252 Biographical Account of [ApRir, 
pronounced ; the serious and the gay joined in declaiming against 
reason and philosophy; and all seemed to forget that when reason 
and philosophy have erred, it is by themselves alone that their errors 
can be corrected. 
The fears that had thus taken possession of men’s minds were 
often artificially increased. It was supposed that the general safety 
depended on the general alarm; that the more the terror was ex- 
tended, the more would the object of it be resisted; and hence 
doubtless many felt it their interest, and some considered it their 
duty, to magnify the danger to which the public was exposed. 
It is evident that an inquiry into the causes of the French Revolu- 
tion, undertaken at a moment of such agitaiion, was not likely to 
bear the review of times of calm and sober reflection. It was at 
this moment, however, and under the influence of such impressions, 
that Mr. Robison undertook to explain the causes of that revolution. 
He was deeply affected by the scenes that were passing before him. 
He possessed great sensibility, and his mind, peculiarly alive to 
immediate impressions, felt strongly the danger to which the social 
order of every nation seemed now to be exposed. The crimes which 
the name of Liberty had been employed to sanction, filled him 
with indignation, and the contempt of religion, affected by many 
of the leaders of the Revolution, wounded those sentiments of piety 
which he had uniformly cherished from his early yeuth. 
{n such circumstances, a mind accustomed to inquire into causes, 
as his had long been, could not abstain from the attempt to trace 
the sources of so extraordinary a succession of events. As to the 
circumstances which first led him, and led him I think so unhappily, 
to look for those sources in the institutions of Freemasonry, or in 
the combination of some German mystics, I have nothing satisfac- 
tory to offer. He was accustomed to refined and subtle speculations, 
and naturally entertained a partiality for theories that called into 
action the powers by which he was peculiarly distinguished. 
In 1797 he published a book, entitled, Proofs of a Conspiracy 
against all the Religions and Governments of Europe. He supposes 
that this conspiracy originated in the Lodges of the Freemasons, 
but that it first assumed a regular form in the hands of certain phi- 
losophic fanatics distinguished in Germany by the name of Illumi- 
nat?; that after the suppression of this society by the authority of 
Government, the spirit was kept alive by what was called the 
German Union; that its principles gradually infected most of the 
philosophers of France and Germany, and lastly broke forth with 
full force in the French Revolution. ; 
The history of I/dwminatism, as it is called, forms the principal 
part of the work; and on a subject involved in great mystery, 
where all the evidence came through the hands of friends or of 
enemies, it was exceedingly difficult for one living in a foreign 
country and a stranger to the public opinion, to obtain accurate 
information. Accordingly, the events related, and the characters 
described, as proofs of the conspiracy, are of so extraordinary a 
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