Nam tua res agitur paries cum proximo ardet

Nam tua res agitur paries cum proximo ardet.

THE FOURTH EDITION. TO WHICH IS ADDED, A POSTSCRIPT.

NEW-YORK:

Printed and Sold by George Forman, No. 64, Water-Street, between Coenties and the Old-Slip.

[1798]

I have preserved the original typography in the dedication and epigram, but the typography has been modernized in the rest of the text.--JBH

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE

WILLIAM WYNDHAM

SECRETARY AT WAR. &c. as &e. SIR,

It was with great fatisfaction that I learned from a Friend that you coincided with me in the opinion, that the information contained in this performance would make a ufeful impreffion on the minds of my Countrymen.

I have prefumed to infcribe it with your Name, that I may publicly esprefs the pleafure which I felt, when I found that neither a feparation for thirty years, nor the preffure of the moft important bufinefs, had effaced your kind remembrance of a College Acquaintance, or abated that obliging and polite attention with which you favored au in thofe early days of life.

The friendfhip of the accomplifhed and the worthy is the higheft honor; and to him who is cut off, by want of health, from almoft every other enjoyment, it is an ineftimable bleffing. Accept, therefore, I pray, of my grateful acknowledgements, and of my earneft wifhes for your Health, Profperity, and increafing Honor.

With fentiments of the greateft Efteem and Refpect,

         I am,

                 SIR,

                    Your moft obedient,

                       and moft humble Servant,

                            JOHN ROBISON.

EDINBURGH

September 5, 1797.

  QUOD fi quis verâ vitam ratione gubernet,

Divitiæ grandes homini funt, vivere parcè

Æquo anima: neque enim eft unquam penuria parvi,

At claros fe homines voluêrunt atque potentes,

Ut fundamento: ftabili fortuna maneres,

Et placidam poffent opulenti degere vitam:

Nequicquam.--quoniam ad fummum fuccedere honorem

Certantes, iter infeftum fecêre viaï,

Et tamen a fummo quafi fulmen dejicit ictos

Invidia interdum contemptim in Tartara tetra.

Ergo, Regibus occifis, fubverfa jacebat

Priftina majeftas foliorum, et fceptra fuperba;

Et capitis fummi præclarum infigne, cruentum,

Sub pedibus volgi magnum lugebat honorem:

Nam cupidè conculcatur nimis ante metutum.

Res itaqe ad fummam fæcem, turbafque redibat,

Imperium fibi cum ac fummatum quifque petebat.

                      LUCRETIUS, V. 1153.

Note: The following Latin and English texts of the above passage were not in the original book, they are supplied for reference.--JBH

...quod siquis vera vitam ratione gubernet,

divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parce

aequo animo; neque enim est umquam penuria parvi.

at claros homines voluerunt se atque potentes,

ut fundamento stabili fortuna maneret

et placidam possent opulenti degere vitam,

ne quiquam, quoniam ad summum succedere honorem

certantes iter infestum fecere viai,

et tamen e summo, quasi fulmen, deicit ictos

invidia inter dum contemptim in Tartara taetra;...

Ergo regibus occisis subversa iacebat

pristina maiestas soliorum et sceptra superba,

et capitis summi praeclarum insigne cruentum

sub pedibus vulgi magnum lugebat honorem;

nam cupide conculcatur nimis ante metutum.

res itaque ad summam faecem turbasque redibat,

imperium sibi cum ac summatum quisque petebat.

But men wished glory for themselves and power

Even that their fortunes on foundations firm

Might rest forever, and that they themselves,

The opulent, might pass a quiet life-

In vain, in vain; since, in the strife to climb

On to the heights of honour, men do make

Their pathway terrible; and even when once

They reach them, envy like the thunderbolt

At times will smite, O hurling headlong down

To murkiest Tartarus, in scorn;

And therefore kings were slain,

And pristine majesty of golden thrones

And haughty sceptres lay o'erturned in dust;

And crowns, so splendid on the sovereign heads,

Soon bloody under the proletarian feet,

Groaned for their glories gone-for erst o'er-much

Dreaded, thereafter with more greedy zest

Trampled beneath the rabble heel. Thus things

Down to the vilest lees of brawling mobs

Succumbed, whilst each man sought unto himself

Dominion and supremacy.

(Lucretius, De Rerum Naturum, Book 5, William Ellery Leonard translation)

Introduction 1

Chapter I. Schisms in Free Masonry. 11

Chapter II. The Illuminati. 57

Chapter III. The German Union. 157

Chapter IV. The French Revolution. 207

Postscript 286
p. 1

Introduction.

BEING AT a friend's house in the country during some part of the summer 1795, I there saw a volume of a German periodical work, called Religions Begebenheiten, i.e. Religious Occurrences; in which there was an account of the various schisms in the Fraternity of Free Masons, with frequent allusions to the origin and history of that celebrated association. This account interested me a good deal, because, in my early life, I had taken some part in the occupations (shall I call them) of Free Masonry; and having chiefly frequented the Lodges on the Continent, I had learned many doctrines, and seen many ceremonials, which have no place in the simple system of Free Masonry which obtains in this country. I had also remarked, that the whole was much more the object of reflection and thought than I could remember it to have been among my acquaintances at home. There, I had seen a Mason Lodge considered merely as a pretext for passing an hour or two in a fort of decent conviviality, not altogether void of some rational occupation. I had sometimes heard of differences of doctrines or of ceremonies, but in terms which marked them as mere frivolities. But, on the Continent, I found them matters of serious concern and debate. Such too is the contagion of example, that I could not hinder myself from thinking one opinion better founded, or one Ritual more apposite and significant, than another; and I even felt something like an anxiety for its being adopted, and a zeal for making it a general practice. I had been initiated in a very splendid Lodge at Liege, of which the Prince Bishop, his Trefonciers, and the chief Noblesse of the State, were members. I visited the French Lodges at Valenciennes, at Brussels, at Aix-la-Chapelle, at Berlin, and Koningsberg;

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This acquisition might have roused my former relish for Masonry, had it been merely dormant; but, after so long separation from the Loge de la Fidélité, the masonic spirit had evaporated. Some curiosity, however, remained, and some wish to trace this plastic mystery to the pit from which the clay had been dug, which has been moulded into so many different shapes, "some to honor, and some to dishonor." But my opportunities were now gone. I had given away (when in Russia) my volumes of discourses, and some far-fetched and gratuitous histories, and nothing remained but the pitiful work of Anderson, and the Maçonnerie Adonhiramique dévoilée, which are in every one's hands. My curiosity was strongly roused by the accounts given in the Religions Begebenheiten. There I saw quotations without number; systems and schisms of which I had never heard; but what particularly struck me, was a zeal and fanaticism about what I thought trifles, which astonished me. Men of rank and fortune, and engaged in serious and honorable public employments, not only frequenting the Lodges of the cities where they resided, but journeying from one end of Germany or France to the other, to visit new Lodges, or to learn new secrets or new doctrines. I saw conventions held at Wismar, at Wisbad, at Kohlo, at Brunswick, and at Willemsbad, consisting of some hundreds of persons of respectable stations. I saw adventurers coming to a city, professing some new secret, and in a few days forming new Lodges, and instructing in a troublesome and expensive manner hundreds of brethren.

p. 4

German Masonry appeared a very serious concern, and to be implicated with other subjects with which I had never suspected it to have any connection. I saw it much connected with many occurrences and schisms in the Christian church; I saw that the Jesuits had several times interfered in it; and that most of the exceptionable innovations and dissentions had arisen about the time that the order of Loyola was suppressed; so that it should seem, that these intriguing brethren had attempted to maintain their influence by the help of Free Masonry. I saw it much disturbed by the mystical whims of J. Behmen and Swedenborg--by the fanatical and knavish doctrines of the modern Rosycrucians--by Magicians--Magnetisers--Exorcists, &c. And I observed that these different sects reprobated each other, as not only maintaining erroneous opinions, but even inculcating opinions which were contrary to the established religions of Germany, and contrary to the principles of the civil establishments. At the same time they charged each other with mistakes and corruptions, both in doctrine and in practice; and particularly with falsification of the first principles of Free Masonry, and with ignorance of its origin and its history; and they supported these charges by authorities from many different books which were unknown to me. My curiosity was now greatly excited. I got from a much-respected friend many of the preceding volumes of the Religions Begebenheiten, in hopes of much information from the patient industry of German erudition. This opened a new and very interesting scene; I was frequently sent back to England, from whence all agreed that Free Masonry had been imported into Germany. I was frequently led into France and into Italy. There, and more remarkably in France, I found that the Lodges had become the haunts of many projectors and fanatics, both in science, in religion, and in politics, who had availed themselves of the secrecy and the freedom of speech maintained in these meetings, to broach their particular whims, or suspicious doctrines, which, if published to the world in the usual manner, would have exposed the authors to ridicule, or to censure. These projectors had contrived to tag their peculiar nostrums to the mummery of Masonry, and were even allowed to twist the masonic emblems and ceremonies to

their purpose; so that in their hands Free Masonry became a thing totally unlike, and almost in direct opposition to the system (if it may get such a name) imported from England; and some Lodges had become schools of irreligion and licentiousness. No nation in modern times has so particularly turned its attention to the cultivation of every thing that is refined or ornamental as France, and it has long been the resort of all who hunt after entertainment in its most refined form; the French have come to consider themselves as the instructors of the world in every thing that ornaments life, and feeling themselves received as such, they have formed their manners accordingly--full of the most condescending complaisance to all who acknowledge their superiority. Delighted, in a high degree, with this office, they have become zealous missionaries of refinement in every department of human pursuit, and have reduced their apostolic employment to a system, which they prosecute with ardour and delight. This is not groundless declamation, but sober historical truth. It was the professed aim (and it was a magnificent and wise aim) of the great Colbert, to make the court of Louis XIV, the fountain of human refinement, and Paris the Athens of Europe. We need only look at the plunder of Italy by the French army, to be convinced that their low-born generals and statesmen have in this respect the same notions with the Colberts and the Richlieus. I know no subject in which this aim at universal influence on the opinions of men, by holding themselves forth as the models of excellence and elegance, is more clearly seen than in the care that they have been pleased to take of Free Masonry. It seems indeed peculiarly suited to the talents and taste of that vain and ardent people. Baseless and frivolous, it admits of every form that Gallic refinement can invent, to recommend it to the young, the gay, the luxurious; that class of society which alone deserves their care, because, in one way or another, it leads all other classes of society. It has accordingly happened, that the homely Free Masonry imported from England has been totally changed in every country of Europe, either by the imposing ascendancy

p. 6

of French brethren, who are to be found every where, ready to instruct the world; or by the importation of the doctrines, and ceremonies, and ornaments of the Parisian Lodges. Even England, the birth-place of Masonry, has experienced the French innovations; and all the repeated injunctions, admonitions, and reproofs of the old Lodges, cannot prevent those in different parts of the kingdom from admitting the French novelties, full of tinsel and glitter, and high-sounding titles.

p. 7

p. 8

p. 9

p. 10