[485] Robison, op. cit., pp. 10, 11, 15.
[486] An illustration of the carelessness with which Robison handled his dates is found on pages 15 and 133 (cf. p. 103) of the Proofs of a Conspiracy, etc., in the matter of the date of the founding of the Order of the Illuminati. Far more serious in its reflection on the author’s lack of accuracy and insight is such looseness and general unsoundness of treatment as permitted him to represent the Jesuits as frequenters of English and French Masonic lodges, while at the same time indicting the latter as fully committed to a free-thinking propaganda which sought nothing less than the eradication of religion, not to speak of its institutions. Cf. ibid., pp. 22 et seq. Robison’s superficial explanation of the anticlericalism of Weishaupt might be cited as another illustration of the blundering method pursued in the book. Cf. ibid., pp. 101, 103 et seq. His weak and practically pointless digression in order to find opportunity to comment on the educational projects of Basedow will serve to illustrate the discursive quality in his work. Cf. ibid., 85 et seq.
[487] Robison’s exposition of the elements of uncontrolled curiosity and conjecture as elements in his purpose in writing the book is not without significance: “I must entreat that it be remembered that these sheets are not the work of an author determined to write a book. They were for the most part notes, which I took from books I had borrowed, that I might occasionally have recourse to them when occupied with Free Masonry, the first object of my curiosity. My curiosity was diverted to many other things as I went along, and when the Illuminati came in my way, I regretted the time I had thrown away on Free Masonry. (But, observing their connection, I thought that I perceived the progress of one and the same design. This made me eager to find out any remains of Weishaupt’s Association. I was not surprised when I saw marks of its interference in the French Revolution.) In hunting for clearer proofs I found out the German Union—and, in fine, the whole appeared to be one great and wicked project, fermenting and working over all Europe.” (Ibid., pp. 493 et seq.) Encouraged by his friends, Robison “set about collecting my [his] scattered facts.” (Ibid., p. 494.)
[488] Ibid., pp. 28 et seq.
[489] Robison does not wholly miss the true point in his survey of the backgrounds of the French Revolution. He points out numerous “cooperating causes” which served to make the Revolution inevitable. “Perhaps there never was a nation where all these cooperating causes had acquired greater strength than in France. Oppressions of all kinds were at a height. The luxuries of life were enjoyed exclusively by the upper classes, and this in the highest degree of refinement; so that the desires of the rest were whetted to the utmost. Even religion appeared in an unwelcome form, and seemed chiefly calculated for procuring establishments for the younger sons of insolent and useless nobility. For numbers of men of letters were excluded, by their birth, from all hopes of advancement to the higher stations in the church. These men frequently vented their discontents by secretly joining the laics in their bitter satires on such in the higher orders of the clergy, as had scandalously departed from the purity and simplicity of manners which Christianity enjoins. Such examples were not unfrequent, and none was spared in those bitter invectives…. The faith of the nation was shaken; and when, in a few instances, a worthy Curé uttered the small still voice of true religion, it was not heard amidst the general noise of satire and reproach. The misconduct of administration, and the abuse of the public treasures, were every day growing more impudent and glaring, and exposed the government to continual criticism.” (Robison, pp. 60 et seq. Cf. ibid., pp. 362 et seq.) These “cooperating causes” receive little emphasis, however, in Robison’s zealous effort to trace the revolutionary spirit to its lair in the Masonic lodges of France.
[490] Ibid., pp. 40 et seq.
[491] Robison, op. cit., pp. 43 et seq.
[492] Ibid., p. 51. Robison’s account of this phase of the situation has little to commend it. Upon his own unsupported assertions many of the Revolutionary leaders, as, for example, Mirabeau, Sieyès, Despremenil, Bailly, Fauchet, Maury, Mounier, and Talleyrand, are brought into direct connection with one or another of the French Masonic systems. Cf. Robison, pp. 49 et seq. Similarly, it is maintained, it was among Masonic lodges that the ideas contained in such books as Robinet’s La Nature, ou l’Homme moral et physique, Condorcet’s Le Progrès de l’Esprit humain, Lequinio’s Les préjugés vaincus par la raison, and the book Des Erreurs et de la Vérité, were first disseminated. Indeed, some of these books are said to have sprung out of the very bosom of the lodges. Cf. ibid., pp. 43 et seq.
[493] Ibid., pp. 67 et seq. Comparison with Forestier, pp. 141 et seq., will make clear the paucity of the data upon which Robison drew in attempting to write the earlier chapters of the history of German Freemasonry.
[494] Robison, op. cit., p. 64.