Secret societies exemplify exclusion of all but the explicitly included. [definitional]
On the one hand, there is the principle of including everybody who is not explicitly excluded; and, on the other, there is the principle of excluding everybody who is not explicitly included. The second type is represented in greatest purity by the secret society.
DEFINE: Clarifies two opposing inclusion principles through the contrast of open versus secret groups.
Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simm…, loc. 8903