what is the historical origin of the rough and perfect ashlars in craft masonry and do preston and mackey agree on their symbolic interpretation

No documented record establishes precisely when or where the rough and perfect ashlars originated in symbolic Masonry 1. Operative usage appears far earlier, such as the 1253 Westminster Abbey Fabric Rolls which record "asselers" (dressed stones) and "perpens" (through-stones cut flush with a wall) 1. In eighteenth-century lodge practice, older lectures did not mention the Perfect Ashlar, using the Broached Thurnel in its place 1. Minutes show ashlars in symbolic use prior to 1754, such as an entry from Old Dundee Lodge in Wapping recording the purchase of a replacement perpend ashlar inlaid with Masonic devices 1.

Albert Mackey interprets the symbol as an allegory of individual self-development 1. In his reading, the Rough Ashlar represents man in his initial state of uncultivated nature, while the Perfect Ashlar represents the condition attained after education expands the intellect, restrains the passions, and purifies character to fit a man for his place in the building 1. Mackey stresses that this comparison is not made between one man and another to generate a sense of superiority, but between what an individual is at one stage of his growth and what he becomes at another 1.

The supplied sources note that American ritualists likely inherited the ashlar symbolism from William Preston or English brethren of his era 1, but the passages do not contain Preston's explicit text or detailed reading, so a direct comparison between his interpretation and Mackey's cannot be completed from the library.