Noun

(-)

Mankind; human beings as a group.

* , chapter=4

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity , and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.}}

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson

, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […]; perhaps to moralise on the oneness or fragility of the planet, or to see humanity for the small and circumscribed thing that it is; […].}}

The human condition or nature.

The quality of being benevolent.

Humane traits of character; humane qualities or aspects.

* 1851 , (Herman Melville), (Moby Dick) ,

Think of that; by that sweet girl that old man had a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities !”

Noun

(en-plural noun)

Any of various societies, sects or other people claiming religious or intellectual enlightenment.

# Persons in the early church who had received baptism and been given a lighted taper as a symbol of the spiritual illumination they had received.

# Members of a Spanish sect of the sixteenth century, who believed that, by means of prayer, they had attained so perfect a state as to have no need of ordinances, sacraments, good works, etc.; the Alumbrados or Perfectibilists.

# Members of certain associations in Europe who combined to promote social reform in pursuit of perfection; especially one originated in 1776 by (Adam Weishaupt).

# An obscure sect of French familists.

# The Hesychasts, Mystics, and Quietists.

# The Rosicrucians.

An alleged global, elite, secret society which has as its ultimate objective the subjugation of humanity (world domination or New World Order).

The methods of control used by "Ming the Merciless, Rules of the Universe" in the 1980 film ''Flash Gordon'' are a metaphor for what some perceive to be the influence of the Illuminati on the real world.

(Webster 1913)