man's personal intelligence absolutely governed his behaviour, the empire of knowledge would indeed be much more firm than it is, because truth would take effect at all points of the surface of society, instead of touching only a few. But this not being the fact, whatever blind impulse awakens the passions of mankind affects all, individually, in a degree that bears little relation to the individual intelligence of each. The movements of a community when once excited, are far more passionate and less rational, than an estimate of its average intelligence might lead us to expect.

If it be so, it must happen that when once a turn is made in the general tendency of men's feelings when once a certain order of sentiment, or a certain course of conduct has come to be authenticated; if, for example, some dark, cruel, or profligate rule of policy is assented to as necessary or just, all men in particular, in yielding themselves to the stream of affairs, will plunge into it with an impetuosity proportioned to their personal intelligence and energy of mind. Every man in assenting to the general conclusion, because assented to by others, would strengthen himself and others, in the common purpose, by all those means of knowledge and powers of argument which he possessed. If the error or extravagance had been his own, exclusively, his faculty and furniture of mind would have been employed in defending himself from

the assaults of other men's good sense; and human nature does not, under such circumstances, often accumulate much force.-But the same faculties moving forward with the multitude, on a broad triumphant road, swell and expand and possess themselves of the full dominion of the soul.

At this present moment of general indifference the breaking forth of any species of fanaticism may seem highly improbable. We ought however to look beyond to-day and yesterday; we should survey the general face of history, and should inspect too the depths of the human heart, and calculate the power of its stronger passions. - Disbelief is the ephemeron of our times; but disbelief, far from being natural to man, can never be more than a reaction that comes on, as a faintness, after a season of credulity and superstition. And how soon may a revulsion take place! How soon, after the hour of exhaustion has gone by, may the pleasurable excitements of high belief and of unbounded confidence be eagerly courted!-courted by the vulgar in compliance with its relish of whatever is pungent and intense ;--courted by the noble as a means, or as a pretext of power;-courted by the frivolous as a relief from lassitude; and by the profound and thoughtful, as the proper element of minds of that order!

Whenever the turn of BELIEF shall come round

(we are not here speaking of a genuine religious faith) empassioned sentiments, of all kinds, will follow without delay: nor can any thing less than a revival of Christianity in its fullest. force then avail to ward off those excesses of fanaticism and intolerance, and spiritual arrogance which heretofore have raged in the world. The connexion of CREDULITY with VIRULENCE is deep seated in the principles of human nature, and it should not be deemed impertinent or unseasonable at any time to attempt to trace to its origin this order of sentiments, or to lay bare the fibres of its strength:-unless indeed, we will profess to think that man is no more what once he was.

SECTION II.

THE MEANING OF TERMS-RISE OF THE MALIGN

EMOTIONS.

EVERY term, whether popular or scientific, which may be employed to designate the affections or the individual dispositions of the human mind, is more or less indeterminate, and is liable to many loose and improper extensions of the sense which a strict definition might assign to it. This disadvantage-the irremediable grievance of intellectual philosophy, has its origin in the obscurity and intricacy of the subject; and is besides much aggravated by the changing fashions of speeeh, which neither observe scientific precision, nor are watched over with any care. Men speak not entirely as they think; but as they think and hear; and in what relates to things impalpable few either think or hear attentively. All ethical and religious phrases, and those psychological terms which derive their specific sense from the principles of religion, besides partaking fully of the abovenamed disparagements, common to intellectual

subjects, labour under a peculiar inconvenience, not shared by any others of that class. For if the mass of men are inaccurate and capricious in their mode of employing the abstruse portion of language, they entertain too often, in what relates to religion, certain capital errors-errors which ordinarily possess the force and activity of virulent prejudices, and which impart to their modes of speaking, not indistinctness indeed, but the vivid and positive colours of a strong delusion.

It is not the small minority of persons soundly informed in matters of religion, that gives law to the language of a country;-or even if it did, this class is not generally qualified, by habits or education, to fix and authenticate a philosophical nomenclature. From these peculiar disadvantages it inevitably follows that when, by giving attention to facts, we have obtained precise notions on subjects of this sort, or at least have approximated to truth, it will be found impracticable to adjust the result of our inquiries to the popular and established sense of any of the terms which may offer themselves to our option. The mass of mankind, besides their backwardness always to exchange a loose and vague, for a definite and restricted notion, do not fail to descry, in any definition that is at once philosophical and religious, some cause of offence.The new-sharpened phrase is felt to have an edge that wounds inveterate prejudice, and