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turning off its action from the will. There is always, in such cases, a choice of evils presented to the mind; and the fanatic may be compared to the Japanese noble, whose highly rated privilege it is, to be his own executioner. It is remarkable, that the monkish fanaticism has flourished most, and been carried to the greatest extremes, in times of public calamity. The miseries of the open world have been reflected upon the austerities 6 of the cell'; and the savage habits of the Egyptian eremites 6 were little more than a fantastic form of the wretchedness of the 'people of the country'. It is obvious, that private calamity and personal suffering may have the same effect upon individuals as public distress; and there are cases of morbid feeling, in which the strong instinct that prompts the desire after happiness, seems to be so perverted by disappointment and mortification, as to produce a gloomy rejection of all pleasure and pleasurable anticipation. What is despair but one form of fanaticism?

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The fanaticism of personal infliction does not, however, ripen into the heroism of the ascetic life, until pride takes its high standing upon the supposition of merit won.' When the invisi'ble Powers are deemed to have been foiled, then the spirit gets freedom, and soars'. Then comes in the notion of a supererogatory merit in the penances of the auto-martyr, transferable to others.

Conqueror, so far, of himself-of nature, and of the vindictive powers, the fanatic stalks about as a hero, and may even begin to think how he shall turn his victory to profitable account.-Vanity and ambition, when once they gain a lodgement in the heart, imperceptibly, yet quickly sap more imaginative and passionate emotions. This substitution of ignoble sentiments for those of a deeper sort meets us every day. In truth, the constant tendency or gravitation of the human mind is from the more to the less vehement class of emotions; and then its progress is from the simple and ardent, to the complex and turbid, in its habits of feeling. It is thus that the sincere enthusiast so often becomes (perhaps unconsciously to himself) a religious knave; and thus too, that the man who commenced his course of mortification and extravagance under the impulse of genuine passion, and who, at the outset, might have been looked at with wonder, if not admiration, degenerates into the charlatan or public fool.

• It is not till after the fanatic has acquired some familiarity with self-inflicted torments, and is at ease in his character of voluntary martyr, and especially until he believes himself to have reached a vantage ground in relation to Vindictive Powers, that he entertains the bold ambition of undertaking to suffer vicariously for those who may be less resolute than himself.'

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When the fanatic has begun to tire on his wearisome pilgrimage woe, how may he reanimate his purpose, if he can think himself a

public person who has freely become responsible for other men's salvation; and especially if he can believe that the Vindictive Powers whom he is holding at bay with a strong arm, are watching for the fall of so notable a champion, and would rush upon the spoil were he to faint!

'And besides; it is only by heading-up the merit of penance to such a height as that there shall always be a large amount in store, that the public martyr can feel to be himself quite secure against the demands of justice.-May not a man who is every day expiating the sins of others, assume it as certain that his own are discharged?—Thus the warfare against ghostly exactors is carried on upon advanced ground; and the knight-spiritual has a space in the rear to which, if pressed, he may retreat.' pp. 105-108.

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In this delineation of the characteristic features of the ascetic fanaticism, there is, perhaps, more of biographical fidelity than of strictly philosophical analysis. We are not made distinctly to perceive, how it is that the ascetic enthusiasm passes into the more virulent stage of fanaticism. The errors and abuses of monkery', the Author remarks in his former volume, sprang, by imperceptible augmentations, from sentiments perfectly natural to the sincere and devout Christian in times of persecution, disorder, and general corruption of morals.' The application of this remark must be extended to the monastic fanaticism; and a true analysis, therefore, would resolve it, in part, into the same elements. The enthusiasm of self-infliction is the misdirected principle of self-denial, the counterfeit of true mortification of spirit. The fanaticism of self-infliction would seem to be the same principle rendered virulent by external calamity, natural moroseness, or a dark and ferocious theology. But it is scarcely possible to bring under one general description all the specific manifestations of individual character. We should have been better satisfied, if the Author had not generalised his observations so much, but illustrated his conclusions by the specific cases with which the ample stores of his reading would have furnished him. It would have been useful, too, we think, to shew the connexion between fanatical sentiments of the description under consideration, and the theological errors to which they were allied. The notion of vicarious and supererogatory merit could not have obtained currency till the true doctrine of the Atonement and of Justification by faith had become lost; and the ascetic life could not have been had recourse to as the only means of practising virtue and overcoming the world, had not the true doctrine of Divine Influence become obscured, and the Christian faith been thus deprived of its sustaining principle. It is not to be wondered at, if those who thought to resist temptation, and to attain perfection, in their own strength, were foiled and baffled, and, being irritated by defeat, took refuge

the mass of mankind as religiously cursed and abominable; and, 3. A credulous conceit of the favour of Heaven towards a few, in contempt of the rules of virtue.

Is it theory only,' inquires the Author, or is it matter of history, that MALIGN THEOLOGY has invariably been followed at hand by intolerance, execrations, cruelties? Or whichever may have been precursor, the other has quickly come up. Nor is a simple association all, for the style of the theoretic error will be found to have comported with the character of the practical mischief. Thus it is that, as the belief in malevolent divinities, or the imputation of malevolence (under any disguise of abstract terms) to the Supreme Being, contradicts or distorts the genuine notion of sovereign and impartial JUSTICE, to the tribunal of which nothing is amenable but crime; so, the correspondent feeling towards mankind which such a belief engenders, is not that of righteous disapprobation on the score of moral offences, but that of detestation or abhorrence, on the mysterious ground of ecclesiastical impurity. It is not as the transgressors of a holy law, but as the reprobate of Heaven, that men in particular, or that nations are to be shut out from the circle of our charities. The multitude or herd of mankind is spurned as abominable, much more than as guilty. And when once so grievous a perversion of feeling has taken place, then the whole of the force which belongs to our instinctive notions of retribution, or to our acquired belief of future judgment, is thrown into the channel of our sectarian aversions; and this force, like a mountain torrent, in so passing from an open to a narrow bed, gains new impetuosity.-Ingenuous disapproval becomes covert rancour; virtuous indignation slides into implacable revenge; and acrid scorn completely excludes, not only all indulgence towards the frailty of men, but all compassion for their sorrows.

‹ A sense of justice founded on genuine notions of the Divine character and government, does not carry the mind further than to a mournful acquiescence in the infliction of due punishment upon the guilty. But it is quite otherwise with that perverted feeling which, while it draws its animation from hatred, derives its swollen bulk from the imagination.-The imagination inflamed by malignity, respects no bounds in its demand of vengeance. The very essence of justice, which is strictly to observe a limit, scandalizes the fanatic, who must heap terror upon terror, and still fails to satisfy his conception of what might be fitting, as the doom of the accursed objects of his contempt. There is in the human mind, when profoundly moved, a strange eagerness to reach the depths of the most appalling ideas;—or, shall we say, to tread the very lowest ground of the world of woe and horror. This innominate appetite finds its proper aliment, when a Manichæan belief is turned wildly loose upon the field of human misery:-carnage, murder, slavery, torment, famine, pestilence, pining anguish ;-or hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic fires, are all so many articles in the creed of the malign being. Under the influence of this cavernous inspiration, Pity is thought of, not merely as contemptible, but as impious;-Justice is injustice, and leniency the greatest of crimes.

Are we here only giving point to a paragraph ?-or has not history often and again verified such a description of the enormities which the human heart, badly informed, may entertain?' pp. 82-84.

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As the Author reserves for another place the refutation of any sinister inference which might be drawn from these allegations against the serious verities of Christianity', we waive for the present entering into an examination of the above description of the creed and elementary principles of Fanaticism: we must, however, observe, that we do not subscribe to the correctness of the representation, that the herd of mankind are (ever) spurned as 'abominable', on the simple ground of ecclesiastical impurity. It will, if we mistake not, always be found, that such malignant detestation has its source either in national antipathy, or in political enmity, or in some other modification of selfishness, inflamed by the supposed hostility of the objects of our hatred towards that which we cherish, or on which we pride ourselves. A detestation of mankind may derive its pretext and license from the supposition of their being the objects of Divine wrath, but it can scarcely be the consequence of such a supposition. We admit that, precisely according to the notions we entertain of the Divine character', will be the moral effect of the fond supposition, that we are the objects of the special favour of Heaven; and that a malign theology must vitiate, in an extreme degree, every sentiment of the deluded being who deems himself so distinguished above his fellows; but the cause of fanatical rancour is not, we apprehend, to be found in any theological notions, which are themselves caused by, and the product of, fanatical sentiments.

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The Fanaticism of the Scourge is the spirit of the Monkish Enthusiasm, rendered virulent. It is the ascetic stage of fanaticism, which, not being thrown out, as it were, works inwardly upon the unhappy subject of the distemper. The section devoted to the delineation of it, forms a valuable sequel to the chapter on the Ancient Monachism in the "Natural History of Enthusiasm." Of this introverted fanatical sentiment, the elements are described to be, 1. A proud rebellion of heart against the miseries, physical and mental, to which man is liable, or rather against the constitution of things which renders him so liable; 2. A consciousness of personal guilt, and dread of retribution; and 3. The supposition or theory of supererogatory and vicarious merit. The first of these elements is allied to the ancient Stoicism. 6 A desperate and sullen pride', the Author remarks, has always marked the austerities of Oriental Polytheism; and in India, we see unmasked, that which in Europe has disguised itself under Christian modes of expression. It would seem that the mind prefers to go out to meet pain, by self-infliction, rather than to have a smaller degree of pain forced upon it by a foreign hand; as if to choose pain, were to sheathe its poignancy, by

turning off its action from the will. There is always, in such cases, a choice of evils presented to the mind; and the fanatic may be compared to the Japanese noble, whose highly rated privilege it is, to be his own executioner. It is remarkable, that the monkish fanaticism has flourished most, and been carried to the greatest extremes, in times of public calamity. The mise'ries of the open world have been reflected upon the austerities ' of the cell'; and the savage habits of the Egyptian eremites 6 were little more than a fantastic form of the wretchedness of the "people of the country'. It is obvious, that private calamity and personal suffering may have the same effect upon individuals as public distress; and there are cases of morbid feeling, in which the strong instinct that prompts the desire after happiness, seems to be so perverted by disappointment and mortification, as to produce a gloomy rejection of all pleasure and pleasurable anticipation. What is despair but one form of fanaticism?

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The fanaticism of personal infliction does not, however, ripen into the heroism of the ascetic life, until pride takes its high standing upon the supposition of merit won.' When the invisi'ble Powers are deemed to have been foiled, then the spirit gets freedom, and soars'. Then comes in the notion of a supererogatory merit in the penances of the auto-martyr, transferable to others.

Conqueror, so far, of himself-of nature, and of the vindictive powers, the fanatic stalks about as a hero, and may even begin to think how he shall turn his victory to profitable account.-Vanity and ambition, when once they gain a lodgement in the heart, imperceptibly, yet quickly sap more imaginative and passionate emotions. This substitution of ignoble sentiments for those of a deeper sort meets us every day. In truth, the constant tendency or gravitation of the human mind is from the more to the less vehement class of emotions; and then its progress is from the simple and ardent, to the complex and turbid, in its habits of feeling. It is thus that the sincere enthusiast so often becomes (perhaps unconsciously to himself) a religious knave; and thus too, that the man who commenced his course of mortification and extravagance under the impulse of genuine passion, and who, at the outset, might have been looked at with wonder, if not admiration, degenerates into the charlatan or public fool.

• It is not till after the fanatic has acquired some familiarity with self-inflicted torments, and is at ease in his character of voluntary martyr, and especially until he believes himself to have reached a vantage ground in relation to Vindictive Powers, that he entertains the bold ambition of undertaking to suffer vicariously for those who may be less resolute than himself."

When the fanatic has begun to tire on his wearisome pilgrimage of woe, how may he reanimate his purpose, if he can think himself a