examine it by those rules of common sense that we apply in other
cases of conduct, we shall find it equally unpromising. The system
of Illuminatism is one of the explanations of Free Masonry; and it
has gained many partisans. These explanations rest their credit
and their preference on their own merits. There is something in
themselves, or in one of them as distinguished from another, which
procures it the preference for its own sake. Therefore, to give
this Order any dependence on Free Masonry is to degrade the Order.
To introduce a Masonic Ritual into a manly institution, is to
degrade it to a frivolous amusement for great children. Men really
exerting themselves to reform the world, and qualified for the
task, must have been disgusted with such occupations. They betray a
frivolous conception of the task in which they are really engaged.
To imagine that men engaged in the struggle and rivalship of life,
under the influence of selfish, or mean, or impetuous passions,
are to be wheedled into candid sentiments, or a generous conduct,
as a froward child may sometimes be made gentle and tractable by a
rattle or humming-top, betrays a great ignorance of human nature,
and an arrogant self-conceit in those who can imagine that all but
themselves are babies. The further we proceed, the more do we see
of this _want of wisdom_. The whole procedure of their instruction
supposes such a complete surrender of freedom of thought, of common
sense, and of common caution, that it seems impossible that it
should not have alarmed every sensible mind. This indeed happened
before the Order was seven years old. It was wise indeed to keep
their _Areopagitæ_ out of sight; but who can be so silly as to
believe that their unknown Superiors were all and always faultless
men? But had they been the men they were represented to be,--If
I have any knowledge of my own heart, or any capacity of drawing
just inferences from the conduct of others, I am persuaded that the
knowing his Superiors would have animated the pupil to exertion,
that he might exhibit a pleasing spectacle to such intelligent
and worthy judges. Did not the Stoics profess themselves to be
encouraged in the scheme of life, by the thought that the immortal
Gods were looking on and passing their judgments on their manner
of acting the part assigned them? But what abject spirit will be
contented with working, zealously working, for years, after a
plan of which he is _never_ to learn the full meaning? In short,
the only knowledge that he can perceive is knowledge in its worst
form, _Cunning_. This must appear in the contrivances by which he
will soon find that he is kept in complete subjection. If he is a
true and zealous Brother, he has put himself in the power of his
Superiors by his rescripts, which they required of him on pretence
of their learning his own character, and of his learning how to
know the characters of other men. In these rescripts they have got
his thoughts on many delicate points, and on the conduct of others.
His Directors may ruin him by betraying him; and this without being
seen in it. I should think that wise men would know that none but
weak or bad men would subject themselves to such a task. They
exclude the good, the manly, the only fit persons for assisting
them in their endeavours to inform and to rule the world. Indeed I
may say that this exclusion is almost made already by connecting
the Order with Free Masonry. Lodges are not the resorts of such
men. They may sometimes be found there for an hour's relaxation.
But these places are the haunts of the young, the thoughtless, the
idle, the weak, the vain, or of designing Literati; and accordingly
this is the condition of three-fourths of the Illuminati whose
names are known to the public. I own that the reasons given to the
pupil for prescribing these tasks are artful, and well adapted
to produce their effect. During the flurry of reception, and the
glow of expectation, the danger may not be suspected; but I hardly
imagine that it will remain unperceived when the pupil sits down to
write his first lesson. Mason Lodges, however, were the most likely
places for finding and enlisting members. Young men, warmed by
declamations teeming with the flimsy moral cant of Cosmo-politism,
are in the proper frame of mind for this Illumination. It now
appears also, that the dissensions in Free Masonry must have had
great influence in promoting this scheme of Weishaupt's, which
was, in many particulars, so unpromising, because it pre-supposes
such a degradation of the mind. But when the schismatics in
Masonry disputed with warmth, trifles came to acquire unspeakable
importance. The hankering after wonder was not in the least abated
by all the tricks which had been detected, and the impossibility
of the wished-for discovery had never been demonstrated to persons
prepossessed in its favour. They still _chose_ to believe that the
symbols contained some important secret; and happy will be the man
who finds it out. The more frivolous the symbols, the more does the
heart cling to the mystery; and, to a mind in this anxious state,
Weishaupt's proffer was enticing. He laid before them a scheme which
was somewhat feasible, was magnificent, surpassing our conceptions,
but at the same time such as permitted us to expatiate on the
subject, and even to amplify it at pleasure in our imaginations
without absurdity. It does not appear to me wonderful, therefore,
that so many were fascinated till they became at last regardless
of the absurdity and inconsistency of the means by which this
splendid object was to be attained. Hear what Spartacus himself
says of hidden mysteries. "Of all the means I know to lead men,
the most effectual is a concealed mystery. The hankering of the
mind is irresistible; and if once a man has taken it into his head
that there is a mystery in a thing, it is impossible to get it out,
either by argument or experience. And then, we can so change notions
by merely changing a word. What more contemptible than _fanaticism_;
but call it _enthusiasm_; then add the little word _noble_, and
you may lead him over the world. Nor are we, in these bright days,
a bit better than our fathers, who found the pardon of their sins
mysteriously contained in a much greater sin, viz. leaving their
family, and going barefooted to Rome."
Such being the employment, and such the disciples, should we expect
the fruits to be very precious? No. The doctrines which were
gradually unfolded were such as suited those who continued in the
_Cursus Academicus_. Those who did not, because they did not like
them, got a _Sta bene_; they were not fit for advancement. The
numbers however were great; Spartacus boasted of 600 in Bavaria
alone in 1783. We don't know many of them; few of those we know
were in the upper ranks of life; and I can see that it required
much wheedling, and many letters of long worded German compliments
from the proud Spartacus, to win even a young Baron or a Graf just
come of age. Men in an easy situation in life could not brook the
employment of a spy, which is base, cowardly, and corrupting, and
has in all ages and countries degraded the person who engages in
it. Can the person be called wise who thus enslaves himself? Such
persons give up the right of private judgment, and rely on their
unknown Superiors with the blindest and most abject confidence.
For their sakes, and to rivet still faster their own fetters,
they engage in the most corrupting of all employments--and for
what?--To learn something more of an Order, of which every degree
explodes the doctrine of a former one. Would it have hurt the young
_Illuminatus_ to have it explained to him all at once? Would not
this fire his mind--when he sees with the same glance the great
object, and the fitness of the means for attaining it? Would not
the exalted characters of the Superiors, so much excelling himself
in talents, and virtue, and happiness, (otherwise the Order is good
for nothing,) warm his heart, and fill him with emulation, since
he sees in them, that what is so strongly preached to him is an
attainable thing? No, no--it is all a trick; he must be kept like
a child, amused with rattles, and stars, and ribands--and all the
satisfaction he obtains is, like the Masons, the diversion of seeing
others running the same gauntlet.
Weishaupt acknowledges that the great influence of the Order may be
abused. Surely, in no way so easily or so fatally as by corrupting
or seductive lessons in the beginning. The mistake or error of
the pupil is undiscoverable by himself, (according to the genuine
principles of Illumination,) for the pupil must believe his Mentor
to be infallible--with him alone he is connected--his lessons only
must he learn. Who can tell him that he has gone wrong--or who can
set him right?
Here, therefore, there is confusion and deficiency. There must be
some standard to which appeal can be made; but this is inaccessible
to all within the pale of the Order; it is therefore without this
pale, and independent of the Order--and it is attainable only by
abandoning the Order. The QUIBUS LICET, the PRIMO, the SOLI, can
procure no light to the person who does not know that he has been
led out of the right road to virtue and happiness. The Superiors
indeed draw much useful information from these reports, though they
affect to stand in no need of it, and they make a cruel return.
All this is so much out of the natural road of instruction, that,
on this account alone, we may presume that it is wrong. We are
generally safe when we follow nature's plans. A child learns in
his father's house, by seeing, and by imitating, and in common
domestic education, he gets much useful knowledge, and the chief
habits which are afterwards to regulate his conduct. Example
does almost every thing; and, with respect to what may be called
living, as distinguishable from profession, speculation and
argumentative instruction are seldom employed, or of any use. The
indispensableness of mutual forbearance and obedience, for domestic
peace and happiness, forms most of these habits; and the child,
under good parents, is kept in a situation that makes virtue easier
than vice, and he becomes wise and good without any express study
about the matter.
But this Illumination plan is darkness over all--it is too
artificial--and the topics, from which counsel is to be drawn,
cannot be taken from the peculiar views of the Order--for these are
yet a secret for the pupil--and must ever be a secret for him while
under tuition. They must therefore be drawn from common sources, and
the Order is of no use; all that can naturally be effectuated by
this Association is the forming, and assiduously fostering a narrow,
Jewish, corporation spirit, totally opposite to the benevolent
pretensions of the Order. The pupil can see nothing but this, that
there is a set of men, whom he does not know, who may acquire
incontroulable power, and may perhaps make use of him, but for what
purpose, and in what way, he does not know; how can he know that his
endeavours are to make man happier, any other way than as he might
have known it without having put this collar round his own neck?
These reflections address themselves to all men who profess to
conduct themselves by the principles and dictates of common sense
and prudence, and who have the ordinary share of candour and
good-will to others. It requires no singular sensibility of heart,
nor great generosity, to make such people think the doctrines and
views of the Illuminati false, absurd, foolish, and ruinous. But I
hope that I address them to thousands of my countrymen and friends,
who have much higher notions of human nature, and who cherish with
care the affections and the hopes that are suited to a rational, a
benevolent, and a high-minded being, capable of endless improvement.
To those who enjoy the cheering confidence in the superintendance
and providence of God, who consider themselves as creatures whom
he has made, and whom he cares for, as the subjects of his moral
government, this Order must appear with every character of falsehood
and absurdity on its countenance. What CAN BE MORE IMPROBABLE than
this, that He, whom we look up to as the contriver, the maker,
and director of this goodly frame of things, should have so far
mistaken his own plans, that this world of rational creatures should
have subsisted for thousands of years, before a way could be found
out, by which his intention of making men good and happy could be
accomplished; and that this method did not occur to the great Artist
himself, nor even to the wisest, and happiest, and best men upon
earth; but to a few insignificant persons at Munich in Bavaria,
who had been trying to raise ghosts, to change lead into gold, to
tell fortunes, or discover treasures, but had failed in all their
attempts; men who had been engaged for years in every whim which
characterises a weak, a greedy, or a gloomy mind? Finding all these
beyond their reach, they combined their powers, and, at once, found
out this infinitely more important SECRET--for secret it must still
be, otherwise not only the Deity, but even these philosophers, will
still be disappointed.
Yet this is the doctrine that must be swallowed by the Minervals and
the _Illuminati Minores_, to whom it is not yet safe to disclose
the grand secret, _that there is no such superintendance of Deity_.
At last, however, when the pupil has conceived such exalted notions
of the knowledge of his teachers, and such low notions of the
blundering projector of this world, it may be no difficult matter
to persuade him that all his former notions were only old wives
tales. By this time he must have heard much about superstition, and
how men's minds have been dazzled by this splendid picture of a
Providence and a moral government of the universe. It now appears
incompatible with the great object of the Order, the principles of
universal liberty and equality--it is therefore rejected without
farther examination, for this reason alone. This was precisely the
argument used in France for rejecting revealed religion. It was
incompatible with their Rights of Man.
It is richly worth observing how this principle can warp the
judgment, and give quite another appearance to the same object. The
reader will not be displeased with a most remarkable instance of it,
which I beg leave to give at length.
Our immortal Newton, whom the philosophers of Europe look up to as
the honour of our species, whom even Mr. Bailly, the President of
the National Assembly of France, and Mayor of Paris, cannot find
words sufficiently energetic to praise; this patient, sagacious,
and successful observer of nature, after having exhibited to the
wondering world the characteristic property of that principle of
material nature by which all the bodies of the solar system are made
to form a connected and permanent universe; and after having shown
that this law of action alone was adapted to this end, and that
if gravity had deviated but one thousandth part from the inverse
duplicate ratio of the distances, the system must, in the course of
a very few revolutions, have gone into confusion and ruin--he sits
down, and views the goodly scene,--and then closes his Principles of
Natural Philosophy with this reflection (his _Scholium generale_):
"This most elegant frame of things could not have arisen, unless
by the contrivance and the direction of a wise and powerful Being;
and if the fixed stars are the centres of systems, these systems
must be similar; and all these, constructed according to the same
plan, are subject to the government of _one_ Being. All these
he governs, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of
all; therefore, on account of his government, he is called the
Lord God--_Pantokrator_; for God is a relative term, and refers
to subjects. Deity is God's government, not of his own body, as
those think who consider him as the soul of the world, but of his
servants. The supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely
perfect. But a being, however perfect, without government, is not
God; for we say, _my_ God, your God, the God of Israel. We cannot
say _my_ eternal, _my_ infinite. We may have some notions indeed of
his attributes, but can have none of his nature. With respect to
bodies, we see only shapes and colour--hear only sounds--touch only
surfaces. These are attributes of bodies; but of their essence we
know nothing. As a blind man can form no notion of colours, we can
form none of the manner in which God perceives, and understands, and
influences every thing.
"Therefore we know God only by his attributes. What are these? The
wise and excellent contrivance, structure, and final aim of all
things. In these his perfections we admire him, and we wonder. In
his direction or government, we venerate and worship him--we worship
him as his servants; and God, without dominion, without providence,
and final aims, is Fate--not the object either of reverence, of
hope, of love, or of fear."
But mark the emotions which affected the mind of another excellent
observer of Nature, the admirer of Newton, and the person who has
put the finishing stroke to the Newtonian philosophy, by showing
that the acceleration of the moon's mean motion, is the genuine
result of a gravitation decreasing in the precise duplicate ratio
of the distance inversely; I mean Mr. Delaplace, one of the most
brilliant ornaments of the French academy of sciences. He has
lately published the _Systeme du Monde_, a most beautiful compend
of astronomy and of the Newtonian philosophy. Having finished
his work with the same observation, "That a gravitation inversely
proportional to the squares of the distances was the only principle
which could unite material Nature into a permanent system;" _he_
also sits down--surveys the scene--points out the parts which
he had brought within our ken--and then makes this reflection:
"Beheld in its totality, astronomy is the noblest monument of the
human mind, its chief title to intelligence. But, seduced by the
illusions of sense, and by self-conceit, we have long considered
ourselves as the centre of these motions; and our pride has been
punished by the groundless fears which we have created to ourselves.
We imagine, forsooth, that all this is for us, and that the stars
influence our destinies! But the labours of ages have convinced us
of our error, and we find ourselves on an insignificant planet,
almost imperceptible in the immensity of space. But the sublime
discoveries we have made richly repay this humble situation. Let us
cherish these with care, as the delight of thinking beings--they
have destroyed our mistakes as to our relation to the rest of the
universe; errors which were the more fatal, because the social
Order depends on justice and truth alone. Far be from us the
dangerous maxim, that it is sometimes useful to depart from these,
and to deceive men, in order to insure their happiness; but cruel
experience has shewn us that these laws are never totally extinct."
There can be no doubt as to the meaning of these last words--they
cannot relate to astrology--this was entirely out of date. The
"attempts to deceive men, in order to insure their happiness,"
can only be those by which we are made to think too highly of
ourselves. "Inhabitants of this pepper-corn, we think ourselves
the peculiar favourites of Heaven, nay the chief objects of care
to a Being, the Maker of all; and then we imagine that, after this
life, we are to be happy or miserable, according as we accede or
not to this subjugation to opinions which enslave us. But truth and
justice have broken these bonds."--But where is the force of the
argument which entitles this perfecter of the Newtonian philosophy
to exult so much? It all rests on this, That this earth is but as
a grain of mustard-seed. Man would be more worth attention had he
inhabited Jupiter or the Sun. Thus may a Frenchman look down on the
noble creatures who inhabit Orolong or Pelew. But whence arises
the absurdity of the intellectual inhabitants of this pepper-corn
being a proper object of attention? it is because our shallow
comprehensions cannot, at the same glance, see an extensive scene,
and perceive its most minute detail.
David, a King, and a soldier, had some notions of this kind. The
heavens, it is true, pointed out to him a Maker and Ruler, which
is more than they seem to have done to the Gallic philosopher;
but David was afraid that he would be forgotten in the crowd, and
cries out, "Lord what is man that thou art mindful of _him_?" But
David gets rid of his fears, not by becoming a philosopher, and
discovering all this to be absurd,--he would still be forgotten,--he
at once thinks of what he is--a noble creature--high in the scale
of nature. "But," says he, "I had forgotten myself. Thou hast made
man but a little lower than the angels--thou hast crowned him with
glory and honour--thou hast put all things under his feet." Here are
exalted sentiments, fit for the creature whose ken pierces through
the immensity of the visible universe, and who sees his relation to
the universe, being nearly allied to its Sovereign, and capable of
rising continually in his rank, by cultivating those talents which
distinguish and adorn it.
Thousands, I trust, there are, who think that this life is but
a preparation for another, in which the mind of man will have
the whole wonders of creation and of providence laid open to its
enraptured view--where it will see and comprehend with one glance
what Newton, the most patient and successful of all the observers
of nature, took years of meditation to find out--where it will
attain that pitch of wisdom, goodness, and enjoyment, of which our
consciences tell us we are capable, though it far surpasses that of
the wisest, the best, and the happiest of men. Such persons will
consider this Order as degrading and detestable, and as in direct
opposition to their most confident expectations: For it pretends
to what is impossible, to perfect peace and happiness in this
life. They believe, and they feel, that man must be made perfect
through sufferings, which shall call into action powers of mind
that otherwise would never have unfolded themselves--powers which
are frequently sources of the purest and most soothing pleasures,
and naturally make us rest our eyes and hopes on that state where
every tear shall be wiped away, and where the kind affections shall
become the never-failing sources of pure and unfading delight. Such
persons see the palpable absurdity of a preparation which is equally
necessary for all, and yet must be confined to the minds of a few,
who have the low and indelicate appetite for frivolous play-things,
and for gross sensual pleasures. Such minds will turn away from this
boasted treat with loathing and abhorrence.
I am well aware that some of my readers may smile at this, and think
it an enthusiastical working up of the imagination, similar to what
I reprobate in the case of Utopian happiness in a state of universal
Liberty and Equality. It is like, they will say, to the declamation
in a sermon by persons of the trade, who are trained up to finesse,
by which they allure and tickle weak minds.
I acknowledge that in the present case I do not address myself to
the cold hearts, who contentedly
"_Sink and slumber in their cells of clay_;"
----Peace to all such;----but to the "_felices animæ, quibus hæc
cognoscere cura_;"--to those who _have enjoyed_ the pleasures of
science, who have been successful--who have made discoveries--who
have really illuminated the world--to the Bacons, the Newtons,
the Lockes.--Allow me to mention one, Daniel Bernoulli, the most
elegant mathematician, the only philosopher, and the most worthy
man, of that celebrated family. He said to a gentleman, (Dr.
Staehling,) who repeated it to me, that "when reading some of those
wonderful guesses of Sir Isaac Newton, the subsequent demonstration
of which has been the chief source of fame to his most celebrated
commentators--his mind has sometimes been so overpowered by
thrilling emotions, that he has wished that moment to be his last;
and that it was this which gave him the clearest conception of the
happiness of heaven." If such delightful emotions could be excited
by the perception of mere truth, what must they be when each of
these truths is an instance of wisdom, and when we recollect, that
what we call wisdom in the works of nature, is always the nice
adaptation of means for producing _beneficent_ ends; and that each
of these affecting qualities is susceptible of degrees which are
boundless, and exceed our highest conceptions? What can this complex
emotion or feeling be but rapture? But Bernoulli is a Doctor of
Theology--and therefore a suspicious person, perhaps one of the
combination hired by despots to enslave us. I will take another man,
a gentleman of rank and family, a soldier, who often signalised
himself as a naval commander--who at one time forced his way through
a powerful fleet of the Venetians with a small squadron, and brought
relief to a distressed garrison. I would desire the reader to peruse
the conclusion of Sir Kenhelm Digby's _Treatises on Body and Mind_;
and after having reflected on the state of science at the time this
author wrote, let him coolly weigh the incitements to manly conduct
which this soldier finds in the differences observed between body
and mind; and then let him say, on his conscience, whether they are
more feeble than those which he can draw from the eternal sleep of
death. If he thinks that they are--he is in the proper frame for
initiation into Spartacus's higher mysteries. He may be either MAGUS
or REX.