[495] Robison’s language is absurdly strong. “In half a year Free Masonry underwent a complete revolution all over Germany.” (Ibid., p. 70.)
[496] The sheer puerility of the treatment is indicated by the following: “A Mr. Rosa, a French commissary, brought from Paris a complete wagon-load of Masonic ornaments, which were all distributed before it had reached Berlin, and he was obliged to order another, to furnish the Lodges of that city. It became for a while the most profitable business to many French officers and commissaries dispersed over Germany, having little else to do.” (Robison, op. cit., pp. 69 et seq.)
[497] Ibid., p. 73.
[498] Ibid., pp. 65 et seq.
[499] Ibid., pp. 78, 79. Robison read into this situation a deliberate effort on the part of the leaders of French Freemasonry to extend the hegemony of the latter. He surmised that political uses and benefits were thus aimed at. Cf. ibid.
[500] Robison’s term for the representatives of the Aufklärung. Cf. Robison, p. 81.
[501] Ibid., p. 80. This declension of faith and morals Robison, more wisely than he was aware, traced in part to the clash between the Roman Catholic and Protestant systems in Germany and the spirit of free inquiry which was thus promoted. See Robison, pp. 80 et seqq.
[502] It is in this connection that Basedow is brought into relations with Robison’s devious exposition. Cf. ibid., pp. 85 et seq.
[503] Ibid., pp. 82 et seq.
[504] Robison, op. cit., pp. 92 et seq. “ … Germany has experienced the same gradual progress, from Religion to Atheism, from decency to dissoluteness, and from loyalty to rebellion, which has had its course in France. And I must now add, that this progress has been effected in the same manner, and by the same means; and that one of the chief means of seduction has been the Lodges of the Free Masons. The French, along with their numerous chevaleries [sic], and stars, and ribands, had brought in the custom of haranguing in the Lodges, and as human nature has a considerable uniformity everywhere, the same topics became favorite subjects of declamation that had tickled the ear in France; there were the same corruptions of sentiments and manners among the luxurious or profligate, and the same incitements to the utterance of these sentiments, wherever it could be done with safety; and I may say, that the zealots in all these tracts of free-thinking were more serious, more grave, and fanatical. These are assertions a priori. I can produce proofs.” (Ibid., pp. 91 et seq.) The “proofs” here referred to concern the Masonic career of Baron Knigge, whose antagonism to orthodox Christianity Robison distorts both as to its temper and its effect.