At every point this fantastic exposition suffered the fatal defect of a lack of historical proof. Even the specific assertions of its inventors which were most necessary to their hypothesis were disproved by the facts brought to light by more cautious and unbiased investigators who followed. _E. g._, the idea of Mirabeau’s intimate connection with the program of the Order of the Illuminati and his profound faith in it as the best of all instruments for the work of social amelioration is rendered untenable the moment the rash and unrepublican temper of his spirit is called seriously to mind.[475] Again, the real object of Bode’s visit to Paris, a matter of vital importance in the Illuminati-French Revolution hypothesis, was not to communicate Illuminism to French Freemasons, but to attend an assembly of representatives of the _Philalèthes_, called to consider the results of an inquiry previously undertaken, respecting the occult interests and tendencies of that order. Convinced that that branch of French Masonry was yielding to an inordinate passion for the occult sciences, Bode had been prevailed upon by German Masons, von dem Busche[476] among the number, to make a journey to Paris to warn his French brethren of their mistake. A subsidiary personal interest in the newly-discovered “science” of animal magnetism[477] helped to form his decision to make the trip.[478]
The much more important contention that the Illuminati were instrumental in starting the French Revolution, shows a lack of historical perspective that either leaves out of account or obscures the importance of the economic, social, political, and religious causes, tangible and overt, though complex, that rendered the Revolution inevitable.
Yet the legend of Illuminism as the responsible author of the French Revolution found numerous vindicators and interpreters,[479] to the efforts of two of which, because of their intimate relation to the interests of the investigation in hand, our attention in the remainder of this chapter is to be confined.
In the year 1797 there appeared at Edinburgh, Scotland, a volume bearing the following title: _Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the Secret Meetings of the Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies_.[480] Its author, John Robison,[481] an English savant and Freemason, whose position in the academic world entitled his statements to respect, had had his curiosity regarding the character and effects of continental Freemasonry greatly stimulated by a stray volume of the German periodical, _Religions Begebenheiten_,[482] which came under his notice in 1795, and in which he found expositions of Masonic systems and schisms so numerous and so seriously maintained by their advocates as to create deep wonderment in his mind.[483] Bent upon discovering both the occasion and the significance of this tangled mass, Robison obtained possession of other volumes of the periodical mentioned[484] and set himself the task of elucidating the problem presented by Masonry’s luxuriant growth and its power of popular appeal.