Excerpt from Secret Societies: A Discussion of Their Character and Claims 1. Secret associations are of very ancient origin. They existed among the ancient Egyptians, Hin doos, Grecians, Romans, and probably among nearly all the pagan nations of antiquity. This fact, how ever, is neither, proof of their utility nor of their harmlessness. Slavery, despotism, cruelty, drunken ness, falsehood, and all sorts of sins and crimes have. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.