John's dancers.
6. Similar fanatical sects exhibit among all nations of ancient
and modern times the same phenomena. An overstrained bigotry is
in itself, and considered in a medical point of view, a
destructive irritation of the senses, which draws men away from
the efficiency of mental freedom, and peculiarly favours the most
injurious emotions. Sensual ebullitions, with strong convulsions
of the nerves, appear sooner or later, and insanity, suicidal
disgust of life, and incurable nervous disorders, are but too
frequently the consequences of a perverse, and, indeed,
hypocritical zeal, which has ever prevailed, as well in the
assemblies of the Maenades and Corybantes of antiquity as under
the semblance of religion among the Christians and Mahomedans.
There are some denominations of English Methodists which surpass,
if possible, the French Convulsionnaires; and we may here mention
in particular the Jumpers, among whom it is still more difficult
than in the example given above to draw the line between religious
ecstasy and a perfect disorder of the nerves; sympathy, however,
operates perhaps more perniciously on them than on other fanatical
assemblies.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211