Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe: carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.Robison, John
History
Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe: carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.
Robison, John
Freemasonry -- Early works to 1800; Illuminati -- Early works to 1800
No. VI. is a printed paper (as is No. V.) without date, farther
recommending the Essay on Instruction. No. VII. is in manuscript,
without date. It is addressed to "a worthy man," intimating that
the like are sent to others, to whom will also speedily be forwarded
an improved plan, with a request to cancel or destroy the former
contained in No. III. It is added, that the Union now contains,
among many others, more than two hundred of the most respectable
persons in Germany, of every rank and condition, and that in the
course of the year, (1788,) a general list will be sent, with
a request that the receiver will point out such as he does not
think worthy of perfect confidence. It concludes with another
recommendation of the book _on Instruction_, on the returns from
which first work of the German Union the support of the secretary's
office is to depend.
Accordingly No. VIII. contains this plan, but it is not entitled
_The Improved Plan_. Such a denomination would have called in
doubt the infallibility of the XXII. It is therefore called the
_Progressive_ (vorlaufig) plan, a title which leaves room for
every subsequent change. It differs from the former only in some
unimportant circumstances. Some expressions, which had given offence
or raised suspicions, are softened or cancelled. Two copies of
this, which we may call A and B, are given, differing also in some
circumstances.
"The great aim of the German Union is the good of mankind, which is
to be attained only by means of mental illumination (_Auffklarung_)
and the dethroning of fanaticism and moral despotism." Neither paper
has the expression which immediately followed in the former plan,
"that this had been the aim of the exalted founder of Christianity."
The paper A refers, on the present subject, to a dissertation
printed in 1787, without a name, _On the freedom of the Press and
its Limitation_. This is one of the most licentious pieces that
has been published on the subject, not only enforcing the most
unqualified liberty of publishing every thing a man pleases, but
exemplifying it in the most scandalous manner; libelling characters
of every sort, and persons of every condition, and this frequently
in the most abusive language, and expressions so coarse, as shewed
the author to be either habituated to the coarsest company, or
determined to try boldly once for all, what the public eye can bear.
The piece goes on: "The Union considers it as a chief part of its
secret plan of operation, to include the trade of bookselling in
their circle. By getting hold of this, they have it in their power
to increase the number of writings which promote instruction, and
to lessen that of those which mar it, since the authors of the
latter will by degrees lose both their publishers and their readers.
That the present booksellers may do them no harm, they will by
degrees draw in the greater part of them to unite with them."--The
literary newspaper is here strongly insisted on, and, in addition
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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