German Illuminati, and confided in their support. They also knew to
what particular Lodges they could address themselves with safety
and confidence.--But what need is there of more argument, when we
know the zeal of the Illuminati, and the unhoped for opportunity
that the Revolution had given them of acting with immediate effect
in carrying on their great and daring work? Can we doubt that
they would eagerly put their hand to the Plough? And, to complete
the proof, do we not know from the lists found in the secret
correspondence of the Order, that they already had Lodges in France,
and that in 1790 and 1791 many Illuminated Lodges in Germany, viz.
Mentz, Worms, Spire, Frankfort, actually interfered, and produced
great effects. In Switzerland too they were no less active. They had
Lodges at Geneva and at Bern. At Bern two Jacobins were sentenced
to several years imprisonment, and among their papers were found
their patents of Illumination. I also see the fate of Geneva
ascribed to the operations of Illuminati residing there, by several
writers--particularly by Girtanner, and by the Gottingen editor of
the Revolution Almanac.
I conclude this article with an extract or two from the proceedings
of the National Assembly and Convention, which make it evident that
their principles and their practice are precisely those of the
Illuminati, on a great scale.
When the assumption of the Duchy of Savoy as an 84th Department was
debated, Danton said to the Convention.
"In the moment that we send freedom to a nation on our frontier,
we must say to them you must have no more Kings--for if we are
surrounded by tyrants, their coalition puts our own freedom in
danger.--When the French nation sent us hither, it created a great
committee for the general insurrection of the people."
On the 19th of November 1792 it was decreed, "That the Convention,
in the name of the French nation, tenders help and fraternity to all
people who would recover their liberty."
On the 21st of November, the President of the Convention said to
the pretended deputies of the Duchy of Savoy, "Representatives
of an independent people, important to mankind was the day when
the National Convention of France pronounced its sentence, _Royal
dignity is abolished_.----From that day many nations will, in
future, reckon the era of their political existence.--From the
beginning of civil establishments Kings have been in opposition to
their nations--but now they rise up to annihilate Kings.--Reason,
when she darts her rays into every corner, lays open eternal
truths----She alone enables us to pass sentence on despots, hitherto
the scare-crow of other nations."
But the most distinct exhibition of principle is to be seen in a
report from the diplomatic committee, who were commissioned to
deliberate on the conduct which France was to hold with other
nations. On this report was founded the decree of the 15th of
December 1793. The Reporter addresses the Convention as follows:
"The Committees of Finance and War ask in the beginning--What is the
object of the war which we have taken in hand? Without all doubt the
object is THE ANNIHILATION OF ALL PRIVILEGES, WAR WITH THE PALACES,
PEACE WITH THE COTTAGES. These are the principles on which _your
declaration of war_ is founded. All tyranny, all privilege, must be
treated as an enemy in the countries where we set our foot. This
is the genuine result of our principles.--But it is not with Kings
alone that we are to wage war--were these our sole enemies, we
should only have to bring down ten or twelve heads. We have to fight
with all their accomplices, with the privileged orders, who devour
and have oppressed the people during many centuries.
"We must therefore declare ourselves for a revolutionary power in
all the countries into which we enter--(Loud applauses from the
Assembly)--Nor need we put on the cloak of humanity--we disdain
such little arts.--We must clothe ourselves with all the brilliancy
of reason, and all the force of the nation. We need not mask our
principles--the despots know them already. The first thing we must
do is to ring the alarum bell, for insurrection and uproar.--We
must, in a solemn manner, let the people see the banishment of their
tyrants and privileged casts--otherwise, the people, accustomed
to their fetters, will not be able to break their bonds.--It will
effect nothing, merely to excite a rising of the people--this would
only be giving them words instead of standing by them.
"And since, in this manner, we ourselves are the Revolutionary
Administration, all that is against the rights of the people must be
overthrown at our entry--We must display our principles by actually
destroying all tyranny; and our generals after having chased away
the tyrants and their satellites, must proclaim to the people that
they have brought them happiness; and then, on the spot, they must
suppress tithes, feudal rights, and every species of servitude."
"But we shall have done nothing if we stop here. Aristocracy still
domineers--we must therefore suppress all authorities existing in
the hands of the upper classes.--When the Revolutionary Authority
appears, there must nothing of the old establishment remain.--A
popular system must be introduced--every office must be occupied by
new functionaries--and the Sans Cullottes must every where have a
share in the Administration.
"Still nothing is done, till we declare aloud the _precision_ of
our principles to such as want only half freedom.--We must say to
them--If you think of compromising with the privileged casts, we
cannot suffer such dealing with tyrants--They are our enemies,
and we must treat them as enemies, because they are neither for
Liberty nor Equality.--Show yourselves disposed to receive a free
constitution--and the Convention will not only stand by you, but
will give you permanent support; we will defend you against the
vengeance of your tyrants--against their attacks, and against their
return.--Therefore abolish from among you the Nobles, and every
ecclesiastical and military incorporation. They are incompatable
with Equality.--Henceforward you are citizens, all equal in
rights--equally called upon to rule, to defend, and to serve your
country.--The agents of the French Republic will instruct and assist
you in forming a free constitution, and assure you of happiness and
fraternity."
This Report was loudly applauded, and a decree formed in precise
conformity to its principles. Both were ordered to be translated
into all languages, and copies to be furnished to their generals,
with orders to have them carefully dispersed in the countries which
they invaded.
And, in completion of these decrees, their armies found it easy to
collect as many discontented or worthless persons in any country
as sufficed for setting up a tree of liberty. This they held as a
sufficient call for their interference.--Sometimes they performed
this ceremony themselves--a representation was easily made up in
the same way--and then, under the name of a free constitution,
the nation was forced to acquiesce in a form dictated at the
point of the bayonet, in which they had not the smallest liberty
to choose--and they were plundered of all they had, by way of
compensating to France for the trouble she had taken.--And this they
call Liberty.--It needs no comment.--
Thus have I attempted to prove that the present awful situation
of Europe, and the general fermentation of the public mind in
all nations, have not been altogether the natural operations of
discontent, oppression, and moral corruption, although these have
been great, and have operated with fatal energy; but that this
political fever has been carefully and systematically heightened
by bodies of men, who professed to be the physicians of the State,
and, while their open practice employed cooling medicines, and
a treatment which all approved, administered in secret the most
inflammatory poisons, which they made up so as to flatter the
diseased fancy of the patient. Although this was not a plan begun,
carried on, and completed by the same persons, it was undoubtedly
an uniform and consistent scheme, proceeding on the same unvaried
principle, and France undoubtedly now smarts under all the woes of
German Illumination.
I beg leave to suggest a few thoughts, which may enable us to draw
some advantage from this shocking mass of information.
_General Reflections._
I. I may observe, in the _first_ place, and I beg it may be
particularly attended to, that in all those villainous machinations
against the peace of the world, the attack has been first made on
the principles of Morality and Religion. The conspirators saw that
till these are extirpated, they have no chance of success; and their
manner of proceeding shews that they consider Religion and Morality
as inseparably connected together. We learn much from this--_Fas
est et ab hoste doceri_.--They endeavour to destroy our religious
sentiments, by first corrupting our morals. They try to inflame our
passions, that when the demands from this quarter become urgent, the
restraints of Religion may immediately come in sight, and stand in
the way. They are careful, on this occasion, to give such a view of
those restraints, that the real origin of them does not appear.--We
are made to believe that they have been altogether the contrivance
of Priests and despots, in order to get the command of us. They
take care to support these assertions by facts, which, to our great
shame, and greater misfortune, are but too numerous. Having now the
passions on their side, they find no difficulty in persuading the
voluptuary, or the discontented, that tyranny, actually exerted, or
resolved on in future, is the sole origin of religious restraint.
He seeks no further argument, and gives himself no trouble to find
any. Had he examined the matter with any care, he would find himself
just brought back to those very feelings of moral excellence and
moral depravity that he wishes to get rid of altogether; and these
would tell him that pure Religion does not lay a single restraint
on us that a noble nature would not have laid on itself--nor
enjoins a single duty which an ingenuous and warm heart would not
be ashamed to find itself deficient in. He would then see that all
the sanctions of Religion are fitted to his high rank in the scale
of existence. And the more he contemplates his future prospects, the
more they brighten upon his view, the more attainable they appear,
and the more he is able to know what they may probably be. Having
attained this happy state of mind, (an attainment in the power of
any kind heart that is in earnest in the enquiry) he will think that
no punishment is too great for the unthankful and groveling soul
which can forego such hopes, and reject these noble proffers, for
the comparatively frivolous and transitory gratifications of life.
He is not frightened into worthy and virtuous conduct by fears of
such merited punishment; but, if not enticed into it by his high
expectations, he is, at least, retained in the paths of virtue by a
kind of manly shame.
But all this is overlooked, or is kept out of sight, in the
instructions of Illuminatism. In these the eye must be kept always
directed to the Despot. This is the bugbear, and every thing is made
to connect with present or future tyranny and oppression--Therefore
Religion is held out as a combination of terrors--the invention
of the state-tools, the priests. But it is not easy to stifle the
suggestions of Nature--therefore no pains are spared to keep them
down, by encreasing the uncertainty and doubts which arise in the
course of all speculations on such subjects. Such difficulties occur
in all scientific discussions.--Here they must be numerous and
embarrassing--for in this enquiry we come near the first principles
of things, and the first principles of human knowledge. The geometer
does not wonder at mistakes even in _his_ science, the most simple
of all others.--Nor does the mechanic or the chemist reject all
his science, because he cannot attain clear conceptions of some
of the natural relations which operate in the phenomena under
his consideration.--Nor do any of these students of nature brand
with the name of fool, or knave, or bigot, another person who has
drawn a different conclusion from the phenomenon.----In one point
they all agree--they find themselves possessed of faculties which
enable them to speculate, and to discover; and they find, that the
operation of those faculties is quite unlike the things which they
contemplate by their means--_and they feel a satisfaction in the
possession of them_, and in this distinction.----But this seems a
misfortune to our Illuminators. I have long been struck with this.
If by deep meditation I have solved a problem which has baffled
the endeavours of others, I should hardly thank the person who
convinced me that my success was entirely owing to the particular
state of my health, by which my brain was kept free from many
irritations to which other persons are exposed. Yet this is the
conduct of the Illuminated--They are abundantly self-conceited;
and yet they continually endeavour to destroy all grounds of
self-estimation.--They rejoice in every discovery that is reported
to them of some resemblance, unnoticed before, between mankind
and the inferior creation, and would be happy to find that the
resemblance is complete. It is very true, Mr. Pope's "Poor Indian,
with untutor'd mind," had no objection to his dogs going to heaven
with him:
"And thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
"His faithful dog shall bear him company."
This is not an abject, but it is a modest sentiment. But our
high-minded philosophers, who, with Beatrice in the play, "cannot
brook obedience to a wayward piece of marl," if it be in the shape
of a Prince, have far other notions of the matter. Indeed they are
not yet agreed about it. Mr. de la Metherie hopes, that before the
enlightened Republic of France has got into its teens, he shall be
able to tell his fellow-citizens, in his _Journal de Physique_, that
particular form of crystallization which men have been accustomed
to call God.--Dr. Priestley again deduces all intelligence from
elastic undulations, and will probably think, that his own great
discoveries have been the quiverings of some fiery marsh _miasma_.
While Pope's poor Indian hopes to take his dog to heaven with him,
these Illuminators hope to die like dogs, and that both soul and
body shall be as if they never had been.
Is not this a melancholy result of all our Illumination? It is
of a piece with the termination of the ideal Philosophy, viz.
professed and total ignorance. Should not this make us start back
and hesitate, before we pout like wayward children at the hardships
of civil subordination, and before we make a sacrifice to our
ill humour of all that we value ourselves for? Does it not carry
ridicule and absurdity in its forehead?--Such assertions of personal
worth and dignity, (always excepting Princes and Priests,) and such
abject acknowledgments of worthlessness.--Does not this, of itself,
show that there is some radical fault in the whole? It has all
arisen from what they have called _Illumination_, and this turns
out to be worse than darkness--But we also know that it has all
arisen from self-conceited discontent, and that it has been brought
to its present state by the rage of speculation. We may venture to
put the question to any man's conscience--whether discontent did
not precede his doubts about his own nature and whether he has not
_encouraged_ the train of argument that tended to degrade him? "Thy
wish was father, Harry, to that thought."--Should not this make us
distrust, at least, the operations of this faculty of our mind,
and try to moderate and check this darling propensity.--It seems a
misfortune of the age--for we see that it is a natural source of
disturbance and revolution.
But here it will be immediately said, "What, must we give over
thinking--be no longer rational creatures, and believe every
lie that is told us?" By no means.--Let us be _really_ rational
creatures--and, taught by experience, let us, in all our
speculations on subjects which engage the passions, guard ourselves
with the most anxious care against the risk of having our judgments
warped by our desires.--There is no propensity of our nature of
which the proper and modest indulgence is not beneficial to man,
and which is not hurtful, when this indulgence is carried too
far,--and if we candidly peruse the page of history, we shall be
convinced that the abuse is great in proportion as the subject is
important. What has been so ruinously perverted as the religious
principle?--What horrid superstition has it not produced? The
Reader will not, I hope, take it amiss that I presume to direct his
attention to some maxims which ought to conduct a prudent man in his
indulgence of a speculative disposition, and apply them to the case
in hand.
Whoever will for a while call off his attention from the common
affairs of life, the _Curæ hominum, et rerum pondus inane_, and
will but reflect a little on that wonderful principle within him,
which carries him over the whole universe, and shows him its various
relations--Whoever also remarks how very small a proportion his
own individual existence bears to this immeasurable scene, cannot
but feel an inexpressible pleasure in the contemplation of his
own powers--He must rise in his own estimation, and be disposed
to cherish with fondness this principle which so eminently raises
him above all around him. Of all the sources of human vanity this
is surely the most manly, the most excusable, and the most likely
to be extravagantly indulged.--We may be certain that it will be
so indulged, and that men will frequently speculate for the sake
of speculation alone, and that they will have too much confidence
in the results of this favourite occupation.--As there have been
ages of indolent and abject credulity and superstition, it is
next to certain that there are also times of wild and extravagant
speculation--and when we see it becoming a sort of general passion,
we may be certain that this is a case in point.
This can hardly be denied to be the character of the present day. It
is not denied. On the contrary it is gloried in as the prerogative
of the eighteenth century. All the speculations of antiquity are
considered as glimmerings (with the exceptions of a few brighter
flashes) when compared with our present meridian splendor. We should
therefore listen with caution to the inferences from this boasted
Illumination. Also when we reflect on what passes in our own minds,
and on what we observe in the world, of the mighty influence of
our desires and passions on our judgments, we should carefully
notice whether any such warping of the belief is probable in the
present case. That it is so is almost certain--for the general and
immediate effect of this Illumination is to lessen or remove many
restraints which the sanctions of religion lay on the indulgence
of very strong passions, and to diminish our regard for a certain
purity or correctness of manners, which religion recommends as
the only conduct suited to our noble natures, and as absolutely
necessary for attaining that perfection and happiness of which we
are capable.--For surely if we take away religion, it will be wisdom
"to eat and to drink, since to-morrow we die." If, moreover, we see
this Illumination extolled above all science, as friendly to virtue,
as improving the heart, and as producing a just morality, which
will lead to happiness both for ourselves and others, but perceive
at the same time that these assertions are made at the expence of
principles, which our natural feelings force us to venerate as
supreme and paramount to all others, we may then be certain that
our informer is trying to mislead and deceive us.--For all virtue
and goodness both of heart and conduct, is in perfect harmony, and
there is no jarring or inconsistency. But we must pass this sentence
on the doctrines of this Illumination. For it is a melancholy truth
that they have been preached and recommended, for the most part,
by clergymen, parish-ministers, who, in the presence of invoked
Deity, and in the face of the world, have set their solemn seal to
a system of doctrines directly opposite to those recommended in
their writings; which doctrines they solemnly profess to believe,
and solemnly swear to inculcate. Surely the informations and
instructions of such men should be rejected. Where shall we find
their real opinions? In their solemn oaths?--or in these infidel
dissertations?--In either case, they are deceivers, whether misled
by vanity or by the mean desire of church-emoluments; or they are
prostitutes, courting the society of the wealthy and sensual.
Honesty, like justice, admits of no degrees. A man is honest, or he
is a knave, and who would trust a knave? But such men are unsuitable
instructors for another reason--they are unwise; for, whatever they
may think, they are not respected as men of worth, but are inwardly
despised as parasites, by the rich, who admit them into their
company, and treat them with civility, for their own reasons. We
take instructions not merely from the knowing, the learned, but from
the wise--not therefore from men who give such evidences of weakness.