Speculative Freemasonry and the Enlightenment - R. William Weisberger - Bog

Through ritualistic teachings and social activities, Masonic lodges and learned societies offered their quickly growing numbers of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish members an understanding of deism, Newtonian science, representative government, and literature and the arts. This book describes how Masons were, for the most part, either enlighteners, political reformers or moderate revolutionaries.