The word "qualification" is a curiously distorted word, and a prime example of how the English language (like any other language) will twist itself out of shape and stand on its head like a contortionist when it needs a word which it is next to impossible for it to produce. In Latin qualis meant "such," but after it came into English usage "such" was twisted about until it meant "suchness." Meantime there was in Anglo-Saxon a word swlye, meaning such; to this was added swa, meaning "so"; also there was the word swa, meaning "who," and the neuter form (when applied to an "it") of hwact, which later became "what."
'The Latin qualis with its meaning of "suchness" had an affinity with these Anglo-Saxon words, and the group of them contributed to give its full meaning to "what" as we now have it. The "fi" in "qualify" is a combining form of facio, meaning "to do," as "to make"; the "ation" in "qualification" means "to act." The word qualification is therefore a crystallized condensation of a whole sentence; "to do the action which gives its whatness to a thing." It can also be used as: "To do some action because of what the whatness of a thing is found to be." Thus, to give one example of this latter construction, water has the quality (or whatness, or suchness) of being a liquid, therefore to be qualified to handle it a man must have the use of containers which will hold a liquid.
The Anglo-Saxons had a "who" (or swa) which meant that each roan had his own identity, individuality, personality, characteristics by which he can be recognized. To get at what they meant by their "what" (lwaet) we must picture such an individual with the "I" omitted; a rock, a chair, a cloud, any object, like a man, had in it these features of characteristics; they are its whatness. This flavor of meaning must be added to the meaning of "qualification"; when it is, we have not all the features, characteristics, whatnesses of a thing, but certain salient ones.
A man must have a set of qualifications to become and to remain a Mason. The petitioner has in him a number of attributes, qualities, characteristics, etc., and they belong to what he is. Among these must be certain qualities or Freemasonry will not accept him; becoming a Freemason does not give him those qualities, he must have them before he becomes a Freemason. If he has it in him to become a Mason, he has it in him before he receives the Degrees. A man may have in him a hundred qualities, or a thousand; but Freemasonry looks for only certain ones, and if he has them Freemasonry is satisfied and ignores all the others only certain ones are salient in its eyes, if lie has them he is a who of the kind it is looking for. A man may have in himself qualities for becoming superexcellent in a thousand ways; it does not matter; he must have a certain specific number of them or he can never be elected to receive the Degrees.
But it would be a misleading explanation of the whole Doctrine of Qualifications to explain them as being just those particular qualifications which a Petitioner is required to have; this would mean that the Doctrine applies to Petitioners only, whereas it applies to Masons at every point, continuously, and as long as a man continues to be a Mason. He must have required qualifications before he can be advanced from one Degree to another; before he can hold office; before he can be appointed on a Committee; he must have a continuing set of qualifications in order to continue to be a member, and he is suspended or expelled if he ceases to have them. The Doctrine of Qualifications may therefore be defined as that. rule, which intelligence, wisdom, and good judgment are to apply (hence it is a "doctrine"), which specifies what qualities (or whatness, or suchness) a man must have in himself in order to become and to continue to be a member of the Masonic Fraternity.
When Operative Freemasons demanded of a twelve year old boy that he have a stipulated number of qualities, their demands were not capricious, arbitrary, accidental, or mystical; he would have a work to do which would be onerous, hazardous, and would call for knowledge as well as skill, therefore he had to be sturdy in body, have a good brain, be willing to be trained, have the patience to go through years of work without wages, and be of a spirit to cooperate with others. The qualifications required were the qualifications made necessary by the work he had to do-the work, not the workmen, dictate the needed qualities. The same principle holds in Speculative Freemasonry. A man must learn long degrees by heart; he must be active and therefore needs health; he must be able to see, walk, and hear; he must be free in the sense of being responsible for his own acts; he must have money to pay his clues and fees; he must be willing to work on Committees and to hold office; the work of a Speculative Lodge is not the same as the work of an Operative Lodge but in one as much as in the other a member must be fit to do the work which will be assigned to him.
In his Jurisprudence of Freemasonry Albert G. Mackey divided his Book II on "Law Relating to Candidates" into six chapters of which the first is devoted to "The Qualifications of Candidates"; this chapter is with dubious correctness divided into sections, the first being on "The Internal Qualifications"; the second on "The External Qualifications." The dubiousness here refers to his describing a Candidate's moral and mental qualities as "external"; and the same word could be more forcibly applied to Mackey's limiting the question of qualifications to Candidates whereas, as a matter of fact, the question arises at many points in a Master Mason's career not only in Lodge but also in Grand Lodge. But though his classification may be thus open to question lie covers the subject otherwise with satisfactory fullness. The heads of this list of qualifications are here quoted in his own words: the interpretations are in words of our own.
1. "Free will and accord."
Mackey takes this to mean that a Candidate must not be solicited, but the idea may be extended to include the many kinds of pressure which may be brought upon a man to do what he would not do without pressure.
2. "Uninfluenced by mercenary motives."
Here again it is better to expand the idea, because it is as un-Masonic to Petition for membership or to be a member for political, or religious, or professional motives as for motives of money.
By "internal" Mackey means such qualifications "as are known to himself only" and of which a Lodge can have only such knowledge as can "be acquired from his own solemn declarations." Preston and Webb both added two other required qualifications which also must be declared: "a favorable opinion of the Institution," and a cheerful conformity "to all the ancient established usages and customs of the Fraternity." To these could also be added a willingness to obey, a readiness to "be blindly conducted" at certain times, to hold office if called upon, to carry out orders and to obey summons from the Worshipful Master.
3. "Obey the moral law."
This is also stated as "being under the tongue of good report." This qualification can be summarized under the one word "character"; does a Petitioner have character, does he first as Candidate and later as member continue to have character? If he has, he is acceptable insofar, but no Petitioner is acceptable if he did not have character beforehand and only can promise it to have it in the future; his having character must be a long established fact, which is the meaning of "reputation." A Candidate must be "a good man and true" from the very beginning; he cannot wait to be it; furthermore Freemasonry is not a reformatory.
4. If "he rightly understands the art, he will never be a stupid atheist, nor an irreligious libertine." These words are quoted from the original version of the Book of Constitutions. If that Book were being written now the word "stupid" would be omitted; to be an atheist, whether stupid or not, disqualifies a man; and it equally disqualifies him, it ought to be noted, if he becomes an atheist after he has become a member. What was meant by "irreligious libertine" in England in 1723 A.D. has long been under discussion and the debate will probably never come to an end because the phrase was widely read with different meanings, but on the whole it unquestionably meant a man who sneers at religion, or is cynical about it. The qualification is not important because even if a man is not an atheist he may sneer at doctrines believed by others but not believed by himself; this means in effect that bigotry and sectarian animosities are no more permissible than is atheism.
5. "As to sex."
This is the simplest of qualifications because it means that women cannot be Freemasons; whatever else he is, a Petitioner, a Candidate, a member must be a man.
6. "As to age."
This means whatever age is named by law as legal age, and this may differ from one country to another. A young man under legal age is in the eyes of the law an "infant," and in many of his actions his father (or guardian) is held responsible. Obviously it would be intolerable to have in membership a man not responsible for his own actions, who would have to answer to a father or guardian for what he does in Lodge, and especially if the father or the guardian were not a Mason. An attempt was made at about 1800 A.D., to institute the system of the Masonic Lewis, by which was meant the son of a Lodge member; it was held that since the father was himself a member a Lewis could be admitted while under legal age, but the scheme was abandoned because in the eyes of the civil law each member of a lodge is legally as well as morally responsible for his actions when in Lodge. The same rule as to age would apply at the other end of the scale where because of feebleness, of extreme old age or because of senile dementia a man would not be responsible for his own actions.
7. "As to bodily conformation."
The Operative Freemasons necessarily required that an Operative had to be sound in body and have the use of his limbs, because otherwise he would not be physically able to do his work; but the Operative Masons knew nothing of any Perfect Youth Doctrine, or any doctrine of any other mystical kind, because they did not require an Apprentice to be perfect, but only to be sufficiently sound for his work; they did not disbar a man from work if he lost a toe, or a little finger, or even one eye. If Speculative Freemasons follow the same principle their own demands would be as rigorous, and ought to be applied without fear or favor but manifestly the physical requirements for membership in a modern American Speculative Lodge cannot be the same at every point as the demands made by Operative Lodges of six to eight centuries ago one of the widest departures in physical qualifications is that the Operatives accepted Apprentices as young as twelve years, whereas we demand that they be not younger than twenty-one; also, where in Operative Freemasonry an Apprentice had to continue to be one for seven years in our Lodges he can pass out of his apprentice ship in two or in four weeks. If we determine to adhere to the old Operative rules of physical qualifications because they are ancient then we should adhere to the whole set of them and not pick and choose arbitrarily.
The question of the physical qualifications is the most difficult (one in the whole set of qualifications; it is one of the most difficult in Freemasonry; it would be made more difficult still if we went on to demand that Candidates have no diseases as well as no loss of limbs what about tuberculosis, Bright's disease, asthma, rheumatism, and a long list of chronic degenerative maladies? If a Candidate is not a "Perfect Youth" because he has only one hand, what if he has only one lung or only one lobe to his brain? The indications are, and after nearly two centuries of debate, that the 49 American Grand Lodges will at some future time agree generally that Physical Qualifications are a general rule, and must be left to the intelligence, wisdom and good judgment of each individual Lodge.
8. "Mental Qualifications."
Dr. Mackey's discussion of this head strays out into generalities and ambiguities, for which he cannot be held at fault since the Constitutions and the Ritual have never made a clear, forthright statement of what the mental qualifications are. We can, however, in all modesty, take a step in that direction, especially if we do so in full consciousness that we are expressing ideas of our own. Manifestly a Candidate or a member cannot be illiterate. It is equally manifest that he cannot be insane, or be an imbecile, or an idiot, or a moron, or a dipsomaniac, or be a sufferer from chronic amnesia or loss of memory. It is also clear that the Liberal Arts and Sciences stand in the Holy of Holies, therefore it is difficult to believe that a man without any culture would be attracted to Freemasonry or even feel at home in it.
There is one outstanding qualification,
or rather one whole category of qualifications, which Dr. Mackey
does not mention. A Petitioner to the Degrees, and later when
he becomes a Candidate, must be personally acceptable to the members
of a Lodge, and so strict is this requirement that for lack of
it alone any one member (or at most, three) can vote to reject
a Petitioner. If a man does not have it in him to be "charitable,"
or to work in harmony with others; if he cannot be fraternal,
if his behavior is intolerable, if he is given to quarreling or
to intrigues or to malice, then is he as much disqualified as
is the Petitioner who lacks his arms or his eyes.
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