Spartacus might tickle the fancy of his Order with the notion of ruling the world; but I imagine that his own immediate object was ruling the Order. The happiness of mankind was, like Weishaupt's Christianity, a mere tool, a tool which the _Regentes_ made a joke of. But Spartacus would rule the _Regentes_; this he could not so easily accomplish. His despotism was insupportable to most of them, and finally brought all to light. When he could not persuade them by his own firmness, and indeed by his superior talents and disinterestedness in other respects, and his unwearied activity, he employed jesuitical tricks, causing them to fall out with each other, setting them as spies on each other, and separating any two that he saw attached to each other, by making the one a Master of the other; and, in short, he left nothing undone that could secure his uncontrolled command. This caused Philo to quit the Order, and made _Bassus_, _Ton Torring_, _Kreitmaier_, and several other gentlemen, cease attending the meetings; and it was their mutual dissensions which made them speak too freely in public, and call on themselves so much notice. At the time of the discovery, the party of Weishaupt consisted chiefly of very mean people, devoted to him, and willing to execute his orders, that by being his servants, they might have the pleasure of commanding others. The objects, the undoubted objects of this Association, are surely dangerous and detestable; namely, to overturn the present constitutions of the European States, in order to introduce a chimera which the history of mankind shews to be contrary to the nature of man. _Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurret._ Suppose it possible, and done in peace, the new system could not stand unless every principle of activity in the human mind be enthralled, all incitement to exertion and industry removed, and man brought into a condition incapable of improvement; and this at the expence of every thing that is valued by the best of men--by misery and devastation--by loosening all the bands of society. To talk of morality and virtue in conjunction with such schemes is an insult to common sense; dissoluteness of manners alone can bring men to think of it.