Before taking the Degree the Candidate is required to hold certain qualifications. As in the former Degree he must come properly prepared and produce evidence of fitness.
First, he is not entitled to advancement at all unless and until he asks for it. At first sight this seems a trifling point; it is not so in fact, and the Craft does not provide for it without full reason. For it is a law of life that there can be no advancement unless there first be strong inward desire for it. No growth of vegetation or faculty occurs in Nature apart from some inward impelling urge towards larger self-expression, and whoso desires increase of Light in a Masonic or religious sense must first be actuated by that urge in his own heart. "Ask and ye shall have" applies to each of our Degrees, and it is Masonically improper to persuade a Brother to take a Degree; he must be left to ask for it spontaneously as evidence of his own soul-desire.
In practice this asking is usually a sheer formality, a Candidate at the conclusion of the First Degree being prompted to request that he may "take the next Degree as soon as possible". The rule of "asking" is thereby observed in form, though what the Order really contemplates is something much more than a technical compliance with the requirement. He is expected to ask from his heart, not merely from his lips, and to be obliged to do so is in itself a salutary discipline. It teaches him to reflect, firstly what dependent beings we are, how incapable of advancement by our own strength or apart from others, or without help from beyond ourselves; and, secondly, to learn that help is never withheld from those humble enough to ask for it and to stake their faith upon its being forthcoming.
Next, the Candidate must give evidence to the whole Lodge of having
assimilated the teaching already imparted to him. For this the
Ritual provides a few formal test questions, the answers to which
are usually learned and repeated by rote. In some Lodges those
questions are supplemented by many others, with a view to ensuring
something more than a mechanical test. Indeed, every member of
the Lodge has a right to ask that additional questions shall be
put, and the Master often invites those present to do so, and
also to say if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the Candidate's
knowledge. Since the Lodge is meant to function as a corporate
whole, its work ought not to be weakened by the presence of members
who fail to maintain a satisfactory standard of knowledge and
understanding of that work. An unsound stone let carelessly into
a building may one day imperil the whole structure.
A simple way of proving the Candidate's knowledge is to invite him, some time before the Ceremony is conferred, to submit to the Master a written paper recording his conceptions of the purpose and teaching of the Craft so far as he has already perceived then, and indicating why he desired to proceed further and what he hopes to gain by so doing.
In this present paper there is no time to examine even the stock test-questions and answers a candidate is expected to learn. But it may he stated that much more significance underlies their surface simplicity than is usually recinized. They contain allusions to cryptic truths calling for deep and prolonged attention, and they allude to matters involving far greater experience than is possible to a Brother who has only entered the Craft a month or so previously. How can such a Brother honestly affirm, for instance, that he "knows himself to be a Mason by the regularity of his Initiation, by repeated trials and approbations, and by a willingness to undergo further examination when called upon?" By what criterion can he be confident that his Initiation has been "regular" and in conformity with principles of Initiation as old as humanity? To what "repeated trials" of his virtue, his courage, his purity and his faith, has he been subjected since he was initiated?; what "approbations" has he received, and from whom?; has he indeed so surmounted his trials as to have heard in his soul and conscience those "approbations" which enable him to "know" with self-convincing clearness that he is on the right path and that he is, in spirit as well as in form, a Mason in the service of the Great Architect and engaged in the mystical work of World-building?; and is he from his heart content to suffer, "when duly called upon," more and perhaps severer trials that may fit him still further for that great work? It cannot be too earnestly impressed upon Brethren how deep and rich with meaning are both these test-questions and our official Lectures, which ordinarily they are content to hurry over and treat as but routine formalities.
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