“There’s nothing better than thinking aloud with a friend” (B 10, 14). This programmatic commitment to a casual exchange of ideas opens the dialogues between Ernst and Falk about the true nature of Freemasonry. The key question is about the “civil society of human beings in general” (B 10, 24) and the risks and side effects inevitably associated with the socialisation of man. Civil society, according to Lessing’s central idea, “cannot unite people without dividing them” (B 10, 30). This dialectic of union and division also manifests itself on the levels of state, religion and social class; it turns people, who as mere human beings “are attracted to one another by virtue of their common nature” (B 10, 28), into such a human being and such a human being: “Germans and French, Dutch and Spanish, Russians and Swedes” (B 10, 28), “Jews and Christians and Turks” (B 10, 29), people of “exalted rank” and “social inferiority” (B 10, 33). As such, they are in danger of encountering members of other groups with caution or reservation – “cold, reserved, and distrustful” – and coming “into collision” with them (B 10, 28).