But when Masonry had widely extended itself in his dominions and over
the neighboring States, and Noblemen, Generals and Statesmen were made
members of the Order, and even Monarchs ; when another Order claim-
ing to be connected with and based upon it, obedient to a single head, and
managed by men of intellect, had become a power in Germany, professing
the principles of civil and religious liberty, revolutionary in its aims, and
desiring to overturn all thrones, and this, too, numbering among its mem-
bers men of the highest rank, the most vigorous intellect and the no-
blest characters, might not Frederic have come to think Free Masonry pow-
;rful and dangerous, and to deem it wise to put himself at the head of the



l6o J.. HISTORICAL INQUIRY.
high philosophical and chivalric degrees, excluding the Strict Observance,
supposed to be controlled by the Jesuits, and Illuminism, governed by the
revolutionists, from the scale of degrees of Free Masonry altogether.
We may at least say that Frederic's former contempt for Masonry is of
little value in this inquiry, except to build a probability on ; and it amounts
to very little in the attempt to determine what he was likely to do or not
to do, when circumstances and the nature and importance of the Order
had so changed.
He was eminently a politic man. He preferred protecting and befriend-
ing the Jesuits, to persecuting them, when they were suppressed everywhere.
