of ⊙ in the most careful way." "The greatest mystery," he says again, "must be that the thing is new; the fewer who know this the better.... Not one of the Eichstadters knows this but would live or die for it that the thing is as old as Methuselah."
This pretence of having discovered some fund of ancient wisdom is the invariable ruse of secret society adepts; the one thing never admitted is the identity of the individuals from whom one is receiving direction. Weishaupt himself declares that he has got it all out of books by means of arduous and unremitting labour. "What it costs me to read, study, think, write, cross out, and re-write!" he complains to Marius and Cato. Thus, according to Weishaupt the whole system is the work of his own unaided genius, and the supreme direction remains in his hands alone. Again and again he insists on this point in his correspondence.
If this were indeed the case, Weishaupt--in view of the efficiency achieved by the Order--must have been a genius of the first water, and it is difficult to understand why so remarkable a man should not have distinguished himself on other lines, but have remained almost unknown to posterity. It would therefore appear possible that Weishaupt, although undoubtedly a man of immense organizing capacity and endowed with extraofdinary subtlety, was not in reality the sole author of Illuminism, but one of a group, which, recognizing his talents and the value of his untiring activity, placed the direction in his hands. Let