Natural History of Enthusiasm

by Isaac Taylor

Superstition—the creature of guilt and fear—is an evil almost as ancient as the human family. But Enthusiasm—the child of hope—hardly appeared on earth until after the time when life and immortality had been brought to light by Christianity. Hitherto, a cloud of the thickest gloom had stretched itself out before the eye of man as he trod the sad path to the grave; and though poetry supplied its fictions, and philosophy its surmises, the one possessed little force, and the other could claim no authentication; neither, therefore, had power to awaken the soul. But the Christian revelation not only shed a sudden splendor upon the awful futurity, but brought its revelations to bear upon the minds of men, with all the pressure and intensity of palpable facts. The long slumbering sentiment of immortal hope—a sentiment natural to the human constitution, and chief among its passions—instead of being deluded, as heretofore, by dreams, was thoroughly aroused by the hand and voice of reality; and human nature exhibited a new development of the higher faculties. When therefore, in the second century of the Christian era, various and vigorous forms of an enthusiasm, such as the world had hitherto never known, are seen to start forth on the stage of history, we behold the indications of the presence of Truth, giving an impulse to the human mind both for the better and the worse, which no fictions of sages or poets had ever imparted.

In proportion as the influence of scriptural religion faded, the elder and the younger vice—Superstition and Enthusiasm, joined their forces to deform every principle and practice of Christianity, and in the course of four or five centuries, under their united operations, a faint semblance only of its primeval beauty survived; another period of five hundred years saw Superstition prevail, almost to the extinction, not only of true religion, but of Enthusiasm also; and mankind fell back into a gloom as thick as that of the ancient polytheism. But at length the breath of life returned to the prostrate church, and the accumulated and consolidated evils of many ages were thrown off in a day. Yet as Superstition more than Enthusiasm had spoiled Christianity, she chiefly was recognized as the enemy of religion; and the latter, rather than the former, was allowed to hold a place in the sanctuary after its cleansing. Since that happy period of refreshment and renovation, both vices have had their seasons of recovered influence; but both have been held in check, and their prevalence prevented. At the present time (1828)—we speak of protestant Christendom—the power of superstition is exceedingly small; for the diffusion of general knowledge, and the prevalence of true religion, and not less the influence of the infidel spirit, forbid the advances of an error which must always lean for support on ignorance and fear. Nor, on the other hand, can it be fairly affirmed that ours is eminently or conspicuously an age of religious enthusiasm. Yet, as there are superstitions which still maintain a feeble existence under favor of the respect naturally paid to antiquity, so are there also among us enthusiastic principles and practices, which, having been generated in a period of greater excitement than our own, are preserved as they were received from the fathers; and seem to be in safe course of transmission to the next generation.

But even if it should appear that—excepting individual instances of constitutional extravagance, which it would be absurd, because useless, to make the subject of serious animadversion—enthusiasm is not now justly chargeable upon any body of Christians, there would still be a very sufficient reason for attempting to fix the true import of the term, so long as it is vaguely and contumeliously applied by many to every degree of fervor in religion which seems to condemn their own indifference. Not, indeed, as if there were ground to hope that even the most exact and unexceptionable analysis, or the clearest definitions, would ever avail so to distinguish genuine from spurious piety as should compel irreligious men to acknowledge that the difference is real; for such persons feel it to be indispensable to the slumber of conscience to confound the one with the other; and although a thousand times refuted, they will again, when pressed by truth and reason, run to the old and crazy sophism which pretends that, because Christianity is sometimes disfigured by enthusiasts and fanatics, therefore there is neither retribution nor immortality for man. It is the infatuation of persons of a certain character, to live always at variance with wisdom, on account of other men's follies; and this is the deplorable error of those who will see nothing in religion but its corruptions. Nevertheless Truth owes always a vindication of herself to her friends, if not to her enemies; and her sincere friends will not wish to screen their own errors, when this vindication requires them to be exposed.

If, as is implied in some common modes of speaking, enthusiasm were only an error in degree, or a mere fault by excess, then the attempt to establish a definite distinction between what is blameworthy and what is commendable in the religious affections—between the maximum and minimum of emotion which sobriety approves, must be both hopeless and fruitless; inasmuch as we should need a scale adapted to every man's constitution; for the very same amount of fervor which may be only natural and proper to one mind, could not be attained by another without delirium or insanity. If this notion were just, every one would be entitled to repel the charge of either apathy or enthusiasm; and while one might maintain, that if he were to admit into his bosom a single degree more of religious fervor than he actually feels, he should become an enthusiast, another might offer an equally reasonable apology for the wildest extravagances. At this rate the real offenders against sober piety could never be convicted of their fault; and in allowing such a principle we should only authenticate the scorn with which indifference loves to look upon sincerity.

That the error of the enthusiast does not consist in an excess merely of the religious emotions, might be argued conclusively on the ground that the Scriptures, our only safe guide on such points, while they are replete with the language of impassioned devotion, and while they contain a multitude of urgent and explicit exhortations, tending to stimulate the fervency of prayer, offer no cautions against any such supposed excesses of piety.

But, as matter of fact, nothing is more common than to meet with religionists whose opinions and language are manifestly deformed by enthusiasm, while their devotional feelings are barely tepid: languor, relaxation, apathy, not less than extravagance, characterize their style of piety; and it were quite a ludicrous mistake to warn such persons of the danger of being "religious overmuch." Yet it must be granted that those extremes, in matters of opinion or practice, which sometimes render even torpor conspicuous by its absurdities, have always originated with minds susceptible of high excitement. Enthusiasm, in a concrete form, is the child of vivacious temperaments; but when once produced, it spreads almost as readily through inert, as through active masses, and shows itself to be altogether separable from the ardor or turbulence whence it sprang.

To depict the character of those who are enthusiasts by physical temperament is then a matter of much less importance than to define the errors which such persons propagate; for, in the first place, the originators of enthusiasm are few, and the parties infected by it many; and, in the second, the evil with the latter is incidental, and therefore may be remedied; while with the former, as it is constitutional, it is hardly in any degree susceptible of correction.

The examination of a few principal points will make it evident that a very intelligible distinction may, without difficulty, be established between what is genuine and what is spurious in religious feeling; and when an object so important is before us, we ought not to heed the injudicious, and perhaps sinister, delicacy of some persons who had rather that truth should remain forever sullied by corruptions, and exposed to the contempt of worldlings, than that themselves should be disturbed in their narrow and long-cherished modes of thinking. And yet there may be some lesser misconceptions, perhaps, which it will be more wise to leave untouched than to attempt to correct them at the cost of breaking up habits of thought and modes of speaking connected indissolubly with truths of vital importance. It should also be granted, that, when those explanations or illustrations of momentous doctrines which an exposure of the error of the enthusiast may lead us to propound seem at all to endanger the simplicity of our reliance upon the inartificial declarations of Scripture, they are much better abandoned at once, although in themselves, perhaps, justifiable, than maintained; if in doing so we are seduced from the direct light of revelation into the dim regions of philosophical abstraction.

Christianity has in some short periods of its history been entirely dissociated from philosophical modes of thought and expression; and assuredly it has prospered in such periods. At other times it has scarcely been seen at all, except in the garb of metaphysical discussion, and then it has lost all its vigor and glory. In the present state of the world the primitive insulation of religious truth from the philosophical style is scarcely practicable; nor indeed does it seem so desirable while, happily, we are in no danger of seeing the light of revelation again immured in colleges. But although it is inevitable, and perhaps not to be regretted, that religious subjects, both doctrinal and practical, should, especially in books, admit such generalities, every sober-minded writer will remember that it is not by an intrinsic and permanent necessity, but by a temporary concession to the spirit of the age, that this style is used and allowed. He will moreover bear in mind that the concession leans towards a side of danger, and will therefore always hold himself ready to break off from even the most pleasing or plausible speculation when his Christian instincts, if the phrase may be permitted, give him warning that he is going remote from the vital atmosphere of scriptural truth. Whatever is practically important in religion or morals, may at all times be advanced and argued in the simplest terms of colloquial expression. From the pulpit, perhaps, no other style should at any time be heard; for the pulpit belongs to the poor and to the uninstructed. But the press is not bound by the same conditions, for it is an instrument of knowledge foreign to the authenticated means of Christian instruction. A writer and a layman is no recognized functionary in the Church; he may, therefore, choose his style without violating any rules or proprieties of office.