rather
than follow the English pattern of moving ‘up the line’ progressively via an
ascending order of offices within a lodge — from inner guard to junior deacon,
to senior deacon, junior warden, senior warden, and ultimately master of the
lodge, a candidate’s progress within Swedish Rite is associated with ascending
the degrees themselves.
The first five degrees are broadly similar to the first four in English freema¬
sonry, but there are a number of important differences. The most fundamental
is that each degree has its own bespoke lodge room that sets a specific masonic
tone and throws into relief the moral and spiritual aspects of that degree. For¬
mal court dress (now ‘white tie’), combined with a sword and scabbard, is worn
by all participants throughout each meeting.
From a teleological viewpoint, Swedish Rite epitomises an individual's spiri¬
tual and moral advancement. However, since the degrees are not open and
secrecy is maintained conscientiously in order to preserve the emotional impact
for each participant, the following observations are generalised and limited to
the first degree alone.
The first-degree Swedish Rite ceremony is conducted within an ornate
lodge room configured to represent an open-roofed Egyptian or Greek temple.
The rite begins with the sun rising in the east and over the course of the cer¬
emony it moves slowly across the open sky before setting in the west, at which
point the sun sets and the constellations come into view. Period eighteenth-
century music is played throughout the ceremony, which serves to enhance
the candidate’s emotional experience and encourage and augment personal

reflection.
In Swedish Rite, as in freemasonry as a whole, a candidate’s moral and spiri¬
tual development is marked by and taught via a series of one-act morality plays,
with the allegorical aspects of the degree explained obliquely via lectures and
catechisms in which formal answers are given by the candidate to set ques¬
tions. But in Swedish Rite, there is markedly greater drama and significantly
enhanced emotional investment.
The lighting, music and solemnity of the lodge room, the bearing of lodge
members, and the formality of the proceedings, are designed expressly to focus
the attention of the candidate on the intrinsic message of the degree ceremony,
prior to which the candidate will have been isolated in a separate room to
encourage spiritual introspection.
Transatlantic influences
Freemasonry’s teleological influence on revolutionary America was profound

and has been the subject of numerous journal articles and books. Following
America’s War of Independence, the masonic lodge became a preferred space
for those who wished to associate with the new nation’s post-war leaders, and
American freemasonry was perceived as a font of Enlightenment virtues, high
moral principles, and an organisation that could and would work for the benefit
of the community as a whole. The latter aspect was given tangible form at the
dedication of new public buildings and monuments from the Capitol Building in
Washington, where the foundation stone was laid by George Washington, the
nation’s first president, a freemason, in a masonic ceremony, to the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where General William Richardson Davie,
the grand master of freemasons in the state, a war hero, and a national and state
politician, presided over another masonic ceremony.
Freemasonry flourished in post-war America with a membership drawn not
only from the elites but also the middling — farmers, merchants, store-keepers,
tavern-owners, lawyers and local politicians. In contrast to Europe, American
freemasonry embraced accessibility and inclusiveness, and ushered in a funda¬
mental change to the organisation’s social demographic.
This section focuses on a single reference point: the Seal of the State of
Georgia, adopted in 1799. The Seal depicts three columns supporting an arch,
three steps, and a militiaman with a drawn sword. The same imagery is pres¬
ent on the Seal of Georgia’s Supreme Court. The official explanation of the
allegory is that the arch represents the state’s constitution and the columns the
branches of government: legislative, guided by wisdom; judicial, guided by
justice; and executive, exercising moderation. The presence of a soldier points
to the defence of the state’s constitution against its enemies.
But the Seal also has masonic symbolism; indeed, it was designed by Daniel
Sturges, a freemason appointed Georgia’s surveyor general in 1797.*"^ In free¬
masonry, the three columns represent the Sun, the Moon and the Master of the
lodge, respectively signifying wisdom, strength and beauty. They also allude to
three key items of lodge ‘furniture’: the square, the compasses, and the Bible.
The columns support an arch which represents the lodge itself and the universe
as a whole. And the soldier represents the Tyler, the lodge’s external ‘guard’,
whose sword is drawn to keep out cowans and intruders to freemasonry,'"'^ and
thus keep sacrosanct the spiritual knowledge that freemasonry imparts:
Your admission among masons in a state of helpless indigence is an

emblematical representation of the entrance of all men on this their mortal
existence. It inculcates the useful lessons of natural equality and mutual
dependence; it instructs you in the active principles of universal benefi¬
cence and charity to seek the solace of your own distress by extend¬
ing relief and consolation to your fellow-creatures in the hour of their
affliction. Above all, it teaches you to bend with humility and resigna¬
tion to the will of the Great Architect of the Universe; to dedicate your
heart thus purified from every baneful and malignant passion fitted only for
the reception of truth and wisdom to His glory and the welfare of your
fellow-mortals.
Proceeding onwards, still guiding your progress by the principles of
moral truth, you are led in the second degree to con template the intellectual fac¬
ulty and to trace it from its development through the paths of heavenly science
even to the throne of God Himself The secrets of Nature and the principles
of intellectual truth are then unveiled to your view. To your mind, thus
modelled by virtue and science, Nature, however, presents one more great
and useful lesson. She prepares you by contemplation for the closing hour
of existence and when by means of that contemplation she has conducted
you through the intricate windings of this mortal life she finally instructs
you how to die.^^
Conclusion
Is it feasible to apply a teleological analysis to eighteenth-century freemasonry —

the answer, in short, is ‘yes’. The masonic degree ceremonies state as much.
Indeed, one can go further. As the largest and most influential of the eigh¬
teenth century’s numerous fraternal clubs and societies, there is a strong argu¬
ment that freemasonry had a powerful — if not seminal — role in reformulating
and disseminating many of that century’s more profound Enlightenment ideas
and attitudes. This was particularly true of the way in which freemasonry acted
upon the middling, by advocating and articulating a sense of personal moral
responsibility in a society that was altering irrevocably as a function of urban¬
isation and the implementation of revolutionary changes to agriculture, trade
and industry.
In the vortex of rapid societal transformation, freemasonry provided a means
of visualising and defining an individual’s role and place within society, and a
key to explain that society. It offered a spiritual or quasi-spiritual alternative
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should acknowledge his guilt of a crime for which he is liable to
punishment by death, his master or his accuser shall straightway
communicate the fact to the judge of the district where the deed was
committed; or to the governor of the city, or the governor of the
province; and if, after an investigation, it is evident that the crime has
been committed, the culprit shall receive, either from the judge or
from his own master, the punishment of death, which he deserves.
If the judge should be unwilling to order him to be executed he
shall commit his sentence of death to writing, and the master shall
then have the power to either kill him, or to spare his life. If a slave,
of either sex, while resisting his or her master, should strike him with
a sword, stone, or with any weapon; or should attempt to strike him;
and the master, in his own defence, should immediately kill the
slave, he shall not be punished for homicide, if it is evident that he
defended himself; that is to say, if he can establish by the testimony,
or the oaths of other slaves who were present, and by his own oath,
that he was acting in his own defence. Where any person, through
malice, either acting himself or through the agency of another, kills
his own slave, he shall be deprived of the right to testify in court
thereafter, as a mark of infamy; and, in order that such rashness may
be prevented, he shall be exiled as long as he lives, and be forced to
do penance, and his property shall be given to those whom the law
has designated as his nearest heirs. Anyone who shall deliberately
or intentionally kill, or order to be killed, a slave, of either sex,
belonging to another, shall be compelled to give two slaves of equal
value, to the master of the one who was killed; and the homicide,
according to the provision hereinbefore stated, shall be sentenced to
perpetual exile. And if either a master or a mistress, influenced by a
sense of injury, or by anger, while inflicting punishment upon a slave
of either sex, whether their own, or belonging to another, should kill
such slave by a blow; and should be able to prove, either by
witnesses, or by his or her own oath, that he or she involuntarily
committed said homicide; such person shall not be amenable to
punishment under this law. Where any male or female slave admits
that he or she has, at the instigation, and with the consent of their
master, killed a fellow slave or any other person, and, having been
put to the torture, should accuse their master of having planned the
crime for his own benefit; said slaves shall be publicly scourged with
a hundred lashes, and shall be scalped as a token of infamy. If,
however, the master should swear that he has not ordered, or
influenced said slave, in any way, he shall not be considered guilty
under this law; and the slave who committed the homicide shall be
delivered up into the power of the master of the slave who was killed,
to be disposed of at his pleasure; for any slave who kills another
slave must be surrendered to the master of the latter.
Where a freeborn person has been convicted of having killed
anyone by treachery, and for the purpose of robbery, while the latter
was either on a journey or at home, he shall be at once punished for
homicide; and as anyone who by counsel, or by order, instigates
another to commit murder, is to be regarded as more infamous than
he who perpetrated the deed, it is hereby especially provided that,
except in the case of slaves, as hereinbefore set forth, if either a
master or a mistress should order a freeborn person, of either sex, to
be killed by a slave, and, after a severe, public investigation by
torture, confession of the crime is made by said slaves, implicating
their master or mistress, their testimony concerning the latter shall
not be received, unless they are able to confirm it by the evidence of
reputable witnesses. The master who is thus accused, must, at
once, in the presence of the court, purge himself of all guilt by oath.
Those who confess that they committed the homicide, shall either be
punished for the crime, or shall be surrendered to the parents or the
relatives of him who was killed, that they may do with them whatever
they desire. Where the master is unable to make oath, as aforesaid,
the male or female servant who has perpetrated such an infamous
act, shall receive two hundred lashes, and shall be scalped as a
mark of infamy. The master, by whose order such wickedness has
been committed, shall suffer the punishment of death.
If several freeborn persons, by common agreement, should plan
the perpetration of a homicide, he who struck the blow, or actually
committed the deed, shall be put to death. The others, however, who
are convicted of having plotted the crime, although they did not take
an active part in its perpetration, shall nevertheless, on account of
their wicked counsel, each receive two hundred lashes in public, and
undergo the ignominy of being scalped. And, in addition, each shall
be compelled to pay fifty solidi to the nearest relatives of the
deceased, and should any of them not be possessed of such a sum,
he shall be delivered over to them to be their slave forever.[37]
FLAVIUS RECESVINTUS, KING.
XIII. No One shall Deprive a Male or Female Slave of a Limb.
By a former law we have restrained masters, actuated by
unbridled rage, from putting their slaves to death. Now that they may
not deform man, who was made in God’s own image, while in the act
of practising cruelty upon those who are subject to them, we must
forbid corporeal mutilation. For which reason, we decree that if any
master or mistress, without a preliminary investigation in court,
should openly and wickedly, deprive their slave of his nose, lip,
tongue, ear, or foot; or should tear out his eye; or should mutilate any
other part of his body; or should order anyone else to perpetrate any
of these acts; he or she shall be sentenced by the bishop in whose
territory they live, or where the deed is proved to have been
committed, to three years of exile, with penance.
Where such persons have children, who are not implicated with
them in their crime, the latter shall take charge of all their property,
and care for it; and shall restore it, with an account of their
management of the same, when their parents return from exile. If,
however, they have no legitimate children, the judge shall give said
property into the keeping of other relatives; who, in like manner,
upon return of the exiles, must restore to them said property, with an
account of their management of the same. But should there be no
such relative, the judge himself shall take charge of the property and
preserve it, and, in like manner, give an account of it, when the
parties return from exile.
THE GLORIOUS FLAVIUS RECESVINTUS, KING.
XIV. Any Person may bring an Accusation of Homicide.
If no one should be willing to accuse another of homicide, the
judge, as soon as he learns that the crime has been committed, shall
have the power to apprehend the guilty party, that he may receive
the sentence he deserves; for the punishment of the crime may be
unduly deferred, either on account of the absence of the accuser, or
because some collusion exists between him and the murderer. A
wife shall have the right to inquire into the death of her husband, or
into any injury he has suffered at the hands of another; and a
husband has, likewise, the same privilege in the case of a wife, and
may demand that the crime be avenged by law. If either husband or
wife should die while they had the intention of prosecuting a criminal,
and, in consequence thereof, said prosecution should be left
incomplete, their children or relatives, who stand next in the line of
hereditary succession, shall have full power to accuse the offender,
or the homicide, and to carry on the prosecution just as parents can
do. The children or aforesaid relatives, shall not be entitled to the
property of the offender or homicide, unless he should have
previously undergone the punishment prescribed by law for his
crime. If the judge, after having been notified, should refuse to
avenge the crime, and, by reason of his delay or neglect, the matter
should finally be brought to the attention of the king, the judge shall
be compelled to give half of the legal composition for the homicide;
that is to say, two hundred and fifty solidi, as a penalty for his
disregard of his judicial duties. No one shall have a right to claim the
property of anyone who is punished for a crime, before the sentence
prescribed by law for said crime has been pronounced by the court.
FLAVIUS CHINTASVINTUS, KING.
XV. Both Relatives and Strangers have a Right to Accuse a
Person of Homicide.
As it is proper that those who are guilty of other crimes should
receive the penalties which they deserve, it must be regarded as
infamous that homicides, whom it is but right should be treated with
greater severity, should escape without punishment. Therefore, that
no one who has committed a homicide may escape, or think that, by
making excuses, he can avoid the consequences of his crime; the
right of prosecution is hereby given, in the first place, to the relatives
of the deceased; and if said relatives should be either lukewarm, or
dilatory in inquiring into the death of their relative, then other
relatives, as well as strangers, shall have the right to prosecute the
offender. Any person who fraudulently attempts to defend or excuse
a homicide, shall be compelled to pay to the accuser, double the
amount which he has corruptly received. For no one guilty of
homicide can ever feel secure, so long as he knows that everyone
has the right to prosecute him.
XVI. Where a Homicide Takes Refuge in a Church.
We are not unmindful that, heretofore, many laws have been
enacted, and penalties to be inflicted upon the guilty prescribed
according to the nature of the crime, whether it be homicide or some
other offence. Yet, because the authors of these wicked deeds who
are as ready to commit them as they are cunning in seeking
opportunities to escape punishment, and, as they, for the most part,
betake themselves for protection to the churches of God, while, at
the same time, they do not fear to commit crimes in violation of the
Divine precepts; for the reason that wickedness of this kind should
never go unpunished, because it destroys life, and frequently impels
the minds of men to the commission of worse offences, we
promulgate the following decree, to be observed through all time, to
wit: That, as the law directs that every homicide or malefactor shall
be punished, so, whoever, according to his own impulse, or evil
disposition, commits such a crime, shall never be released from
liability to the law, by any excuse or influence; but in case he should
take refuge at the Holy Altar, a pursuer shall not presume to remove
him from it without the consent of the priest. The priest having been
consulted, however, and oath made that the party sought is a
criminal, and liable to be publicly condemned to death; the priest
himself shall drive him from the altar, and eject him from the choir; so
that he who is pursuing him may arrest him.
He who has thus been driven from the church shall not, however,
be liable to the penalty of death; but the sight of his eyes shall be
entirely destroyed; or he may be delivered up into the power of the
parents or relatives of him whom he killed; and the latter shall have
the right to dispose of him at their pleasure, excepting they shall not
put him to death; as a warning to prevent the intentions of depraved
men from being carried into effect, when they know what
punishments are prepared for them; and that he whom a wicked
impulse often drives to the commission of an unlawful act, may,
through terror, abstain from evil.
XVII. Concerning Parricides, and the Disposition of their
Property.
As no homicide intentionally committed is left unpunished by our
laws, and as he who kills a blood-relation is more deserving of death
than an ordinary murderer; we therefore promulgate the following
edict, to be hereafter observed through all ages: That whoever shall
be guilty of parricide; that is to say, whoever shall purposely, or
actuated by the impulses of a depraved mind, kill his father, his
mother, his brother, his sister, or anyone else nearly related to him,
shall be immediately arrested by the judge, and put to death in the
same manner as that by which he deprived his victim of life. Where
the party guilty of the crime of parricide has no children, all his or her
property shall belong to the nearest heirs of the person killed. If he or
she should have children by another marriage, half of said property
shall belong to the heirs of the person killed, and half to the children
of the parricide, provided they were not implicated in the crime of the
father or mother; but, if they were implicated in said crime, all of said
property shall belong to the children of the deceased. But if neither
the parricide nor his victim should have left any children, then the
parents of the person who was killed, or his nearest relatives, or
such persons as have taken upon themselves the duty of avenging
his death, shall have the undoubted right to claim for themselves the
entire property of said parricide.
ANCIENT LAW.
XVIII. Concerning Those who Kill Others Related to Them by
Blood.
If a father should kill his son; or a son his father; or a husband his
wife; or a wife her husband; or a mother her daughter; or a daughter
her mother; or a brother his brother; or a sister her sister; or a son-in-
law his father-in-law; or a father-in-law his son-in-law; or a daughter-
in-law her mother-in-law; or a mother-in-law her daughter-in-law; or if
any of said persons should kill anyone else related to them by blood
or lineage, they shall be condemned to death. And, if on account of
his crime, the homicide should flee to a church, or take refuge at the
Holy Altar, he shall be delivered up into the power of the parents or
relatives of him whom he killed; and they shall have full authority to
dispose of him, according to their pleasure, except to deprive him of
life. And we decree that all his property shall go to the heirs of the
person killed, as hereinbefore provided; or be forfeited to the Crown,
should the person killed leave no near heirs; for a homicide, if
liberated, has no right to the enjoyment of his property, even should
he escape the penalty of death.
XIX. Where One Blood Relative is Accidentally Killed by

Another.
If a father should kill his son; or a son his father; or a mother her
daughter; or a brother his brother; or any person one nearly related
to him; and he who commits such an act should be impelled by
injury, or should be acting in self-defence, and it can be proven in
open court, by respectable witnesses, who are worthy of credit, that
the parricide was committed in self-defence; the party accused shall
be in no danger of his life, and shall be discharged, without loss of
property or subjection to torture; such discrimination being used as is
proper in all cases of homicide.
XX. Where One Slave Kills Another by Accident.
If one slave should be convicted of having accidentally killed
another, his master shall pay to the master of the slave who was
killed, by way of compensation, one half the sum required by law,
under similar circumstances, where death ensues as the result of an
accident. If the master should refuse to give satisfaction as
aforesaid, he must surrender the slave to the master of the one who
was killed.
ANCIENT LAW.
XXI. Concerning Those who Destroy their Souls by Perjury.
If anyone, on account of oppression of any kind, should
knowingly conceal the truth or should perjure himself; as soon as the
fact shall come to the knowledge of the judge, he shall be arrested;
shall receive a hundred lashes; shall be branded as an infamous
witness; and shall never again be permitted to testify in court. And,
as has been provided by a former law relating to perjury, a fourth
part of his property shall be given, by order of the judge, to him
whom he attempted to defraud.
BOOK VII.
CONCERNING THEFT AND FRAUD.
TITLE I. CONCERNING INFORMERS OF THEFT.
I. Concerning Informers and Persons who give Information of Theft.

II. A Slave, Acting as Informer, must not be Believed, unless the Testimony
of his Master is also Given.
III. Where the Informer Knew of the Commission of the Theft.
IV. Concerning the Compensation of an Informer.
V. Where an Innocent Person is Accused of Crime by an Informer.
I. Concerning Informers and Persons who give Information

of Theft.
A judge shall not inflict torture upon any person accused of crime,
before he who brings the accusation (if he is unwilling to produce the
informer in court), enters into an obligation in writing, confirmed by
the signatures of three witnesses, that if the accused is proved to be
innocent by competent evidence, he himself will suffer the penalty
which he attempted to inflict upon another. After the innocence of the
accused has been established, the accuser shall be placed in
custody by the judge, until he brings the informer into court, that the
truth may be ascertained; and, should he not produce said informer,
he shall, without delay, give his name, so that, when brought before
the judge, he may prove what he has alleged. If, however, the judge
is unable to elicit the truth, on account of the intervention of some
powerful person, or the patronage of a noble, or through fear of the
royal power, he must attempt to bring the matter to the attention of
the king, if he be near at hand; but, if he is at a distance, he must lay
his information before the bishop, or the governor of the province; in
order that the superior authority of these officials may cause the
matter to be properly investigated. Where the judge neglects to give
such notice, the complainant shall be indemnified, at the expense of
the said judge, for the entire property lost or stolen, by order of the
king or of the bishop. If the informer cannot prove what he alleged,
he alone shall be liable to make amends for the consequences of his
act. If the property stolen is of great value, and a freeborn person is
implicated, he shall return ninefold the value of the property, by way
of reparation, and shall be rendered infamous; and, if the culprit is a
slave, he shall pay sixfold the value of the property, and shall receive
in addition, a hundred lashes. Where said freeman has not sufficient
property to render satisfaction as aforesaid, he shall be surrendered
as a slave to him whom he attempted to render infamous by a false
accusation, and to him whom he attempted to deceive. If a slave
should not have the property wherewith to render satisfaction, as
aforesaid, or, if his master should be unwilling to pay the sum
required in his behalf, he shall at once surrender the slave in
satisfaction of his crime.
II. A Slave, Acting as Informer, must not be Believed, unless

the Testimony of his Master is also Given.
If a slave, without the knowledge of his master, should give
information of a theft, his statement shall not be believed, unless his
master should testify that he was trustworthy, and should thereby
establish his honor and credibility.
ANCIENT LAW.
III. Where the Informer Knew of the Commission of the Theft.
If the informer should be proved to have had knowledge of the
theft, he shall incur no penalty, and shall not be subject to payment
of damages; but he cannot demand any reward for the information
he furnishes, because it is sufficient compensation for him to be
permitted to depart in safety. Where the property stolen was divided
between him and the thief, he shall only be required to restore to the
owner what he received and kept for himself.
ANCIENT LAW.
IV. Concerning the Compensation of an Informer.
Where anyone gives information concerning a thief, even if he
should not personally have been aware that the theft was committed,
he shall not receive any more for the information he furnishes than
the stolen property was worth; and then only after full satisfaction
has been made to the owner. If the circumstances should be such,
that the execution of the thief was necessary, and no property
belonging to him could be found; or if he was a slave, and his master
claimed his property as his own, and therefore no compensation was
available for him who was robbed; in such cases the third part of the
property recovered shall be set aside as a reward for the information,
and the informer shall not be permitted to demand more than that
amount.
ANCIENT LAW.
V. Where an Innocent Person is Accused of Crime by an
Informer.
When anyone is accused of crime, that is to say, of poisoning,
witchcraft, theft, or any other unlawful act, his accuser must go
before the governor of the city, or the judge who has jurisdiction in
the district, in order that the case may be investigated according to
law; and as soon as the commission of the crime has been
established, the governor or the judge shall cause the culprit to be
arrested; and if he should not be convicted of a capital offence, the
accuser shall be compelled to give him pecuniary satisfaction; and
where the latter has not the means to do so, he shall be delivered up
to him as a slave. Where the accused person is proved to be
innocent, he shall be discharged; and the accuser shall pay both the
penalty and the damages for which the accused would have been
liable, had he been convicted. Neither the governor nor the judge
shall presume to apply torture, unless in public; lest there may be
some collusion, so that an innocent man may suffer unjustly. But he
shall not undergo the penalty for the crime until its commission has
been proved in court by competent testimony; or, as has been
provided for by other laws, before the accuser has bound himself to
substantiate the charge; and then, and then only, torture may be
applied in the presence of the judges.
TITLE II. CONCERNING THIEVES AND STOLEN PROPERTY.
I. He who is Searching for Stolen Property must Describe it.

II. Where a Slave Commits a Theft Before, or After, he has Received his
Freedom.
III. Where a Slave who has Become the Property of Another Master,
Commits an Unlawful Act.
IV. Where a Freeman Commits a Theft in Company with the Slave of
Another Person.
V. Where a Master Commits a Theft in Company with his Slave.
VI. Where a Slave, Belonging to Another Person, is Instigated by Anyone to
the Commission of Unlawful Acts.
VII. Concerning Those who Knowingly Associate with Thieves.
VIII. Where Anyone, Ignorantly, Buys Stolen Property of a Thief.
IX. Where Anyone, Knowingly, Buys Stolen Property of a Thief.
X. Concerning Money, and Other Property, Stolen from the King.
XI. Concerning the Stealing of Bells from Cattle.
XII. Concerning the Theft of Mill Machinery.
XIII. Concerning the Punishment of a Thief.
XIV. A Thief, when Taken, shall be Brought Before the Judge; and Where a
Freeman Commits a Theft in Company with a Slave, Both shall
Undergo the Same Penalty.
XV. Where a Thief, Defending Himself with a Sword, is Killed.
XVI. Where a Thief is Killed at Night, while he is Being Taken.
XVII. Concerning Property Injured or Destroyed; and the Reparation to be
Made for what has been Damaged or Stolen.
XVIII. Concerning Property Rescued from Shipwreck.
XIX. Concerning the Property and the Heirs of Thieves.
XX. Concerning Those who Rescue Thieves and Other Criminals, after their
Capture.
XXI. Where a Slave Steals from his Master, or from a Fellow-Slave.
XXII. Within what Time, after his Arrest, a Thief must be Brought Before the
Judge.
XXIII. Where Anyone Secretly Kills an Animal Belonging to Another.
I. He who is Searching for Stolen Property must Describe it.

Whoever makes a demand for any stolen property, must privately
describe to the judge what he seeks, and show, by manifest proof,
what he has lost; as the truth may not be established, where
sufficient evidence is not introduced.
ANCIENT LAW.
II. Where a Slave Commits a Theft Before, or After, he has
Received his Freedom.
If a slave should be guilty of theft, and should be afterwards set
free by his master, the master shall not be liable for any loss on
account of any acts previously committed by said slave; but the
slave himself shall suffer the penalties prescribed by the law against
the perpetrators of crime. Where he commits a theft after he has
received his freedom, he shall be compelled to make the same
reparation as he would have done while a slave, and shall receive a
hundred lashes. If said offence should not be of such a character as
to render him liable to be returned to slavery, he shall remain in the
full enjoyment of his freedom.
ANCIENT LAW.
III. Where a Slave, who has Become the Property of Another
Master, Commits an Unlawful Act.
If a slave who has passed under the control of another master,
should steal anything from his former owner, or should inflict any
injury upon anyone, the judge shall determine whether he committed
the crime; and if he is convicted, his last master, should he desire,
may render satisfaction for the acts committed by said slave. But if
he should refuse to do so, the slave must be surrendered to be
punished according to the nature of his offence.
IV. Where a Freeman Commits a Theft in Company with the

Slave of Another Person.
Where a freeman is implicated with the slave of another person in
the commission of any crime, whether they steal, or appropriate any
property, or are guilty of any other unlawful act; each shall be liable
for half the pecuniary compensation required by a former law, and
both shall be scourged together in public. And if the master should
not be willing to render full satisfaction for the act of said slave, the
latter must be surrendered in lieu thereof. But if they have committed
a capital crime, the slave and the freeman shall, at the same time, be
condemned to death.
ANCIENT LAW.
V. Where a Master Commits a Theft in Company with his
Slave.
If a master should commit a theft in company with his slave, we
hereby decree that the master, and not the slave, shall make full
pecuniary reparation for the same; and the master shall receive a
hundred lashes in public, as prescribed by law. The slave, however,
shall go free, because he obeyed the commands of his master.
ANCIENT LAW.
VI. Where a Slave, Belonging to Another Person, is
Instigated by Anyone to the Commission of Unlawful Acts.
If anyone should instigate the slave of another person to commit
a theft, or any other unlawful act; or should persuade him to do
anything contrary to his own interest, which may also be the
occasion of loss to his master, in order that, by his evil and iniquitous
influence, he may fraudulently obtain possession of said slave for
himself; and, after proper investigation by the judge, the fraud is
detected, the said master shall not lose his slave, or be liable to any
penalty; but he, by whose artifice and persuasion, the slave was
induced to commit the crime, in order that he might obtain
possession of him as aforesaid, shall be forced to pay to the master
of the slave sevenfold the value of the property stolen, or the legal
damages prescribed for his act. The slave shall receive a hundred
lashes in public; for the reason that, despising his master, he plotted
against him, and, after the infliction of said punishment, he shall be
restored to his master.
ANCIENT LAW.
VII. Concerning those who Knowingly Associate with
Thieves.
Not only he who actually commits a theft, but also any person
who was aware of it at the time, or knowingly received the stolen
goods, shall be considered a thief, and liable to the penalty
prescribed for the crime.
VIII. Where Anyone, Ignorantly, Buys Stolen Property of a
Thief.
It shall not be lawful for a freeman to buy any property from a
person unknown to him, unless he can produce a reliable person as
a witness, and thereby be able to allege the excuse of ignorance. If
he should do otherwise, he shall be compelled by the judge to
produce, within a reasonable time, the person of whom he bought
said property; and if he cannot find him, he must prove his
innocence, either by oath or by witnesses, and show that he did not
know that the vendor was a thief; and he must restore the property
which he purchased to the owner, after having received from the
latter an amount equal to half the price paid for said property; and
both shall promise, under oath, that they will make diligent search for
the thief. If, however, the latter cannot be found, the purchaser shall
only be compelled to restore to the owner the property which he
bought. In case the owner of said property should know the thief,
and should be unwilling to expose him, he shall lose the property
absolutely, and the purchaser shall possess it in peace. This law
shall also apply to slaves.
ANCIENT LAW.
IX. Where Anyone, Knowingly, Buys Stolen Property of a
Thief.
If anyone should, knowingly, purchase stolen property of a thief,
he must at once declare from whom he bought it, and afterwards
must make restitution, just as the thief should do. If he should not be
able to find the latter, he shall be compelled to pay double the
amount required from thieves, because it is evident that he who
purchases stolen property is on the same legal footing as a thief.
Where a slave commits such an act, he shall pay half the amount
required of freeborn persons, or his master shall surrender him in
satisfaction of his crime.
ANCIENT LAW.
X. Concerning Money, and Other Property, Stolen from the
King.
If anyone should steal, or appropriate to his own use, money or
other property belonging to the public treasury, he shall restore
ninefold its value.[38]
ANCIENT LAW.
XI. Concerning the Stealing of Bells from Cattle.
If anyone should steal a bell from a mare or an ox, he shall pay
one solidus; from a cow, two tremisæ; from a ram or other cattle, one
tremisa.
XII. Concerning the Theft of Mill Machinery.
If anyone should steal any of the parts of a mill, he shall return
what was stolen; shall also pay the fine provided by law as
punishment for other thefts; and shall receive, in addition, a hundred
lashes.
XIII. Concerning the Punishment of a Thief.
A freeman who steals the property of another, shall pay to the
owner nine times the value, and a slave six times the value, of the
property stolen; and each shall receive a hundred lashes with the
scourge. If the freeman has not sufficient pecuniary resources to pay
said fine; or if the master should refuse to render satisfaction for the
act of his slave; he who was guilty of the theft shall become forever
the slave of the owner of the stolen property.
ANCIENT LAW.
XIV. A Thief, when Taken, shall be Brought Before the Judge;
and Where a Freeman Commits a Theft in Company with a
Slave, Both shall Undergo the Same Penalty.
When a thief is arrested, he shall be brought into court, and, if
freeborn, shall pay nine times the value of the stolen property, and
shall receive a hundred lashes publicly, in the presence of the judge.
If, however, he should not have the means wherewith to make
restitution, he shall forfeit his liberty, and become the slave of him
whom he robbed. A slave shall make restitution sixfold for the
property stolen; shall receive a hundred lashes in the presence of
the judge; and shall be kept in custody until his: master is notified to
immediately give satisfaction for his act; and, should he not do so, he
must, at once, surrender the criminal to the party who suffered the
loss.
It is also provided by this law, that if a slave and a freeman, or
several slaves and several freemen, should, while together, steal any
animal, or any other article of property, they shall make but one
compensation for the same; that is to say, freemen shall pay half of
its ninefold value, and slaves half of its sixfold value; but they all
shall receive the same number of lashes as hereinbefore provided.
The aforesaid provision shall also be observed in the cases of slaves
and freemen, where property of great value was stolen, and they
shall be scourged before the judge as hereinbefore stated.
ANCIENT LAW.
XV. Where a Thief, Defending Himself with a Sword, is Killed.
If a thief should be killed in the daytime, while defending himself
with a sword, no responsibility shall attach to anyone on account of
his death.
ANCIENT LAW.
XVI. Where a Thief is Killed at Night, while he is Being Taken.
If a thief should be surprised at night, and should be killed while
he is attempting to remove stolen property, his death shall under no
circumstances be punished.
ANCIENT LAW.
XVII. Concerning Property Injured or Destroyed; and the
Reparation to be Made for what has been Damaged or Stolen.
Where anyone damages property or clothing belonging to
another, or does any injury to a traveller while on a journey, or
deprives him of anything by stealth, he shall immediately give
satisfaction according to law; but shall not be compelled to pay the
full value of the baggage of the traveller, but only an amount equal to
what he damaged, or stole from him.
ANCIENT LAW.
XVIII. Concerning Property Rescued from Shipwreck.
Where property has been saved from conflagration, ruin, or
shipwreck, and any of it is abstracted or concealed by any person;
he shall be compelled to pay fourfold the value of the same.
ANCIENT LAW.
XIX. Concerning the Property and the Heirs of Thieves.
Where anyone obtains the property of a dead thief, either by will
or inheritance, he shall not be liable to any penalty, because the
crime died with the perpetrator; but he shall be liable to satisfaction
in damages, for the reason that the thief would have been so liable,
had he lived. If the damages incurred amount to more than the
inheritance, he must surrender the latter in its entirety.
ANCIENT LAW.
XX. Concerning Those who Rescue Thieves and Other
Criminals after their Capture.
If anyone should rescue a thief or any other criminal who is in
custody, or permit him to escape; if he is a person of rank, he shall
receive a hundred lashes in the presence of the judge for his
insolence, and shall be compelled to produce in court the party
whom he set free. If another person who has no claim against a
thief, should arrest him, he shall receive for his services a fourth part
of the sum due from the thief in satisfaction of his crime. Where the
latter cannot afterwards be found, he who liberated him shall be
liable to the punishment prescribed for theft; and shall be compelled
to pay, out of his own property, a sum equal to that which the thief
would have been compelled to pay, had he been convicted. If,
however, he is a person of inferior rank, and should produce the thief
in court, he shall receive for his insolence a hundred lashes. Where
he is not able to find the thief, he shall be liable to both the penalty
and damages for theft, to the same extent as the thief himself would
have been liable after conviction.
If anyone should release a person accused of another crime than
theft, he shall received a hundred lashes in like manner; and if he
cannot find or produce the party he liberated, he shall at once suffer
the same punishment to which the law declares the accused would
have been liable, had he been found guilty. If a slave should commit
this offence, without his master’s knowledge, he shall receive two
hundred lashes for his insolence, and shall be compelled to produce
the person whom he released. If he should not produce him, then his
master, should he wish to do so, may pay for him the sum demanded
as compensation for the crime; but if he should be unwilling to pay
said sum as provided by law, he must surrender the slave in
satisfaction for damages, or to be punished.
ANCIENT LAW.
XXI. Where a Slave Steals from his Master, or from a Fellow-
Slave.
If a slave should steal anything from his master or from his fellow-
slave, what shall be done with him lies entirely in the discretion of his
master; and the judge has no right to interfere in the matter, unless
the master should wish him to do so.[39]
ANCIENT LAW.
XXII. Within what Time, after his Arrest, a Thief must be
Brought Before the Judge.
When anyone arrests a thief, or any other criminal, he must
straightway conduct him before the judge; and he must not keep him
in his house longer than one day, or one night. If anyone should
violate this provision, he shall be forced to pay five solidi to the judge
for his insolence. If a slave should do this, without the knowledge of
his master, he shall receive a hundred lashes, but if he should do it
with the master’s consent, all liability for damages shall be incurred
by the latter. If the slave is of superior rank, his master shall be
compelled to pay a fine of ten solidi, half of which sum shall belong

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Teleology and Modernity 1st Edition

William Gibson Dan O Brien Marius

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TELEOLOGY ANO MODERNITY

The main and original contribution of this volume is to offer a discussion of

William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Director of the

Dan O’Brien is Reader in Philosophy and Subject Co-ordinator for Philosophy

Marius Turda is Professor in 20th Century Central and Eastern European

The Work of History

History and Sociology in France

Universal History and the Making of the Global

Cowrie Shells and Cowrie Money

A Personalist Philosophy of History

Historical Parallels, Commemoration and Icons

Historians Without Borders

Leopold von Ranke

Teleology and Modernity

For more information about this series, please visit; www.routledge.com/

Edited by William Gibson,

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an in forma business

The right of William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and Marius Turda to be

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cata!oging-in-Pid)lication Data

ISBN: 978-0-8153-5103-0 (hbk)

List of contributors Vll

1 ‘We apply these tools to our morals’: eighteenth-century

2 Teleologies and religion in the eighteenth century 40

3 John Wesley and the teleology of education 56

4 Teleology and race 77

5 Charles Darwin and the argument for design 94

6 Teleology and Jewish heretical religiosity: Nietzsche

7 Can the sciences do without final causes? 131

8 Hume, teleology and the ‘science of man’ 147

9 What is the function of morality? 165

10 Is intuitive teleological reasoning promiscuous? 185

Stephen Boulter is Reader in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. His

Helen De Cruz is Danforth Chair in Philosophy at Saint Louis University.

of the Templeton-funded project Evolution, Ethics, and Human Origins: A

Johan De Smedt is Lecturer in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. His

William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Director of the Oxford

Lorenzo Greco is Tutor in Philosophy and Associate Member of the Faculty

Dan O’Brien is Reader in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University. He is

David Ghana is Professor of Modern European History at the Ben-Gurion

University, Jerusalem, Israel, the Paris-Sorbonne, Harvard University and the

David Redvaldsen is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social

Linda A. Ryan is an independent scholar with an interest in early Method¬

Marius Turda is Professor of Biomedicine and Director of the Centre for

William Gibson, Dan O’Brien and Marius Turda

The foundation for this volume originates in two workshops organised by

Examination and discussion of historical teleologies have not been fashion¬

A similar trade in teleologies exists in the consideration of empire. Imperial¬

Section II: history

This classical version of teleology, summarised in the aphorism ‘nature does