But,

mother, sisters, brothers, and friends are felt as interfering distractions; for sensitiveness and narrowness, when they occur together, as they often do, require above all things a simplified world to dwell in. Variety and confusion are too much for their powers of comfortable adaptation. whereas your aggressive pietist (fanatic) reaches his unity objectively, by forcibly stamping disorder and divergence out, your retiring pietist (mystic) reaches his subjectively, leaving disorder in the world at large, but making a smaller world in which he dwells himself and from which he eliminates it altogether. Thus, alongside of the church militant with its prisons, dragonades, and inquisition methods, we have the church fugient, as one might call it, with its hermitages, monasteries, and sectarian organizations, both churches pursuing the same object-to unify the life, and simplify the spectacle presented to the soul. "1

It is the instinct of self-preservation, then, that makes the fanatic cruel and partisan. He must have uniformity, simplicity, and order; an environment to which he can easily adapt himself, or else perish. "The (normal) religious man," says Murisier, "ordinarily lives a double life, an interior and exterior. He feels and acts, meditates, worships, and attends to his daily work; without experiencing the least difficulty in reconciling these diverse activities. He passes easily from one to the other, or evenc ombines and identifies them." 2 In other words the normally religious man adapts himself readily to an ever-changing environment. The abnormally religious man, however, the narrow-minded fanatic or mystic, finds himself, under such conditions, confused, uncertain, unhappy, divided and disaggregated, so to speak. Two courses are open to him. He may find mental peace and poise, and union with God by either renouncing himself and engaging in some kind of absorbing work, preferably religious work, or he may renounce the world and find peace and union with God in his own inner self by contemplation and introspection. The former course is pursued by fanatics, or those abnormals who belong to the active, mobile type of individuals; the latter by mystics or those abnormals who belong to the passive, contemplative type.

1 Ibid., pp. 348-349.

2 Les Maladies du Sentiment Relgieuse.

A certain Pogatzki, cited by Murisier, said that he always saw visions of the devil and never of God, when he was idle or in contemplation, but whenever he was occupied and overcoming obstacles he experienced great joy and peace of mind.

Finney, the revivalist, tells of an acquaintance of his who secluded himself for seventeen days praying to God continuously, as if he would force Him to come to terms, but his efforts were unsuccessful. He then determined to go forth into the world and work for the Kingdom of God, and immediately he felt the Divine Spirit in his soul and experienced a great and unalloyed happiness.

Again, an American Presbyterian minister writes: "I have suffered all the horrors of profound melancholia. Thoughts of blasphemy which I cannot allow myself to repeat, temptations which I dare not mention flitted across. my mind without my wishing it and without being able to repress them. My poor soul, powerless against them was their plaything. I often thought I heard Satan speaking to me, mocking and triumphing over me, asking: where is thy God now? These thoughts presented themselves to me so suddenly and with so much force and reality that I could not believe they were born in my mind; without a doubt Satan had received the power to humiliate me. In my anxiety, I often rolled on the floor of my study, passing whole hours there in despair. If it had been possible for me to do so I would have certainly renounced the ministry. But I was obliged to preach, and at the last moment I put myself to preparing my sermon with the feeling that this side of Hell it was not possible to be more unworthy and more wretched than I was. Once I had begun, however, my sermon interested me; I forgot myself in its preparation. Sunday I preached like an apostle and reclaimed my soul from death.1

In these three cases, typical of a very large class, we have individuals who, unlike the mystics, feel wretched and out of touch with God whenever they seclude themselves and have only their morbid thoughts and uncanny hallucinations for company, but are happy, contented, and reconciled with God as soon as they forget themselves in interesting and absorbing work which dispels their reveries, rests the brain,

1 Murisier: Les Maladies du Sentiment Religieuse, pp. 79-82.

and gives the muscles the exercise they so much need. The best kind of work is that which is done for and in a community. The social instinct is so strongly developed in the fanatic that he feels comfortable only when he is in close contact with his fellow men. The minister preached "with the fervor of an apostle" when he stood before his congregation, and even when he was engaged in preparing his sermon the thought of his congregation and the effect of his sermon upon them helped him to forget himself.

In no other field of activity, perhaps, can these needs of the fanatic be so well satisfied as in the religious, and that is the reason why so many individuals belonging to this type are religious leaders. Religion teaches self-sacrifice and brotherly love, offers rewards for suffering, thereby alleviating its pains, and what is of most importance, it uniformatizes the beliefs, acts, forms, ceremonies, emotions and sentiments among the different members of a community, thus creating a uniform and stable social environment.

A celebrated passage from Bossuet will serve to partially illustrate this fact.

1

"How grand is the Roman Church, sustaining all the churches, bearing the burden of all who suffer, preserving the Unity. Holy Roman Church, mother of churches and of all the faithful, the Church chosen by God to unite His children in the same faith and love, we will always hold to thy unity, etc." Objective or social unity and permanency are the fanatic's prerequisites for subjective stability. The truth of this fact is further borne out by the history of the long and bitter warfare of the church against science, or as the churchmen preferred to call it, heresy.' heresy.' Heresy is an unpardonable crime in the eyes of the fanatic. New thought, new changes upset him immediately and render him not unfrequently mentally unbalanced for life. If he does regain his equilibrium it is at the cost of greatest effort. This is the reason he endeavors to exterminate originality, his most dangerous enemy. Heresy, to him, is a gangrene which spreads farther and farther. He must either extirpate it or be killed by it, and instinctively he pursues the former

course.

Prof. James has given the name 'neophobia' to this frame of mind. "The baiting of the Jews, the hunting of Albi

1 Murisier: op. cit., p. 106.

genses and Waldenses, the stoning of Quakers and ducking of Methodists, the murdering of Mormons, and the massacring of Armenians, express much rather that aboriginal human neophobia, that pugnacity of which we all share the vestiges, and that inborn hatred of the alien and of the eccentric and non-conforming men as aliens, than they express the positive piety of the various perpetrators."

1

Socrates, Bruno, and the host of other noble martyrs were from this point of view justly put to death. Indeed, this is the defence commonly offered by the Jews for the Crucifixion of Christ.

But it should he remembered that this neophobia and inborn hatred of the alien and eccentric is not at any time equally strong in all individuals. Indeed, there are some who, as we have seen, have what might be called a neomania; who greedily snatch up every new fad and idea, and are ever changing in their religious alliances. Again, there are others, broad and liberal minded, who are neither neophobiacs nor neomaniacs, but who calmly judge men and doctrines at what seems to them, at least, their true value. It is chiefly in fanatics that this neophobia is most strongly developed for reasons which we have already noted.

The Christian Church, like all other organizations whose existence depend on uniformity and obedience, attempted to regulate and uniformatize the conduct of its adherents. few centuries ago this mania was carried to a ridiculous extreme, and we have such absurdities as "The Beard from the Christian Point of View," a book written to instruct Christians how to wear their beards. The church has frequently excommunicated those who accepted her teachings but rejected her sacerdotalism and ritualism, and she has just as often been satisfied with a purely formal conformity-with a mere attitude or gesture.2

As an institution the Church is even more dependent on external conformity than acceptance of particular doctrines or dogmas, for no matter what men believe, so long as they outwardly conform to the rules and ceremonies of the Church they help to preserve its social unity and stability. The fanatic, who realizes this more clearly than others, always regards attempts to turn aside from established customs as a revolt against society and against God. Views which seem

1 Varieties, etc., p. 338.

2 Murisier: op. cit., p. 111.

66

to the ordinary man to be perfectly rational and harmless are offensive to him, if for no other reason than that they introduce newness and diversity in his environment. He becomes a persecutor for the same reason that the mystic becomes an ascetic. "Persecution," writes Murisier, with its many ways, coarse or refined, plays in the collective life the same rôle that asceticism plays in the individual life. Just as asceticism seeks to exclude from consciousness conflicting tendencies and annoying images, persecution seeks to exclude from society peculiar or private views and discordant whims." 1

A brief sketch of the character and work of John Calvin, one of the great leaders of the Reformation, will serve as a concrete example of fanaticism. Although the son of a moderately wealthy and influential father, and independent at the age of thirteen, he never had the desire to seek those pleasures which are so attractive to a young man in his station of life. On the contrary, during his early years at Paris he was rigorously abstinent in his living and very zealous in his studies. He was a reformer in spirit before he was through with his Latin Grammar, and so out of sympathy with even the innocent frivolities of boyhood that his companions surnamed him the "Accusative Case," a very expressive and appropriate sobriquet which fitted him all during his life. He was possessed of a very clear and logical mind that could easily penetrate beneath the surface of things, and like many strong characters, had no patience with stupidity and could not brook difference of opinion.

"A mind," writes Renan, delicate and free from passion, critical of itself, perceives the weak points in its own armor, and is constrained at times to embrace the views of adversaries. The man, on the other hand, who is passionate and absolute in his opinions, barely identifies his cause with that of God, and proceeds with the audacity which is the natural offspring of this assurance. The world belongs to him, and justly, for the world is only impelled forward by strong minds; but delicacy of thought is denied to him; he never sees the truth in its purity; self-deceived, he dies without attaining to wisdom. The mighty men of the world have been those who have never wavered nor stopped to doubt and reflect, but who have felt a cataleptic certainty

1 Op. cit., p. 126.