THE

MONTHLY MISCELLANY.

VOL. IX.

OCTOBER, 1843.

NO. 4.

FANATICISM.

How shall we define a fanatic? The lexicographers tell us, it is

a man mad with wild notions." The definition is loose, but it may serve our purpose at least for remark. It conveys probably the common understanding of the term, as well as any form of words would. Let us apply it.

One class to which it belongs may consist of those whose opinions are so hastily formed, or unreasonably held, that they easily break forth into bold assertions and violent action. And this is a large class. Paul was such a fanatic before his conversion, and was accused of being also a fanatic after his conversion. He says himself that he was "mad" in persecuting the Christians, and Festus said he was "mad " in defending Christianity. What was the difference? In the first case he acted without knowledge of the facts, and without moderation-from mere prejudice and passion. In the other case he acted with full knowledge, not hastily, but upon clear conviction and principle, giving three years to the study of the new religion. He acted with unyielding firmness and ardor, but with entire self-possession and respect for others. There may have been as much conscientiousness first as last; from his own account there must have been. But conscience had

not been enlightened, and all passion subjected to a religion of calm truth and wide charity.

From his day to ours all zealous partisans, especially leaders of reform, have been called by the multitude fanatics. The first Christians were called fanatics; they threw away their property and lives for a mere faith. Their persecutors assuredly were fanatics; they listened to no reason and regarded no principle of humanity. The disciples of "Mother Church," all Catholics, are fanatics; their ceremonies and Confessions, their superstition, Crusades, convents and Inquisition, are the very monuments of wild notions and mad zeal. And their opposers, the daring and ruthless Reformers, were not they fanatics? So of all the sections of the Protestant Church. Every one has to bear the opprobrium of fanaticism; and every one has fixed it upon some, if not many, others. The Puritans, the Calvinists, the Quakers, the Baptists, the Methodists, all have incurred the charge at some period of their history. If any Church has wholly escaped the imputation, it may be our We are not aware that Unitarians, as such, have ever been called fanatics. And the fact, important or unimportant, may help us to arrive at the usual acceptation of the term. For we know of nothing that should exempt this class of Christians from the universal charge, except that they never insist upon their opinions as the only opinions that can save the world, they never attempt to force their way, nor condemn those who differ from them. It cannot be said that they have not peculiar opinions, nor that they do not hold them firmly, nor that they do not carry them to some extremes. It cannot be said, at the present time certainly, that they do not labor to extend their faith, by associations, tracts, missions, and various publications and agencies. The great difference seems to be, that they do not make this faith indispensable, do not by word or deed become violent in its promotion, nor give themselves in any way to the persecution or condemnation of other modes of faith, or any class of believers, nor yet of unbelievers.

own.

The common view of fanaticism then appears to involve and mainly rest upon the idea of some kind of vehement action, some agitation, opposition, persecution, or interference with others' opinions and rights. It is not what a man believes; he may believe what he pleases, if he will say nothing about it. He is not called

a fanatic, unless he so express or urge his belief, as to infringe upon the right of opinion in others, or disturb the peace of the community. All who are factious and noisy, all who set themselves up against others professedly or apparently, are marked as fanatics. Not that they are the only fanatics. For by an easy extension of this definition, and a natural application of such a principle, they also receive the opprobrious name, who advocate any opinions in such a way as to interrupt the settled feelings, change the common relations, or threaten the present interests of any large portion of society.

Now in this, any one sees, there is a mixture of truth and error. There is some justice in such a rule theoretically, and great danger of injustice practically. It may be just to call him "mad," who makes his own notions the infallible test of another man's sanity. It may be just to mark as fanatics, those who are intolerant in opinion, hasty and clamorous in judgment, or turbulent in measures; those also who deny to others the freedom which they claim, the liberty of acting or not acting as they please; those who urge their doctrines, and push their schemes, regardless of all relations, reckless of all consequences, not even taking relations and consequences into account in determining upon right or duty. But here is the danger of injustice, on the other part. We may ascribe to such actors, or to any public actors, motives which do not exist or influence at all their principles of action. We may call them regardless of relations and reckless of consequences, because we are standing in relations which their opinions oppose, and may fear the consequences of their success in injured property or injured pride. All men, as all men know, may be so warped by prejudice or interest, as to judge partially and unjustly, however unintentionally, of those actors and thinkers, who, if right, will prove them wrong. Thus it has always happened, and always will happen, that innovation, all reform, is branded by some as fanaticism, because all reform interferes with some settled feelings, relations, and interests.

This, therefore, is not a safe rule. Wherever it is adopted as a rule, and followed uniformly or obstinately, it has caused more evil than it has cured. Its tendency is to curb inquiry, encroach upon liberty, and bar all improvement. It leaves every thing to

every man's blindest passion, his interest, governed, and often maddened by that low yet strong principle, prejudice. In its worst form, it has been itself one of the most violent persecutors and oppressors of the human race. Not religion alone, but every subject, not the church only, but all departments of human enterprise and social or moral progress, have suffered from it. Few names are there among the lights and benefactors of the world, that have not been obscured, if not distorted, for a time by this noxious vapor, generated by men's prejudices and selfishness. Were it not so trite a story as to be to many offensive, it would be easy to give a long list of the great and good of every age and every province, who have been called innovators, agitators, fanatics, heretics, madmen; and so called, not from even a pretended knowledge or calm investigation of their modes of opinion or action, but because these modes interfered with established systems, and if allowed to be true and to prevail, would impair extended claims and numerous interests.

It is obvious indeed from the history of the world, and from every one's knowledge of human nature, that the vague charge of fanaticism is childish, and its ordinary use wholly indefinite. The name of fanatic may be, as it has been, the highest credit instead of disgrace. The fact of interference or partial injury, the fact even of commotion and revolution, is not to define to us fanaticism. This may be only the conflict of truth with error, the interference of justice with injustice, the revolution of opinion on the high paths of improvement, the progress of light dispersing darkness.

Again, we may ask, will it define fanaticism to say it is visionary, wild in its opinions and impracticable in its schemes? It will in part. That which is clearly visionary, that which is hastily put forth and recklessly pursued, yet wholly fanciful, is clearly fanatical. That which is wild and impracticable is not to be shielded from reproach on account of its honesty. A madman may be honest, the worst fanatic may be perfectly sincere. They may propose to themselves great objects also, and dream of the noblest and largest results. But if it be attended with a spirit of defiance, and an utter disregard of facts, known laws, and all probabilities, neither its honesty nor its goodness should screen it from reproof.

At the same time it is to be remembered and fairly taken into the account, that to one order of minds most things seem improbable that are new and untried, and that some of the most wise, benevolent and successful enterprises have been called wild and deemed impracticable at first, and by many to the last. This is a truth and caution, which every day brings to us. Yet men pronounce as unhesitatingly and condemn as indiscriminately, as if this repeated experience read to them no lessons, and this merited. rebuke taught them no modesty or charity.

May not a just idea, I will not call it a definition of fanaticism, be drawn from this last consideration? It is the want of charity, want of modesty and of all moderation. It is bigotry, dogmatism, carried out in action. It is not merely extravagance of opinion, or eccentricity, but extravagant confidence in one's own opinion, and a wild conceit that we can bring others and all to this opinion, with a corresponding wildness and pertinacity of measures and exertions. The fanatic is one who forgets, if he ever knew, his own fallibility, and loses sight of his ignorance, and will not take counsel of experience, and disdains to be cautious, and is more ambitious to be thought bold than to prove useful, and is seldom easy unless acting or agitating upon some new and large and astounding project. In a word, Fanaticism is the opposite of Moderation, in opinion, speech and action, in the conceit of ourselves, and the treatment of others.

Moderation—it is one of the most unpopular, as it is one of the most uncommon of virtues. It would seem to be rare just in proportion to the demand for it and the need of it. It never was more wanted than now, and there never perhaps was less of it. Men not only find it difficult to be moderate when others are so far from it, they appear to think it allowable to be violent against violence, and fanatical in opposition to fanaticism, or on the other hand fanatical in opposition to coldness. They will not suffer others to be either dead or moderately alive, nor again will they suffer them to be very vehement. They will prevent it at all hazards, by whatever means may be necessary. They imagine themselves moderate, and show their moderation by vehemently forbidding others to go to any extreme, charging them, if they are cold, with having no interest, if they are warm, with having no principle.