Page:The Descent of Bolshevism.djvu/64

 Spartacus. And the members of the secret society he founded assumed the names of Cato, Hannibal, Alcibiades and other heroes of antiquity. Adam Weishaupt, who was Professor of Canon Law at the University of Ingolstadt, had studied with the Jesuits, was for a time a militant member of the Order and later became its bitterest enemy. When it was suppressed in Germany, Weishaupt proposed to found another order based upon the same principles of discipline, but with a vastly different object. His scheme was to establish a society which in time should govern the world by abolishing, as we shall see, Christianity and overturning all civil governments. He discussed with some of his Jesuit friends the more attractive, the innocuous features of his project, but they refused to have anything to do with it. Weishaupt then struck out alone, availing himself of the medium of his lecture room to spread among his pupils his pet theories of equality and internationalism, and his philosophy of the