First demonstration: Freemasonry and its still unknown properties

Summary

God is the enemy of uniformity: he intends movement to be in perpetual change, whether in ascendance or descent. To this end God periodically brings to fruition in our societies seeds of beneficial or harmful innovations; it is up to reason to decide how to use these seeds and to stifle the bad ones, such as political clubs, or develop the good, like freemasonry.

What positive elements can we take from freemasonry? This is an entirely novel question for a century that was incapable of perceiving the opportunities this institution offered. Yet in rejecting it we are scorning a diamond, not recognising its worth, just as the savages of Guanahani trod lumps of gold underfoot before European cupidity taught them its value.

Often, when we think we are merely enjoying ourselves, we are involved in political processes of the highest importance: this was the case with the clubs or casinos I have already mentioned, which are an embryonic form of progressive household. This small innovation could have overturned the civilised order if it had grown, and if the clubs could have been brought to the point where they became resident households for bachelors of different ages and with differing amounts of wealth. The members of such households would soon have realised that the passions tend to subdivide all societies into a number of unequal, rival groups, and after various attempts they would gradually have succeeded in forming a nine-group tribe, in which the rivalries would be balanced and harmonised.