Isaac Newton's Freemasonry by Alain Bauer

Author:Alain Bauer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

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THE BIRTH OF FREEMASONRY

Steven L. Kaplan explains at length the collapse of the social structures of the old French monarchy. In the eighteenth century, there were hundreds of trades and thousands of corporations. 1 (At the demand of Louis IX, the book of trades compiled by Étienne Boileau, the provost of Paris, established regulations for about a hundred of them.) There were some forty thousand “masters” and around a hundred thousand laborers. Between 1776 and 1791, this force of social resistance to economic modernization resisted Turgot, bowed before the d’Allarde Law, and gave in to the Le Chapelier Law in the name of the revolution that was in progress. Nothing was said regarding the place and role of Freemasonry. Only in England were there still corporations and guilds. As for the connection with operative Masonry, David Stevenson’s work is sufficient to settle the question of the English side.

In her chapter concisely entitled “Maçonnerie,” Margaret C. Jacob returns to the theory of transition, citing the founding of a “libertine and masonic group” in 1710 in The Hague. 2 They called themselves Brothers, had a Grand Master and a Secretary, and were composed of Huguenot intellectuals from France. Jacob, in her main works, develops further theories on the relationship between the founding of a new civil society and the role of English Freemasonry. In Living the Enlightenment, 3 The Radical Enlightenment, 4 and especially The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 5 she explores the connections among the English Revolution, the ideas of Hermeticism, philosophical oppositions, scientific clubs, and the role of Freemasonry.

Without stating a definite position, Jacob notes the political vision and ideological content of speculative Freemasonry in England. In a long discussion on “Newtonian Enlightenment and its critics,” she points out the link between Newton’s research and its popularization in France by Voltaire, then its return in a translated version to England.

Jérôme Rousse-Lacordaire also insists on “the ambivalence of Enlightenment.” 6 He describes the point at which the philosophy of the Royal Society was infused into scientific and erudite society, according to Thomas Sprat, the official historian of the Royal Society, in 1677:

As for what belongs to the Members themselves, that are to constitute the Society: It is to be noted, that they have freely admitted Men of different Religions, Countries, and Professions of Life. This they were oblig’d to do, or else they would come far short of the largeness of their own Declarations. For they openly profess, not to lay the Foundation of an English, Scotch, Irish, Popish, or Protestant Philosophy; but of a Philosophy of Mankind. 7

Scientific experimentation, questioning, and research were all part of the stated desires of the Royal Society, as well as in the syncretism clandestinely exercised by Newton.

In essence, Freemasonry appears to be a sui generis expression. Was Isaac Newton the initiator, the founder, or the accomplice?

Quoting the dedication preceding a poem published after Newton’s death by John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683–1744), disciple and secretary of Newton, Fellow of the Royal Society starting in 1714,

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