Page 109 - Amo Amass A-muse is some of the fruit of a lifetimes love of Freemasonry - the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235

ThE SquARE

F WE HAD TO DECIDE which of the various emblems of Freemasonry was the
well most known and perhaps the most important, I would wager that most of us
Iwould say ‘the Square.’ This is defined in Masonry as — “an Angle of ninety degrees
or the fourth part of a circle.” Yet, this is NOT the definition given in any Dictionary.
What we call a ‘Square’ the dictionary defines as a `Right Angle.’ In a Dictionary, one of
the many meanings of a ‘Square’ is —”An instrument to MEASURE a Right Angle.” The
Square is, then, an Operative Instrument with which to MEASURE Right Angles, or
angles of Ninety Degrees and the fourth part of a Circle and not the angle itself.
How was the importance of a Right Angle discovered? For this, we have to go back
to the earliest days recorded at the dawn of the ancient Egyptian Civilization. During the
First Dynasty, after the annual overflow of the waters of the River Nile had receded, the
owners of the fields had great difficulty in determining their boundaries and there was
much quarrelling. In the Second Dynasty, about the 44th Century B.C., in the reign of
King Zosser, there lived the first great Scientist, Inventor and Master-Mason recorded
in history. His name was Inhotept. Amongst his many inventions, he discovered that by
placing three Rods, of length in proportion as 3 is to 4 is to 5, in the form of a triangle
and using the angle between Rods 3 and 4 to find the direction of the next side to a field,
he could accurately and uniformly determine its boundaries and, if he measured in the
reverse direction, obtain the same answer. Hence, after each flood the boundaries of each
field could be deter-mined without quarrels.
This was also the first great building secret. In the 10th Century B.C., at the building
of King Solomon’s Temple only the Scribes were able to read. It is my belief that Solomon,
Hiram and Hiram Abif each retained one of a set of three such rods and that this was the
secret that was clearly impossible to reveal without the consent and co-operation of the
other two.
Much thought was given to this subject for hundreds of years. In the 6th Century B.C.,
Pythagoras, who treated Geometry as a GOD-like Mystery, found that Geometry and
Arithmetic were related. He found that the Square of the measurement of the Hypotenuse
of a Right Angled Triangle was equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.
He was, however, very worried that he could not find the Square-Root of the number 2