Code of the Illuminati

[Illuminati]

A second observation well worthy the notice of our readers is, the extreme importance which the Sect gives to secret societies, and what mighty expectations it grounds on their mysterious existence. Let nations and chiefs of nations examine themselves, reflect whether they have ever calculated the means and importance of these secret societies so well as those who founded them; and say, whether fear and diffidence on the one side should not keep pace with the expectations and confidence of the other. But let us return to the Lodge wherein Weishaupt initiates his adepts.

Continuing his enthusiastic strain, the Hierophant informs the proselyte, that Nature, having a great plan to develope, begins by the lesser and most imperfect parts; that she then regularly proceeds to the middle terms, to bring things to a state of perfection; which state may serve as a point whence she may again depart, to raise them to a higher order of perfection.

p. 475

[Illuminati]

"Nature (says he) makes us begin at infancy, from infancy she raises us to manhood. She at first left us in the savage state, but soon brought us to civilization, perhaps that we might be more sensible, more enraptured and tenacious of what we are, from viewing the contrast of what we were. But to what changes, and those of an order infinitely more important, does our future destiny lead us!"

[Illuminati]

Were the candidate master of his own reason, he must conclude from these principles, that human nature had acquired perfection when passing from the savage state to that of civil society; that if he. is still to acquire perfection it can never be by returning to his primitive state. But sophisters have their tortuosities, and the adepts are involved in a folly and blindness, with which the Almighty God permits them to be stricken, since they prefer error to truth, and impiety to Christianity.

[Illuminati]

"As has the individual man (continues the Hierophant) so human nature in the aggregate has its childhood, its youth, its manhood, and its old age. At each of these periods mankind learn and are subject to fresh wants--hence arise their political and moral revolutions—It is at the age of manhood that human nature appears in all its dignity. It is then that, taught by long experience, man conceives at length how great a misfortune it is for hire to invade the rights of others, to avail himself of some few advantages, purely exterior, to raise himself, to the prejudice of others. It is then that he sees and feels the happiness and dignity of man."

[Illuminati]

"The first age of mankind is that of savage and uncouth nature. A family is the whole society; hunger and thirst easily quenched, a shelter from the inclemency of the seasons, a woman, and, after fatigue, rest, are then the only wants. At that period men enjoyed the two most inestimable blessings Equality and Liberty; they enjoyed them to their utmost extent; they would have forever enjoyed them, had they chosen to follow the track which Nature had traced for them—or had it not entered the plans of God and Nature first to show man for what happiness he was destined; happiness the more precious, as he had begun by tasting it; happiness so early lost, but instantaneously regretted and fruitlessly sought after, until he should have learned how to make proper use of his strength, and how to conduct himself in his intercourse with the rest of mankind. In his primitive state he was destitute of the conveniencies of life, but he was not on that account unhappy; not knowing them, he did not feel the want of them. Health was his ordinary state, and physical pain was his only source of uneasiness—Oh happy mortals! who were not sufficiently enlightened to disturb the repose of your mind, or to feel those great agents of our miseries the love of power and of distinctions, the propensity to sensuality, the thirst after the representative signs of all wealth, those truly original sins with all their progeny, envy, avarice, intemperance, sickness, and all the tortures of imagination!"

[Illuminati]

Thus we see this primitive and savage state, this first essay of Nature, already transformed (in the mouth of the Hierophant) into the happiest state that man ever knew: Equality and Liberty are the sovereign principles of happiness in that state. Should the reader be as much blinded as the proselyte,

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and not see whither all this is tending, let him proceed, and hear how man was deprived of this happiness by the institution of civil societies.

[Illuminati]

"An infortunate germ soon vivifies in the breast of man, and his primitive peace and felicity disappear."

"As families multiplied, the means of subsistence began to fail; the nomade (or roaming) life ceased, and PROPERTY started into existence; men chose habitations; agriculture made them intermix. Language became universal; living together, one man began to measure his strength with another, and the weaker were distinguished from the stronger. This undoubtedly created the idea of mutual defence, of one individual governing divers families reunited, and of thus defending their persons and their fields against the invasion of an enemy; but hence Liberty was ruined in its foundation, and Equality disappeared."

[Illuminati]

"Oppressed with wants unknown until that period, man perceived that his own powers were no longer sufficient. To supply this defect, the weakest imprudently submitted to the strongest or to the wisest; not however to be ill-treated, but that he might be protected, conducted, and enlightened.—All submission, therefore, even of the most unpolished mortal, has an existence only in as much as he wants the person to whom he subjects himself, and on the express condition that that person can succour him. His power ceases when my weakness no longer exists, or when another acquires superiority. Kings are fathers; the paternal power is at an end when the child has acquired his strength. The father would offend his children if he pretended to prolong his rights beyond that term. Every man having attained to years of discretion may govern himself, when a whole nation therefore is arrived at that period, there can exist no further plea for keeping it in wardship. "

[Illuminati]

In putting such language into the mouth of the Hierophant, the founder of Illuminism had too well studied the strength and illusion of words; he had been too cautious in the choice and preparation of his adepts ever to fear that any of them would answer, "You who thus give oracles, what do you understand by nations having attained their majority? Without doubt such as, having emerged from ignorance and barbarism, have acquired the lights necesssary for their happiness; and to what can they be indebted for these lights and this happiness, if not to their civil association? It will be then, if ever, that they will find it both reasonable and necessary to remain under the guardianship of their laws and of their government, lest they should fall back into the barbarism and ignorance of the roaming clans, or be precipitated into the horrors of anarchy, from revolution to revolution, under the successive tyranny of the brigand, of the executioner of the sophisticated despot, or under that of a sophister Syeyes and his colegislative Marsellois, of a Robespierre and his guillotines, of the Triumvirs and their proscriptions. The populace alone in the minority of ignorance, the sophisters alone in the majority of wickedness and corruption, shall applaud thy mysteries."

[Illuminati]

Certain of not meeting with such reflexions from the adepts, the Hierophant continues to inculcate his principles by attributing every thing to strength, and destroying all principles of morality or of reason, though he will

p. 477

affect the tone of both; and ends by forming his judgment on man in society, as he would judge tigers and wild beasts in the forests.—These are his new doctrines.

[Illuminati]

"Never did strength submit to weakness.—Nature has destined the weak to serve, because they have wants; the strong man to govern, because he can be useful. Let the one lose his force, and the other acquire it, they will then change situations, and he that obeyed will command. He that stands in need of another, also depends upon him, and he has renounced to him his rights. Hence few wants is the first step towards liberty. It is for this reason that the savages are the most enlightened of men, and perhaps they alone are free. 9 When wants are durable, servitude is also lasting. Safety is a durable want. Had men refrained from all injustice, they would have remained free; it was injustice which made them bend beneath the yoke. To acquire safety, they deposited the whole force in the hands of one man; and thus created a new evil, that of fear. The work of their own hands frightened them; and to live in safety they robbed themselves of that very safety. This is the cause of our governments.—Where then shall we find a protecting force? In union; but how rare, alas! is that union, except in our new and secret associations, better guided by wisdom, and leagued in straiter bonds! and hence it is that nature itself inclines us toward these associations."

[Illuminati]

Subtle as is the artifice in this description of human nature, and in that affectation of beholding on the one side nothing but tyrants and despots, and on the other only oppressed and trembling slaves in the state of society; whatever share Nature may have had in the institution of social order, or in reclaiming mankind from forests and wildernesses to live under laws and a common chief; the Hierophant nevertheless exultingly exclaims, "Such is the faithful and philosophic picture of despotism and of liberty, of our wishes and of our fears. Despotism was engrafted on liberty, and from despotism shall liberty once more spring. The re-union of men in society is at once the cradle and the grave of despotism; it is also the grave and cradle of liberty. We were once possessed of liberty, and we lost it but to find it again and never lose it more; to learn by the very privation of it the art of better enjoying it in future." Reader, observe these words; if they do not evidently point out the object of the Sect, if you do not perceive the wish of bringing mankind back to those times of the nomade herds of savages, and of men destitute of property, laws, or government, read and convince yourself by what follows: "Nature drew men from the savage state and re-united them in civil societies; from these societies we proceed to further wishes, and to a wiser choice (aus den staaten tretten wir in neue klüger gewählte). New associations present themselves to these wishes, and by their means we return to the state whence we came, not again to run the former course, but better to enjoy our new destiny—let us explain this mystery."

[Illuminati]

"Men then had passed from their peaceable state to the yoke of servitude; Eden, that terrestrial paradise, was lost to them. Subjects of sin and slavery, they were reduced to servitude and obliged to gain their bread by the sweat of their brow.—In the number of these men some promised to protect, and thus became their

p. 478

chiefs—at first they reigned over herds or clans—these were soon conquered, or united together in order to form a numerous people; hence arose nations and their chiefs kings of nations. At the formation of states and nations, the world ceased to be a great family, to be a single empire; the great bond of nature was rent asunder."

[Illuminati]

The impudence of such assertions must astonish the reader; he will ask himself can there possibly exist beings thus belying evidence itself, and pretending to show the universe forming but one and the same family, and the grand bond of nature in those roaming and scattered herds, where the child can scarcely walk when he is separated from his father? How is it possible to represent mankind as divorcing from the great family, at the very period when they unite under the same chiefs and the same laws, for their mutual protection and safety? But, reader, suspend thy indignation. Let us call up in evidence against the Sect those brigands and sophisticated murderers which it decorated with the high-sounding title of Patriots, and which it stimulated to bloodshed and methodized murder by the fanaticizing sounds of people, nation, country. At the very time that they rend the air with such accents, with names so dear as they pretend, hear the maledictions which their mysteries heap upon every people, every nation, every country.

[Illuminati]

At that period, when men re-united and formed nations, "they ceased to acknowledge a common name—Nationalism, or the love for a particular nation, took place of the general love. With the division of the globe, and of its states, benevolence was restrained within certain limits, beyond which it could no longer trespass.—Then it became a merit to extend the bounds of states at the expence of the neighbouring ones. Then it became lawful to abuse, offend, and despise foreigners, to attain that end—and this virtue was styled patriotism; and he was styled a patriot who, just toward his countrymen, and unjust to others, was blind to the merits of strangers, and believed the very vices of his own country to be perfections.—In such a case, why not restrain that love within a narrower compass, to citizens living in the same town, or to the members of one family; or why even should not each person have concentrated his affections in himself. We really beheld Patriotism generating Localism, the confined spirit of families, and at length Egoism. Hence the origin of states and governments, and of civil society, has really proved to be the seeds of discord, and Patriotism has found its punishment in itself . . .Diminish, reject that love of the country, and mankind will once more learn to know and love each other as men. Partiality being cast aside, that union of hearts will once more appear and expand itself—on the contrary, extend the bonds of Patriotism, and you will teach man that it is impossible to blame the closer contraction of love, to a single family, to a single person, in a word, to the strictest Egoism."