Have you ever sensed a voice within you that knew what things needed doing? What voice within you directed you to pay for a person’s groceries or jump-start a stranger’s car battery? Masonry has a clear answer to this question, and it is surprising. It simply calls this voice “duty.”
Duty appears to be an inner urging toward virtue. Trying to figure out where it comes from and why it is so pervasive in the human experience is a whole branch of philosophy, known as deontology, from the Greek deon (δέον), meaning essentially “that which is necessary or binding.” Deontological literature exists in abundance, spanning from the eighteenth century to the present day. While the study of deontology is complex, Masonry offers a starting place for the question.
According to the Rite, Masonry itself is the performance of duty. If this is a higher-level definition that summarizes the definition of Masonry as “a continuous advance … toward the Light,” then duty logically is the pull of the Light. If Light is the Deity’s own nature, then duty is the soul’s directedness toward the Deity. Duty therefore comes directly from the Deity.
Duty is an internal sense that there is a way that things ought to be. Masonry asserts as a general agreement that duty is ever-present and unavoidable. Each person with such a feeling senses that some actions are necessary beyond physical survival. As the Rite puts it, “The duties of life are more than life; and to lengthen his days is not the most important of all things to a true Man and Mason.”
People who sense duty as a real force within themselves quickly sense that it comes from something deeper than wanting to please parents, who may be dead, or employers, who may be gotten rid of at two weeks’ notice. Masonry tends not to reveal directly what the source is. It is instead a universal principle observable in others as well.
Duty’s universality is why many apologists for the existence of the Deity begin by discussing morality, for instance C. S. Lewis in his Mere Christianity. That book, which has become quite the classic for giving a gentle but clear defense of the Christian religion, begins by discussing the pull of duty toward right living, then morality in general, then God in general, then the Christian faith. When one senses duty as a channel toward the Deity, theism is not so much a hypothesis as an experience. Masonry aims to multiply those experiences through fraternal love, action, and relief.
It is sometimes difficult, however, to determine whether a particular pull is one of duty or one of material desire. Learning to discern what is a duty and what is not is a skill that Masonry develops.
Plato’s tripartite division of the soul into mind, heart, and stomach offers a few suggestions.
Those imbalanced toward the mind are naturally quite curious, but lack usefulness to others, so their duty to know things could be an unhealthy pull toward a lower flight—knowledge of things for the sake of the things themselves. Even worse, the heart chimes in, wanting others to see them as superior due to possession of information. They might discern that it is their duty to collect as much information as possible in the event the information may be useful later to themselves. Can you hear the call of duty here? Masonry (or duty) gently shepherds the curious type to consider more deeply the wellbeing of others. Then the quest for information becomes a quest for knowledge, which the Rite defines as the development of the human soul. The resulting virtue is then wisdom.
Those imbalanced toward the “heart” are ambitious, but lack right thinking or doing. These tend to seek titles in Masonry or name recognition in the outside world. Their goal is to win the affection of others for their own gain. How about this person’s call of duty? They possess a pull toward esteem, but Masonry would have alerted them that they are really seeking honor, which they would get naturally through loving others. In order to love others, though, they would have to be thoughtful, sincere, and secure, rather than waffling, sarcastic, and truckling. Having balance would cause this part of the soul to foster the virtue of courage.
Those imbalanced toward the “stomach” or material desires are covetous, but lack the discernment to seek higher things. They want to feel good. They discern it as something worthwhile to avoid pain and stay comfortable. They hear duty’s call to get to work, but numb themselves to it so that they can avoid the initial discomfort. That “duty” to them is really that of finding peace, but imbalance of the three parts has clouded that understanding into that of finding pleasure or rest. Having balance would cause this part of the soul to foster the virtue of temperance.
The rational part of the soul, according to Plato, should govern in due balance the spirited and desirous parts of the soul.
The Rite helps to clarify what an imbalanced soul might misconstrue as duty, such as increase of wealth or esteem. Masonry is not concerned with regarding wealth with favor or with bestowing titles to form corrupt hierarchies. It is simply duty, the pull toward the Light that happens when elevating the spiritual aspects over the material ones in one’s nature. The Rite explains that physical reward does not always follow the fulfillment of duty. This is a rejection of consequentialism, or the belief that the expectation of results defines duty. Thus, the covetous desire for profit or the ambitious desire for esteem do not naturally align with duty, but with lower desires, the mere results of physical work.
If a duty causes a Brother to work harder than can be handled, the duty has been misconstrued. Fatigue at the post of duty is often a sign that the person does not understand the purpose of the task. Pike actually refers directly to this in one of his addresses to the Supreme Council, speaking of what he had noticed about what predicted success in A.A.S.R. bodies:
Wherever ‘the one man’ can be found, or the two or three men, who, intelligent, capable, resolute and energetic, knowing that the chief burden of the work must rest on him or them, will engage heartily in it and never grow weary or become disheartened because of the scanty following of helpers, the result of their labours will be success.
I also have found this to be the case. Purpose builds perseverance. Duty tends to create optimism. In Baton Rouge, the Lodge of Perfection found Pike’s observation to be precisely the case. As long as all of us expected others to get to work with the body, it would not progress. In fact, it regressed.
At some point, once about four brothers had developed a pretty clear sense of what the statutes allowed and did not allow, we began being able to move in a clear direction, always toiling in the name of duty. We spent hours and hours purging the membership roster of deceased members, calling the majority of them to update information or to send greetings, purchasing paraphernalia to make the bodies more closely conform to the rituals, writing a newsletter that reflects the whole brotherhood, planning meetings and degrees, balancing the budget, and keeping everyone abreast of everything. Through all of that, a tiny group of brothers helped the Baton Rouge Lodge of Perfection become a center of masonic activity. Their labor was not through hope of reward or regard. They saw the work of the Lodge of Perfection as important to the world, even if the work falls on the shoulders of a single person.
If a duty calls occasionally, rather than constantly, the duty has been misconstrued. It is not “one thing at Rome, another at Athens; one thing now, and another in the ages to come.” Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) refers to this as the “categorical imperative,” saying in Jonathan Bennett’s 2017 translation, “I ought never to act in such a way that I couldn’t also will that the maxim on which I act should be a universal law.” Kant’s well-known argument here is that the results do not define duty so much how well that duty conforms to a universal maxim. This resonates well with the idea that duty is the pull of the Deity toward the Light, which does not change.
An issue with explaining duties, though, is that it is often unclear what someone else understands by the term “duty.” This is the reason for secrecy from the ignorant, faithfulness to your word, and obedience to those whom you truly know to be wise.
Secrecy is not depriving wisdom from others. On the contrary, it is about being faithful to obligations. Secrecy and fidelity are almost synonyms—to hold something in confidence is to keep something secret, confidence referring to that faithfulness to the secret (note the Latin fido root in both confidence and fidelity). This writing, for instance, speaks openly of the wisdom of the Rite without divulging anything that takes place in any of the rituals, only occasionally and cryptically quoting from them. Those who are obligated will read this text differently than someone who has not been obligated.
The challenge of duty is its discomfort. The ease of it, though, is how clear it is that it is the right thing to do. Duty is not that hidden of a road. It is instead, according to the Rite, a “broad highway.” To get off the highway is to enter confusion, since it is outside of the Light.
The Rite puts the two sides of the road in these terms: “Pleasure, all smiles, will beckon you on the one hand, and Indolence will invite you to sleep among the flowers, upon the other.”
This pair of errors is familiar. I remember when working in the foodservice industry that there were generally two kinds of servers: those who worked in order to rest and those who rested in order to work. The difference was stark. Those who worked in order to rest seemed constantly to suffer while serving. They were the first to leave early and often the last ones to arrive. When I prodded about it, they declared their orientation to be “to make money.” Usually that money would primarily go to pay for things that gave them physical pleasure—alcohol, nicotine, etc. Pleasure, all smiles, beckoned them on one hand, while laziness invited them to sleep among the flowers every minute of the day. The Rite tells us, “The vast majority of men must toil to live, and cannot find time to cultivate the intelligence.”
On the other hand, those servers who rested in order to work were more fully dedicated to taking care of all the affairs in their spheres of influence. They sensed their true authority. Their orientation was not merely to make money, but to create a healthy restaurant environment (which of course meant more money for both the restaurant and the server). Whatever needed doing got done. That disposition meant working was not something to get out of the way, but something where every act tended toward improvement. They sensed their work as part of duty to God, even if they avoided those terms.
To me, pleasure corresponds to the “stomach” of Plato, or the desire to fulfill material desires—profit, gluttony, sexual libertinism, and so forth. Indolence, or laziness, corresponds to the “heart” of Plato, or the desire to be honored despite not having done the work of duty. Sleeping among the flowers seems to be a reference to Homer’s eighth-century B.C. poem The Odyssey. Here is Samuel Butler’s 1900 translation of the relevant passage:
I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars.
The invitation to undeserved Masonic honors is as benevolent as the Lotus-eaters are in the story, but they cause those with the most honors to rest from the dictates of duty.
One will occasionally hear in the Rite men who hope to upgrade their caps from black to red or from red to white—the reason this is unmasonic is that it avoids the broad highway of duty and instead sleeps “among the flowers.” It is best to think of honors as garlands of laurel and olive—laurel dies quickly, olive is only good because it is useful.
Sometimes people shirk off the effects of the lotus flower. One brother who left the fraternity told me when I ran into him at the grocery store, “I realized that all we were doing was playing dress up.” Unfortunately he had invested most of his adult life to that ideal until it fell apart.
The desire for coming home in the Homer passage seems to have a clear parallel to the duty spoken of in Masonry, which calls one home to the Light. “If you will advance, gird up your loins for the struggle; for the way is long and toilsome.” If the goal of masonic work is to be seen wearing beautiful regalia on social media, fatigue will set in quickly. Woe unto those.