By establishing reading societies, and subscription libraries, and taking these under our direction, and supplying them through our labors, we may turn the public mind which way we will.
The head of every family will be what Abraham was, the patriarch, the priest and the unlettered lord of his family, and Reason will be the code of laws to all mankind.
I declare and I challenge all mankind to contradict my declaration, that no man can give any account of the order of Freemasonry, of its origin, of its history, of its object, nor any explanation of its mysteries and symbols, which does not leave the mind in total uncertainty on all these points. Every man is entitled therefore, to give any explanation of the symbols and a system of the doctrine that he can render palatable.
This is the great object held out by this association; and the means of attaining it is illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason which will dispell the clouds of superstition and of prejudice.
There is no way of influencing men so powerfully as by means of the women. These should therefore be our chief study; we should insinuate ourselves into their good opinion, give them hints of emancipation from the tyranny of public opinion, and of standing up for themselves; it will be an immense relief to their enslaved minds to be freed from any one bond of restraint, and it will fire them the more, and cause them to work for us with zeal, without knowing that they do so; for they will only be indulging their own desire of personal admiration.
If a writer publishes any thing that attracts notice, and is in itself just, but does not accord with our plan, we must endeavour to win him over, or decry him.
The most wonderful thing of all is that the distinguished Lutheran and Calvinist theologians who belong to our order really believe that they see in it (Illuminati) the true and genuine sense of Christian Religion. Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?