Art. 6.-POLITICAL DEMONOLOGY. 1. World Revolution: The Plot against Civilization. By Nesta H. Webster. Constable, 1921. 2. Weltfreimauerei: Weltrevolution: Weltrepublik. By Dr Friedrich Wichtl. Munich: Lehmann, 1920. To track down the paternity of political or social schemes is a somewhat thankless task. As we advance hot-foot, the horizon inexorably recedes; and instead of finding ourselves at grips with Marx, Saint Simon, or Rousseau, we perceive the wraiths of Morelly, Campanella, More, or even Plato. If we wish to apportion an exact measure of originality to these planners of utopianism or socialism, we find it hard to fix responsibility. Mrs Webster, realising this difficulty, has in her new book, 'World Revolution,' solved it by assuming that most of the social and democratic ideas that are troubling the world to-day went into action,' as it were, at the French Revolution; and therefore she only attempts to deal with the social and democratic experiments of the last hundred and forty-five years. In a short preface she puts forward her point of view. 'For the last hundred and forty-five years the fire of revolution has smouldered steadily beneath the ancient structure of civilisation, and already at moments has burst out into flame, threatening to destroy to its very foundations that social edifice which eighteen centuries have been spent in constructing' (p. viii). The doctrine the book seeks to establish is that a world conspiracy for bringing about the destruction of civilisation was conceived by one Adam Weishaupt, who founded a secret sect of Illuminates' in 1776, sent emissaries to France to indoctrinate the lodges of the Grand Orient, and finally, through their instrumentality, precipitated the Great Revolution. Further, the sect is said to have manifested its power in the activities of Babeuf and the founders of the Tugendbund,' and to number Saint Simon, Fourier, Robert Owen, the leaders of 1848, Lassalle, Marx, Bakunin, the Nihilists and Bolshevists among its servants. One of the defects of Mrs Webster's earlier book, 'The French Revolution,' was that she over-stressed and exaggerated the part played by the Duc d'Orléans and Choderlos de Laclos in bringing about the catastrophe. In her new book she states that she has reconstructed' her view, and is now willing to 'attribute' to Illuminised Freemasonry the organisation she had formerly 'attributed to the genius of Choderlos de Laclos ' (p. 30). In the use of this word 'attribution' we stumble on the great difficulty which attends the efforts of those who try to get at the back of events and to interpret their spiritual origin and significance. There are no proved tracks through this labyrinth. Certain pathfinders have ventured into the gloom and have brought back reports, sometimes confused, sometimes contradictory, always unverifiable, which adumbrate the theory that a secret conspiracy to overthrow Church and Throne was originated in the 18th century, or earlier, and still exists. Mrs Webster, having steeped herself in the writing of Barruel, Deschamps, and Robison, has come to believe in the existence of an occult force, terrible, unchanging, relentless, and wholly destructive, which constitutes the greatest menace that has ever confronted the human race' (p. viii). With her it is a matter of faith rather than of proof; and it is in the spirit of the zealot that she blames both the 'official historian' whose business is 'not to inquire into causes, but to present the sequence of events in a manner unintelligible to the philosopher, and the interested historian anxious to suppress the truth about Illuminism.' The pages of accepted history, we are told, provide no clue; and it is only by recognition of the secret forces' that we can 'possibly hope to understand' the events with which she deals. It is of course quite true that historians have chosen to deal with facts rather than with their psychological significance, but it is probably untrue that they have made this choice either through stupidity or self-interest. The fact is that the authorities on which any consistent and enduring theory of world conspiracy is founded are unreliable in the extreme. One could wish it otherwise, as the theory is a most plausible one; and, as Mrs. Webster says, 'It is extraordinary how in the light of Illuminism many things that are happening to-day, which appear at first inexplicable, become clear as daylight' (p. 317). The light of Illuminism' shows us, as Mrs Webster quotes with approval from a Catholic prelate, 'deadly Illuminated Freemasonry' as 'part of the system of revolutionary fraud invented and cast upon earth by Satan to compass the ruin of souls and the destruction of the reign of Jesus Christ' (p. 325). In the same light Christianity appears to her as 'a beleaguered citadel surrounded by the dark forces which have mustered for the supreme onslaught' (p. 325). The real protagonists, therefore, we must assume to be Christianity and Atheism, or Christianity and Satanism. Mrs Webster, however, encourages us to think that, if the people of our country will but realise the diabolical nature of the conspiracy at work amongst them, the powers of Hell cannot prevail against them.' The theory supported by Mrs Webster makes of the world and of contemporary life an exciting battle-ground, but, before agreeing or disagreeing with her thesis, it is only proper to examine the authorities on which she mainly depends. Two of them, Barruel* and Deschamps,† are clerical writers, special pleaders against Masonry, which they regard as 'mother and nurse of all secret societies'; a third is Robison,‡ no less of a special pleader though a Protestant and a Mason. Barruel and Robison devote a good deal of attention to 'the most profound of all conspirators'-Weishaupt, the father of Illuminism; the one with the object of putting the Church on her guard, and the other with the design of warning English Freemasons of the recent dangerous developments in Continental Masonry. Barruel is careful to make Illuminism a graft on Masonry; Robison seems to believe it arises from Masonry. Robison's book appeared at the moment when Barruel was about to publish his third volume; he mentions Barruel's first two volumes in his appendix. Mrs Webster quotes impartially from Barruel, Robison, and Deschamps, and with their general views on the iniquitous character of secret societies she appears to be in agreement; but it is interesting, in view of the fact that she selects Robison's summary of Weishaupt's 'Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Jacobinisme,' 1797. doctrine to present to her readers, to see what Barruel's opinion of Robison's accuracy was: 'Sans nous connaître nous avons travaillé sur le même objet et pour la même cause; mais le Public va voir mes citations et celles de M. Robison, et le Public y trouvera des différences remarquables. Je crains qu'on ne nous mette en opposition; je le crains, non pour moi mais pour la vérité, que ces oppositions pourraient décréditer' (III, 18). In passages too long to quote, Barruel says he admires Robison's zeal more than his accuracy; that he states things to be true that Illuminist correspondence shows to be false; that he makes quotations from the writings of Illuminists which one could never find in their works, no matter how long one hunted. He adds that, in order to justify Robison's quotations, one would have to 'suppose a new book and new letters,' for he 'makes the Illuminists speak far more plainly and pointedly than they ever did in real life.' Heckethorn, in his History of Secret Societies' (vol. I, p. 316), deals harshly with both authors when he says that, owing to misquotation, 'their statements, in so far as they refer . . . to Weishaupt, are of very little value.' In view of this destructive criticism of one authority on Illuminism by another, it is rather surprising that Mrs Webster should quote so rarely from Weishaupt himself and so frequently from Barruel and Robison's dubious summaries or translations of his Originalschriften. Deschamps' book, though for the most part founded on the labours of these two authors, is in a way more important than either, as in it he sums up the old Illuminist legends and-since the work was not published till 1874-is able to bring his narrative more or less up to that date. He tells us that, from a sense of duty,' he sets out to denounce Freemasonry as the fertile cause of crimes and calamities.' England he describes (p. 432) as 'cette source purulente de la Maçonnerie et de sa morale, foulant aux pieds la Catholique Irlande.' Although Mrs Webster is careful to discriminate (pp. 5, 6) in favour of British Masonry, her Continental authorities are not always-or should we say? are never-so particular, a fact which does not appear from any quotation in Mrs Webster's book. It occurs to one to ask oneself this question: If English Masonry has been so grossly maligned by the clerical writers whose dicta upon it this author ignores, what grounds have we for believing them when they deal in similar terms with Illuminism, its doctrines or its votaries? It is possibly from Deschamps' book that Mrs Webster derives her conviction that Owen, Saint Simon, Fourier, the members of the German Union, and the later Tugendbund, were all Illuminates. Zaccone and other writers on Secret Societies hold the same belief. Viewing human society in the flickering 'light of Illuminism,' it is perhaps natural for Mrs Webster, after steeping herself in this literature, to believe that Lassalle, Marx, and Bakunin all belonged to the 'formidable sect,' and to recognise in Mr Hyndman and Mr Bernard Shaw their coadjutors or dupes. Most people realise to-day that the French Revolution was no thunderbolt from the unknown, and agree that the lodges of the Grand Orient in France were in the 18th century working in a political sense. There were some seven hundred Lodges of various rites in existence before the Revolution, but it is impossible to form even an approximate estimate of the number of their members. It certainly was large, though the million adherents claimed by the Lodge 'Candour' alone would appear to be a great exaggeration of fact. Like the Encyclopædists, the Lodges probably played a large part in preparing men's minds and hearts for Revolution. Thousands of persons unable to form a political judgment for themselves were awakened to a sense of responsibility for the ordering of society through the agency of the Lodges. The Brotherhood of Man became a popular and living doctrine, and reconciled many to acquiesce in a subversion of society which otherwise they would have combated; for men, after all, are profoundly idealistic, and will endure and execute terrible things to bring about some imaged good. The end of the 18th century saw the triumph of rationalism and the introduction of machinery and of industrialised life; even without the help of a world conspiracy,' great changes must of necessity have taken place, for feudalised institutions had somehow to be transformed into the modern State. Owing to the Revolution |