The World We Live In: Proofs of a Conspiracy...pp. 102-107

I've long claimed that Robison's complaint is that the world is changing around him and he wants to blame the Illuminati for it. Finally, he comes to a summary about the Illuminati itself: "The objects, the undoubted objects of this Association, are surely dangerous and detestable; viz. to overturn the present constitutions of the European States, in order to introduce a chimera which the history of mankind shows to be contrary to the nature of man."

This brings to mind the writing of Thomas Hobbes who, on the day the Spanish Armada was set to invade England was born. Hobbes claimed that it was his mother's hearing of the alarm bells that began her delivery, "my mother gave birth to two things that night, myself and fear." 

He was fun at parties.

Anyway, the political writings of Hobbes claim that human beings need order and without an order force life will be (in his most famous quip) "nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes' philosophy claims that surrendering all rights to violence to a central figure, the sovereign, would be the only way human civilization could exist. Otherwise, it would be a violent state of nature. Total anarchy, and a "war of all against all." 

Hobbes's philosophy has some problems: his view of human nature is utterly negative and can be contrasted with Locke's state of nature in which everyone lives peacefully. Both are incorrect but what is important is that Hobbes--was influential. Hobbes was also used as an excuse by those in support of monarchy to justify their position. Hobbes would claim that without a divinely appointed monarch, society would collapse turning on itself--they would say (he actually didn't care what the sovereign power was, just that there was something). 

Robison is echoing this idea. Chaos can only result from the Illuminati's efforts because people need a monarch to keep them in line. Even if the Illuminati got their way it couldn't stand according to Robison because it is human nature, "All their professions of the love of mankind are vain; nay, their Illumination must be a bewildering blaze, and totally ineffectual for its purpose, for it has had no such influence on the leaders of the band; yet it seems adequate to the effects it has produced; for such are the characters of those who forget god."

The problem of the Illuminati is that they think human morality can exist without god. Which is a strange contradiction that Robison posits. People cannot be good without god, but in a state of nature, they will immediately turn on each other? The Illuminati cannot remove god from a person's belief system, they can only--not teach it. Lots of Christians get this wrong--you can't teach atheism qua atheism, you can only not actively teach god stuff. The Illuminati was not going to teach religion, but unlike Robison's claims, you can still teach morality. His claims are odd given that at this time period Kant's ethics are ripping through Europe while a proto-Utilitarianism is being developed in England. There's no reason, other than an appeal to tradition, to think that without a divinely appointed monarch would society crumble into blood-fueled anarchy. The Illuminati is pledging to instruct people in rationalism without theism and Robison is afraid of this. This is one of those things where the fear is very telling--shouldn't god be able to withstand a movement by a bunch of 18th-century book nerds? The answer is apparently "NO" which is why they must be stopped at all costs. 

Robison goes on to complain that the Masonic lodges were being filled with youthful, lazy (no one wants to work anymore), literati; who have no knowledge of the world. This is more neophobia and this kind of "kids these days..." argument I would rather have at family functions so I'll move on.

Robison complains more about the Illuminated's rejection of god and how their teaching will ultimately fail. I don't know if he means that overall teaching or something specific. I assume it is the general claims but Robison appeals to some Illuminati method but fails to make specific claims against it. Then Robison returns to more god stuff, claiming that the grand secret of the Order is that "there is no such superintendence of the Deity."

That's it? That's the grand secret that the Illuminati were not atheists but Deists. Deism, I've explained before, is the religious belief that god is a clockmaker who winds the clock and never pays any more attention to it. Sure the deity may look at the clock once in a while, but will never interfere or touch it again. I'm rather meh, about this secret. 

Yet the problem, Robison correctly identifies, is that once Deism is accepted--the rest of religion were only "old wives tales" or fables. Which, yes, they are. That's true Robison, once you take the religion out of the picture, you are left with a bunch of stories--most of which do not make any sense and are terrible. The only reason we think that they are any good is that they held divine backing. Remove that, and you're left with some bad stories about talking donkeys and a guy that ties torches to the tails of foxes. 

This deism is so offensive to Robison that it warps the judgment of men and gives "quite another appearance to the same object." 

I don't know what this means, but Robison begs us to give him leave to expound on this at length. I will give him that leave since we've basically decided that there is no more conspiracy and this is now a philosophical work. Next week we'll tackle this expounding as he begins with a possible attack on Isaac Newton. It's been a while since I've looked forward to a section but I'll have to do that.