of the soul; but, I fear we shall lose Ludovicus Bavarus. He told Spartacus, that he was mistaken when he thought that he had swallowed his stupid Masonry. No, he saw the trick, and did not admire the end that required it. I don't know what to do; a Sta bene would make him mad, and he will blow us all up.
"The Order must possess the power of life and death in consequence of our Oath; and with propriety, for the same reason, and by the same right, that any government in the world possesses it: for the Order comes in their place, making them unnecessary. When things cannot be otherwise, and ruin would ensue if the Association did not employ this mean, the Order must, as well as public rulers, employ it for the good of mankind; therefore for its own preservation." (N. B. Observe here the casuistry.) "Nor will the political constitutions suffer by this, for there are always thousands equally ready and able to supply the place."
We need not wonder that Diomedes told the Professors, "that death, inevitable death, from which no potentate could protect them, awaited every traitor of the Order;" nor that the French Convention proposed to take off the German Princes and Generals by sword or poison, &c.
Spartacus might tickle the fancy of his Order with the notion of ruling the world; but I imagine that his own immediate object was ruling the Order. The happiness of mankind was, like Weishaupt's Christianity, a mere tool, a tool which the Regentes made a joke of. But Spartacus would rule the Regentes; this he could not so easily accomplish. His despotism was insupportable to most of them, and finally brought all to light. When he could not persuade them by his own firmness, and indeed by his superior talents and disinterestedness in other respects, and his unwearied activity, he employed jesuitical tricks,