JUSTICE
By R. Stephan Doan, PGM
R. Stephen Doan served as Grand Master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of California in 1992–1993. He is Past President of the Philalethes Society and is a frequent speaker and author on Masonic topics.
As American Masonry began to recover from the near-death experience of the Morgan Affair, there was a movement to standardize American Masonic rituals. From the 1843 Baltimore Convention emerged a consensus work, based in part on a book of an American Mason, Thomas Smith Webb’s Freemason’s Monitor or Illustrations of Freemasonry. Webb’s work included the four Cardinal Virtues: Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice. These came from Plato’s Republic, which was written in approximately 380 B.C.E. The English word “cardinal” comes from the Latin cardo, which means “hinge.” The English word “virtue” comes from the Latin virtus, which means manliness or worth. Virtues are what make a man, and these four virtues are considered cardinal because all other virtues hinge on them. They form a portal to a virtuous life.
While Plato discussed all four virtues, he devoted most of the Republic to Justice. The Republic was principally a search for the characteristics of an ideal Greek city-state, and Justice in Plato’s view was the most fundamental characteristic of successful civil society. Temperance, Fortitude and Prudence are about what I do. Justice is reciprocal: it is about what we can do together. It thus can be conditional: it may not be offered if it has not been received. Its practice can tame self-interested narcissism by focusing us on the greater good, found when most sense that he or she is being treated fairly, not necessarily equally in all things, but fairly.
How does Freemasonry help us practice Justice? Webb’s Monitor helps us start by describing what Justice is, in a manner familiar to most readers:
Justice is that standard, or boundary, of right, which enables us to render to every man his just due, without distinction. This virtue is not only consistent with Divine and human laws, but is the very cement and support of civil society; and, as justice in a great measure constitutes the real good man, so should it be the invariable practice of every Mason never to deviate from the minutest principles thereof.
Most of us have heard this description so many times (some have even memorized a version of it) that we can miss its kernels of truth. Webb’s source material helps bring these kernels back into focus. Webb’s Monitor was based on Englishman William Preston’s Illustrations of Masonry which describes Justice more succinctly: Justice is the boundary of right, and constitutes the cement of civil society. Preston makes clear the key elements in the Webb definition. Justice is both a limit on my rights and the cement which holds us together. We understand limits but what can we learn about Justice from the cement metaphor?
While the Cardinal Virtues are introduced in the Entered Apprentice degree, we must wait until the third degree to receive more instruction about cement. Again from Webb’s Monitor:
The Trowel is an instrument made use of by operative masons, to spread the cement which unites a building into one common mass; but we, as Free and Accepted Masons, are taught to make use of it for the more noble and glorious purpose of spreading the cement of Brotherly love and affection; that cement which unites us into one sacred band, or society of friends and brothers, among whom no contention should ever exist, but that noble contention, or rather emulation, of who best can work, or best agree.
Justice is both a limitation on what I want and a brotherly regard for what you need.
My epiphany on individual freedom and liberty and their boundaries came in law school: my right to swing my hands and arms ends where your nose begins. This example is simple and easily understood. Others are not so clear. When does my accumulation of what is important to me improperly interfere with your right to do likewise? This is in essence the tension between liberty and equality, which of course the French suggested can be reconciled by the third element of their trilogy: fraternity. Justice is not just a boundary. Justice binds us together like cement when it is cured by fraternity. My epiphany on this aspect of fraternity came when I was raised a Master Mason and as part of my proficiency memorized the California explanation of the trowel. It naturally fit with my epiphany about swinging my arms and the tension between liberty and equality. Justice is more than limiting my careless actions which may hurt you. Justice is also about fraternity expressed through empathy, looking at life from your perspective and how my actions may impact your happiness.
The Emulation ritual in the United Grand Lodge of England does not have the four Cardinal Virtues but connects Justice and Brotherly Love more graphically than we do in our Webb lectures. Once the English apprentice has been told by the Master that he there stands “a just and upright Mason,” he next receives instruction on the “distinguishing characteristic of a Freemason’s heart”: our duty to assist those “who, perhaps from circumstances of unavoidable calamity and misfortune, are reduced to the lowest ebb of poverty and distress.” It is at this point that the demand is made for a deposit, not just as a memorial of the occasion but to help those at the lowest ebb. That the candidate is then in such a position himself is a powerful lesson on the reciprocity of commitment at the heart of Justice.
I have given a talk entitled “What is the Most Important Symbol in Freemasonry” which I begin by asking my audience, so what is that symbol and why? I continue soliciting answers until most every working tool in our ritual has been mentioned and its importance explained. I then observe: we take from Freemasonry what we need. The most important symbol for you is the one which helps you relieve your most important need at the time. As our needs change, the relative importance of our symbols may change also. I became a lawyer in part because I have always been concerned about what is fair, fair to you and fair to me. I obviously thought the trowel to be the most important working tool, because it binds together all of the pieces into a united and resilient whole. It best represented to me fairness or justice: working together to build a consensus for what is fair.
Since then, my needs have evolved from a need for fairness to a need to understand existence and my place in it. I have learned that the goals of human life are ultimately very simply stated: to understand that everything must have evolved from a single source, to understand how we should relate to that first Creator and its Creation and then to maintain that relationship, despite all the distractions, temptations, genetic predispositions and the like which can separate me from what I know I need to do. Cement is too limited a metaphor by which to model my relationships. Cement is rigid. It does not handle stress or change well.
Existence is dynamic and thus our relationships must be dynamic also. The center of harmony shifts when needs and perceptions shift. Harmony as the essence of existence responds to change. It is not defeated by the “lapse of time, the ruthless hand of ignorance, and the devastations of war.” The cosmos reflects the same truth. “Numberless worlds are around us, all framed by the same Divine Artist, which roll through the vast expanse, and are all conducted by the same unerring law of nature.” The harmony or music of the spheres as observed by Pythagoras is the ultimate proof that harmony defines the relationship of the Creator and Creation, both on earth and in the cosmos, a harmony which we can access through the moral advantages of Geometry, now my most important working tool. Geometry measures and thus becomes the evidence, the foundation of my faith, that harmony will always prevail because it always has. Harmony will always follow discord. All I need do is choose to be and remain part of it.
But harmony is not a one and done. Because circumstances continuously change, we must stay alert. Harmony may get away from us unless we keep checking: am I in or out? As the needs and perceptions of others evolve, our relationships with them must evolve also. Sometimes it is we who have changed. Something is different about us. Sometimes temptation or fatigue or hurt at our own failings or those of others can separate us. We must learn how to practice self-awareness so that our self-induced separation triggers the recollection that happiness is a choice. We can choose to forgive ourselves and accept brotherly affection from others, thereby recovering the power to set aside temptation, fatigue or hurt.
As Plato argued, Justice is a defining characteristic of successful civil society. Ultimately, however, Justice is not enough because it can be conditional: offered only if received. Our regard for others must be selfless and unconditional, as the Greeks understood their word agape. Justice is a start, as it has been for me, but it must lead us beyond what is fair in search of that harmony which defines our essence and reveals true happiness.
Let brotherly love prevail!
Explore more about Justice and Freemasonry in the Fraternal Review issue on Justice at: https://www.theresearchlodge.com/store/justice
