Weishaupt grants, that "there will be a terrible convulsion, and a storm—but this will be succeeded by a calm—the unequal will now be equal—and when the cause of dissension is thus removed, the world will be in peace."—True, when the causes of dissension are removed. Thus, the destruction of our crop by vermin is at an end when a flood has swept every thing away—but as new plants will spring up in the waste, and, if not instantly devoured, will again cover the ground with verdure, so the industry of man, and his desire of comfort and consideration, will again accumulate in the hands of the diligent a greater proportion of the good things of life. In this infant state of the emerging remains of former cultivation, comforts, which the present inhabitants of Europe would look on with contempt, will be great, improper, and hazardous acquisitions. The principles which authorise the proposed dreadful equalisation will as justly entitle the idle or unsuccessful of future days to strip the possessor of his advantages, and things must ever remain on their savage level.
III. I think that the impression which the insincerity of conduct of those instructors will leave on the mind, must be highly useful. They are evidently teaching what they do not believe themselves—and here I do not confine my remark to their preparatory doctrines, which they afterwards explode. I make it chiefly with respect to their grand ostensible principle, which pervades the whole, a principle which they are obliged to adopt against their will.—They know that the principles of virtue are rooted in the heart, and that they can only be smothered—but did they pretend to eradicate them and proclaim hominem homini lupum, all would spurn at their instruction. We are wheedled, by tickling our fancy with a notion that sacred virtue is not only secure, but that it is only in such hearts that it exerts its native energy. Sensible that the levelling maxims now spoken of are revolting to the mind, the Illuminators are under the necessity of keeping us from looking at the shocking picture, by displaying a beautiful scene of Utopian happiness—and they rock us asleep by the eternal lullaby of morality and universal philanthropy.