#018: Repeated Lure ~ Universal Happiness

“But I have contrived an explanation which has every advantage; is inviting to Christians of every communion; gradually frees them from all religious prejudices; cultivates the social virtues; and animates them by a great, a feasible, and speedy prospect of universal happiness, in a state of liberty and moral equality, freed from the obstacles which subordination, rank, and riches, continually throw in our way. My explanation is accurate, and complete, my means are effectual, and irresistible. Our secret Association works in a way that nothing can withstand, and man shall soon be free and happy.”¹

"And what is this general object? THE HAPPINESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. Is it not distressing to a generous mind, after contemplating what human nature is capable of, to see how little we enjoy?”²

The aim of the Order is now more fully told him. It is, in one sentence, “to make of the human race, without any distinction of nation, condition, or profession, one good and happy family.”³

After the mind of the pupil has been warmed by the pictures of universal happiness, and convinced that it is a possible thing to unite all the inhabitants of the earth in one great society, and after it has been made out, in some measure to the satisfaction of the pupil, that a great addition of happiness is gained by the abolition of national distinctions and animosities, it may frequently be no hard task to make him think that patriotism is a narrow-minded monopolising sentiment, and even incompatible with the more enlarged views of the Order, namely, the uniting the whole human race into one great and happy society.⁴

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1. ROBISON, JOHN. Proofs of a Conspiracy: Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies (pp. 83-84). George Forman. Kindle Edition. (Bold emphasis added.)
2. Ibid., (p. 84).
3. Ibid., (p. 91).
4. Ibid., (p. 95).

Johann Adam Weishaupt ... 6 February 1748 – 18 November 1830) ... was a German philosopher, professor of civil law and later canon law, and founder of the Illuminati, a secret society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Weishaupt

John Robison FRSE (4 February 1739 – 30 January 1805) was a British physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of natural philosophy (the precursor of natural science) at the University of Edinburgh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Robison_(physicist)