the basis on which Masons meet together in the lodges and not a political system to be imposed on the world in general.
British Masonry thus makes no attempt to interfere with the existing social system or form of Government; the essence of its teaching is that each member of the Fraternity should seek to reform himself and not society. In a word, individual regeneration takes the place of the social reorganization advocated by the Grand Orient under the influence of Illuminism. The formula of the "United States of Europe" and of the "Universal Republic" first proclaimed by the Illuminatus, Anacharsis Clootz, has long been the slogan of the French lodges.
In the matter of religion, Grand Orient Masonry has entirely departed from the principle laid down by the British lodges. If the Catholic Church has shown itself hostile to Masonry, it must be remembered that in Catholic countries Masonry has shown itself militantly anti-Catholic. "Freemasonry," one of its modern orators declared, "is the anti-Church, the anti-Catholicism, the Church of Heresy (la contre Eglise, le contre Catholicisme, l'Eglise de l'Hérésie)." The Bulletin of the Grand Orient in 1885 officially declared: "We Freemasons must pursue the definite demolition of Catholicism."
But the Grand Orient goes further than this and attacks all forms of religion. Thus, as has been said, those "ancient landmarks" of British Masonry, belief in the Great Architect of the Universe and in the immortality of the soul, had never formed an integral part of its system, and it was only in 1849 that