which is common to all good men. Hand in hand with this increasingly definite tendency there grows up indifference toward the element of secrecy on the part of the lodges, its restriction to the merely formal externalities. That secrecy is now promoted by socialization, and now abolished by it, is thus by no means a contradiction. These are merely diverse forms in which its connection with individualization expresses itself—somewhat as the interdependence of weakness and fear shows itself both in the fact that the weak seek social attachments in order to protect themselves, and in the fact that they avoid social relations when they encounter greater dangers within them than in isolation.
The above-mentioned gradual initiation of the members belongs, moreover, to a very far-reaching and widely ramifying division of sociological forms, within which secret societies are marked in a special way. It is the principle of the hierarchy, of graded articulation, of the elements of a society. The refinement and the systematization with which secret societies particularly work out their division of labor and the grading of their members, go along with another trait to be discussed presently; that is, with their energetic consciousness of their life. This life substitutes for the organically more instinctive forces an incessantly regulating will; for growth from within, constructive purposefulness. This rationalistic factor in their upbuilding cannot express itself more distinctly than in their carefully considered and clear-cut architecture. I cite as example the structure of the Czechic secret order, Omladina, which was organized on the model of a group of the Carbonari, and became known in consequence of a judicial process in 1893. The leaders of the Omladina are divided into “thumbs” and “fingers.” In secret session a “thumb” is chosen by the members. He selects four “fingers.” The latter then choose another “thumb,” and this second “thumb” presents himself to the first “thumb.” The second “thumb” proceeds to choose four more “fingers”; these, another “thumb;” and so the articulation continues. The first “thumb” knows all the other “thumbs,” but the remaining “thumbs” do not know each other. Of the “fingers” only those four know each other who are subordinate to one and the same “thumb.” All transactions
