Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

324 PROFESSOR ROBISON> VIEWS
sique. In another discourse delivered by Brother Condorcet
in the Loge des Philalethes, at Strasburg, we hav$ the
outlines of his posthumous work, Le Progres de VEsprit
humain: and in another, delivered, by Mirabeau, in the
Loge des Chevaliers BienfaisanU at Paris, we have a great
deal of the levelling principles, and cosmopolitism,* which
he thundered from the tribunes of the National Assembly.
But the most remarkable performances of this kind are, the
Archives Mystico-Hermetiques, and the Des Erreurs, ei de
la Verite. The first is considered as an account historical
and dogmatical, of the procedure and system of the Loge
des Chevaliers Bienfaisants at Lyons. This was the most
zealous and systematical of all the cosmopolitical lodges in
France. It worked long under the patronage of its Grand
Master the Due de Chartres, afterwards Orleans, and at
last, Ph. Egalite. It sent out many affiliated lodges, which
were erected in various parts of the French dominions.
The daughter lodges at Paris, Strasbourg, Lille, Thoulouse,
took the additional title of Philalethes. There arose some
schisms, as maybe expected, in an .association where every
man is encouraged to broach, and to propagate, any the
most singular opinion. These schisms were continued
with some heat, but were, in a great measure, repaired in
lodges which took the name of Amis reuflis de la Verite.
One of this denomination at Paris became very eminent.
The mother lodge at Lyons extended its correspondence
into Germany, and other foreign countries, and sent constitutions
or systems by which the lodges conducted their operations.
" The book Des Erreurs et de la Verite must, therefore,
be considered as a classical book of these opinions. We
know that it originated in the Loge des Chev. Bienfaisants
at Lyons. We know that this lodge stood, as it were, at
* Citizenship of the world, from the Greek words €osmos, world, and
Polity a city.