Derived from the Latin pectus, meaning the breast, the word pectoral suggests symbolic instructions relating to the virtue of fortitude, as the heart is held to be the seat of courage. In early eighteenth-century Masonic lectures, it designated one of the principal signs and was represented by the hieroglyphic X. In modern instruction, that hieroglyphic is obsolete, and the word is appropriated as one of the Perfect Points of Entrance.
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