26
MASONIC JURISPRUDENCE
wards in 1846 Oliver published his well-known work in two large volumes entitled "Historical Landmarks of Freemasonry." One will look in vain to this book, however, for any sugg~estion of Dr. Oliver's views on the matter we are now discussing. The book is an account of the history of the Craft, and the word landmark in the title is obviously used only in the figurative sens,e of important occurrences-as the phrase "beacon,light," for example, is used in Lord's "Beacon Lights of History." Oliver does not use the term again till his Symbol of Glory, in 1850. In that book he asks the question: "What are the landmarks of Masonry, and to what do they refer"-in other words, the very thing we are now discussing. His answer is most disappointing. He begins by telling us that what landmarks are and what are landmarks "has never been clearly defined." He then explains that in his book, "Historical Landmarks," just spoken of, he is speaking only of "the landmarks of the lectures," and adds-obviously referring' to the sense in which we are now using the term-that there are other landmarks ill the ancient institution of Freemasonry which have remained untouched in that publication, and it is not unanimously agreed to what they may be confined. Next (1856) occurred the publication of Dr. Mackey's epoch-making exposition of the term and his wellknown formulation of twenty-five landmarks. I shall return to these in another connection. But it is interesting to see the effect of this upon Oliver. In 1863, in his Freemason's Tr.easury;路路路--()li-ver classifies the "Genuine J~lldnrarKSOf Freemasonry" into twelve classes, of . .,wliich he enumerates some forty existing, and about a dozen others as obsolete (nota bene) or as spurious. But he admits that we "are grovelling in darkness" on the whole subject, and that "we have no actual criterion by which we may determine what is a landmark and what not." Nevertheless, Oliver's ideas were beginning