a Redeemer who should restore man to his former state, Weishaupt looks to man alone for his restoration. "Men," he observes, "no longer loved men but only such and such men. The word was quite lost...." Thus in Weishaupt's masonic system the "lost word" is "Man," and its recovery is interpreted by the idea that Man should find himself again. Further on Weishaupt goes on to show how "the redemption of the human race is to be brought about".
These means are secret schools of wisdom, these were from all time the archives of Nature and of human rights, through them will Man be saved from his Fall, princes and nations will disappear without violence from the earth, the human race will become one family and the world the abode of reasonable men. Morality alone will bring about this change imperceptibly. Every father of a family will be, as formerly Abraham and the patriarchs, the priest and unfettered lord of his family, and Reason will be the only code of Man. This is one of our greatest secrets....<sup></sup>
But whilst completely eliminating any idea of divine power outside Man and framing his system on purely political lines, Weishaupt is careful not to shock the susceptibilities of his followers by any open repudiation of Christian doctrines; on the contrary, he invokes Christ at every turn and sometimes even