In Order To Have Friends, You Must Be Able To Do Without Them

( Originally Published 1908 )

On Secret Societies

MYSTERY and miracle were born in Egypt. It was there that a system was evolved, backed up by the ruler, of religious fraud so colossal that modern deception looks like the bungling efforts of an amateur.

The government, the army, the taxing power of the State were sworn to protect gigantic safes in which were hoarded—nothing. That is to say, nothing but the pretense, upon which cupidity and self - hypnotized credulity battened and fattened and borrowed money.

All institutions which thru mummery, strange acts, dress and ritual, affect to know and impart the inmost secrets of creation and ultimate destiny, had their rise in Egypt. In Egypt now are only graves, tombs, necropoles and silence. The priests there need no soldiery to keep their secrets safe. Ammon-Ra, who once ruled the The Egyptians guarded their mysteries with jealous dread. We know their secret now. It is this: there are no mysteries.

That is the only secret upon which any secret society holds a caveat. Wisdom cannot be corralled in gibberish and fettered in jargon.

Knowledge is one thing, palaver another. The Greek-letter societies of our callow days still survive in bird's-eye, and next to these come the Elks who take theirs with seltzer and a smile, as a rare good joke, save that brotherhood and good fellowship are actually a saving salt.

Greek-letter societies are the rudimentary survivals of what was once an integral part of every college. Making dead languages optional was the last convulsive kick of the cadaver. All this mystery and mysticism were once official, and later on being discarded by the authorities, were continued by the students as a kind of prank.

And now a good many colleges are placing the seal of their disapproval on secret societies among the students; and the day is near when the secret society will not be tolerated, either directly or indirectly, as a part of the education of youth. All this because the sophomoric mind is prone to take its Greek-letter mysteries seriously and regard the college curriculum as a joke of the faculty.

If knowledge were to be gained by riding a goat, any petty cross-roads, with its lodge-room over the grocery, would contain a Herbert Spencer; the agrarian mossbacks would have wisdom by the scruff and detain knowledge with a tail told.