In this country, as I have already observed, the regulation of 1663 is rigidly enforced, and no candidate, who has not arrived at the age of twenty-one, can be initiated.
Our ritual excludes "an old man in his dotage" equally with a "young man under age." But as dotage signifies imbecility of mind, this subject will be more properly considered under the head of intellectual qualifications.
The physical qualifications, which refer to the condition of the candidate's body and limbs, have given rise, within a few years past, to a great amount of discussion and much variety of opinion.

The regulation contained in the old charges of 1721, which requires the candidate to be "a perfect youth," has in some jurisdictions been rigidly enforced to the very letter of the law, while in others it has been so completely explained away as to mean anything or nothing.

Thus, in South Carolina, where the rule is rigid, the candidate is required to be neither deformed nor dismembered, but of hale and entire limbs, as a man ought to be, while in Maine, a deformed person may be admitted, provided "the deformity is not such as to prevent him from being instructed in the arts and mysteries of Freemasonry." The first written law which we find on this subject is that which was enacted by the General Assembly held in 1663, under the Grand Mastership of the Earl of St.Albans, and which declares "that no person shall hereafter be accepted a Freemason but such as are of _able_ body."[57] Twenty years after, in the reign of James II., or about the year 1683, it seems to have been found necessary, more exactly to define the meaning of this expression, "of able body," and accordingly we find, among the charges ordered to be read to a Master on his installation, the following regulation: "Thirdly, that he that be made be able in all degrees; that is, free-born, of a good kindred, true, and no bondsman, and that _he have his right limbs as a man ought to have."_[58] The old charges, published in the original Book of Constitutions in 1723, contain the following regulation: "No Master should take an Apprentice, unless he be a perfect youth having no maim or defect that may render him uncapable of learning the art." Notwithstanding the positive demand for _perfection_, and the positive and explicit declaration that he must have _no maim or defect_, the remainder of the sentence has, within a few years past, by some Grand Lodges, been considered as a qualifying clause, which would permit the admission of candidates whose physical defects did not exceed a particular point.

But, in perfection, there can be no degrees of comparison, and he who is required to be perfect, is required to be so without modification or diminution.

That which is _perfect_ is complete in all its parts, and, by a deficiency in any portion of its constituent materials, it becomes not less perfect, (which expression would be a solecism in grammar,) but at once by the deficiency ceases to be perfect at all--it then becomes imperfect.