Partim sponte sua quae fiunt aere in ipso, Partim quae variis ab rebus cumque recedunt.1 He was 'Twas a sign this philosopher believed there was a good stock of visionary spirit originally in human nature. so satisfied that men were inclined to see visions, that rather than they should go without, he chose to make them to their hand. Notwithstanding he denied the principles of religion to be natural, he was forced tacitly to allow there was a wondrous disposition in mankind towards supernatural objects; and that if these ideas were vain, they were yet in a manner innate, or such as men were really born to, and could hardly by any means avoid. From which concession, a divine, methinks, might raise a good argument against him, for the truth as well as the usefulness of religion. But so it is: whether the matter of apparition be true or false, the symptoms are the same, and the passion of equal force in the person who is vision-struck. The lymphatici of the Latins were the nympholepti of the Greeks. They were persons said to have seen some species of divinity, as either some rural deity, or nymph, which threw them into such transports as overcame their reason. The ecstasies expressed themselves outwardly in quakings, tremblings, tossings of the head and limbs, agitations, and (as Livy calls them) fanatical throws or convulsions, extemporary prayer, prophecy, singing, and the like. All nations have their lymphatics of some kind or another; and all churches, heathen as well as Christian, have had their complaints against fanaticism. One would think the ancients imagined this disease had 1["Many simulacra of things, thin, manifold in number and form, wander about in all manner of ways, which when in the air they meet, easily conjoin, like cobwebs or gold-leaf. . . . Thus we see Centaurs and limbs of Scylla, and shapes of dogs like Cerberus, and the phantasms of those passed away whose bones the earth enfolds; since everywhere float simulacra of every kind, partly those spontaneously shaped by the air within itself, partly those thrown off by various things."-Lucretius, iv. 724-737.1 2 Infra, Treatise . part iii. § 3. some relation to that which they called hydrophoby. Whether the ancient lymphatics had any way like that of biting, to communicate the rage of their distemper, I cannot so positively determine. But certain fanatics there have been since the time of the ancients, who have had a most prosperous faculty of communicating the appetite of the teeth. For since first the snappish spirit got up in religion, all sects have been at it, as the saying is, tooth and nail; and are never better pleased than in worrying one another without mercy. So far indeed the innocent kind of fanaticism extends itself, that when the party is struck by the apparition, there follows always an itch of imparting it, and kindling the same fire in other breasts. For thus poets are fanatics too. And thus Horace either is or feigns himself lymphatic, and shows what an effect the vision of the nymphs and Bacchus had on him— Bacchum 1 in remotis carmina rupibus Vidi docentem, credite posteri, Evoe! recenti mens trepidat metu, as Heinsius reads. No poet (as I ventured to say at first to your lordship) can do anything great in his own way without the imagination or supposition of a divine presence, which may raise him to some degree of this passion we are speaking of. Even the cold 1 ["Bacchus have I seen in far-off stony places teaching his songs (aftercomers, believe me!) and the nymphs conning them. . . . Evoe! my heart trembles with the still-felt fear, and wildly maddens (lymphatur) in a breast filled with Bacchus."-Horace, Odes, II. xix. The accepted reading is laetatur, "exults."] 2 So again, Sat. 1. v. 97, Gnatia lymphis iratis exstructa, where Horace wittily treats the people of Gnatia as lymphatics and enthusiasts, for believing a miracle of their priests: Credat Judaeus Apella, Hor. ibid. See Heinsius and Torrentius; and the quotation in the following notes, irò τῶν Νυμφών, etc. Lucretius makes use of inspiration, when he writes against it, and is forced to raise an apparition of Nature, in a divine form, to animate and conduct him in his very work of degrading Nature, and despoiling her of all her seeming wisdom and divinity— Alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signa Quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferenteis ... Quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas Nec sine te quidquam dias in luminis oras Quos ego de rerum natura pangere conor SECTION VII THE only thing, my lord, I would infer from all this is, that enthusiasm is wonderfully powerful and extensive; that it is a matter of nice judgment, and the hardest thing in the world to know fully and distinctly; since even atheism 2 is not exempt from it. For, as some have well remarked, there have been enthusiastical atheists. Nor can divine inspiration, by its outward marks, be easily distinguished from it. For inspiration is a real feeling of the Divine Presence, and enthusiasm a false But the passion they raise is much alike. For when the mind is taken up in vision, and fixes its view either on any real object, or mere spectre of divinity; when it sees, or thinks it one. 1 ["Nutrient Venus, who under the gliding signs of heaven fillest with life the ship-bearing sea and the fruitful lands. . . . Since thou alone rulest the nature of things, nor without thee ariseth aught to the holy frontiers of light, nor groweth anything joyous or meet for love, thee would I have for helper in framing the song I seek to build for this our son of the Memmian line."-Lucretius, i. 2-4, 22-26.] 2 See [hereinafter] Misc. ii. ch. ii. in the beginning. sees, anything prodigious, and more than human; its horror, delight, confusion, fear, admiration, or whatever passion belongs to it, or is uppermost on this occasion, will have something vast, immane, and (as painters say) beyond life. And this is what gave occasion to the name of fanaticism, as it was used by the ancients in its original sense, for an apparition transporting the mind. Something there will be of extravagance and fury, when the ideas or images received are too big for the narrow human vessel to contain. So that inspiration may be justly called divine enthusiasm; for the word itself signifies divine presence, and was made use of by the philosopher whom the earliest Christian Fathers called divine, to express whatever was sublime in human passions.1 This was the spirit he allotted to heroes, statesmen, poets, orators, musicians, and even philosophers them 1 ἄρ ̓ οἶσθ ̓ ὅτι ὑπὸ τῶν Νυμφῶν ἐκ προνοίας σαφῶς ἐνθουσιάσω . . . τοσαῦτα μέν σοι καὶ ἔτι πλείω ἔχω μανίας γιγνομένης ἀπὸ θεῶν λέγειν καλὰ ἔργα, etc. Phaedr. καὶ τοὺς πολιτικοὺς οὐχ ἥκιστα τούτων φαῖμεν ἂν θείους τε εἶναι καὶ ἐνθουσιάζειν. Meno. ἔγνων οὖν ἂν καὶ περὶ τῶν ποιητῶν ἐν ὀλίγῳ τοῦτο, ὅτι οὐ σοφίᾳ ποιοῖεν, ἀλλὰ φύσει τινὶ καὶ ἐνθουσιάζοντες, ὥσπερ οἱ θεομάντεις καὶ χρησμῳδοί. —Apol. In particular as to philosophers, Plutarch tells us, 'twas the complaint of some of the sour old Romans, when learning first came to them from Greece, that their youth grew enthusiastic with philosophy. For speaking of one of the philosophers of the Athenian Embassy, he says, pwra dewòv ἐμβέβληκε τοῖς νέοις ὑφ' οὗ τῶν ἄλλων ἡδονῶν καὶ διατριβῶν ἐκπεσόντες ἐνθουσιῶσι περὶ φιλοσοφίαν.-Plut. Cato Major. The accepted text [Plato, Phaedrus, 241 E, seems here misquoted. means: "I suppose you know that I shall be quite possessed (évovoidow) by the nymphs, to whom you have designedly exposed me." Plato, Menon, 99 D: "And, among them, we should say that the politicians were specially rapt and inspired" (évovoiášeiv). Plato, Apol. 22 B (slightly misquoted). The right version would give: "So I observed also about poets in a short time that they did not compose out of wisdom, but from an instinct and an inspiration (évovolášovtes) like seers and prophets." Plutarch, Cato Major, 22: "He put a spell upon young men, under which they give up other pleasures and amusements, and are possessed by philosophy” (ενθουσιῶσι).] selves. Nor can we, of our own accord, forbear ascribing to a noble enthusiasm1 whatever is greatly performed by any of these. So that almost all of us know something of this principle. But to know it as we should do, and discern it in its several kinds, both in ourselves and others; this is the great work, and by this means alone we can hope to avoid delusion. For to judge x the spirits whether they are of God, we must antecedently judge our own spirit, whether it be of reason and sound sense; whether it be fit to judge at all, by being sedate, cool, and impartial, free of every biassing passion, every giddy vapour, or melancholy fume. This is the first knowledge and previous judgment: "To understand ourselves, and know what spirit we are of." Afterwards we may judge the spirit in others, consider what their personal merit is, and prove the validity of their testimony by the solidity of their brain. By this means we may prepare ourselves with some antidote against enthusiasm. And this is what I have dared affirm is best performed by keeping to good-humour. For otherwise the remedy itself may turn to the disease. And now, my lord, having, after all, in some measure justified enthusiasm, and owned the word, if I appear extravagant in addressing to you after the manner I have done, you must allow me to plead an impulse. You must suppose me (as with truth you may) most passionately yours; and with that kindness which is natural to you on other occasions, you must tolerate your enthusiastic friend, who, excepting only in the case of this overforward zeal, must ever appear, with the highest respect, my lord, Your Lordship's, etc. 1 Of this passion, in the nobler and higher sense, see more [hereinafter] in the Inquiry Concerning Virtue, bk. i. part iii. § 3, end; Moralists, part iii. § 2; Miscellaneous Reflections, Misc. ii. ch. i. 2 [Compare the more extended argument of Locke, Essay, bk. iv. ch. xix., which is here condensed.] |