THE DESCENT OF BOLSHEVISM
consecrated every means, and wisdom and virtue consisted in properly determining the balance. Here we get his idea of Cosmopolitanism, or internationalism, which was to be promoted, when necessary, by violence.
Thus paving the way in his lecture room, which "became the seminary of Cosmopolitanism," he was able in 1776 to gather a few intellectual rebels, his staunch disciples, and form the secret society of the Perfectibilists, which later became known throughout Europe as the Illuminati. Its first object was to check the tyranny of princes and priests and establish a state of universal equality. It sought to enlist among its members Christians of every profession and especially free masons of the eclectic order, such as the Lodge Theodore of Good Council, which was founded in Munich in 1775 and became afterwards the principal centre of the Illuminati.
The members on admission were pledged to blind obedience to the order of their superiors. Their subservience was as-
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