Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, To My Lord ***** [collected in Characteristics]

London

Printed for J. Morphew

1708, 1714

"'Twas a sign that this Philosopher believ'd there was a good Stock of Visionary Spirit originally in Human Nature."

'Twas a sign that this Philosopher believ'd there was a good Stock of Visionary Spirit originally in Human Nature. He was so satisfy'd that Men were inclin'd to see Visions, that rather than they shou'd go without, he chose to make 'em to their hand. Notwithstanding he wou'd not allow the Principles of Religion to be natural, he was forc'd tacitly to allow there was a wondrous Disposition in Mankind towards supernatural Objects; and that if these Ideas were vain, they were yet in a manner innate, or such as Men were really born to, and cou'd hardly by any means avoid. From which Concession a Divine, methinks, might raise a good Argument against him, for the Truth as well as the Usefulness of Religion. But so it is: whether the matter of Apparition be true or false, the Symptoms are the same, and the Passion of equal force in the Person who is Vision-struck. The Lymphatici of the Latins were the Nympholepti of the Greeks. They were Persons said to have seen some Species of Divinity, as either some Rural Deity, or Nymph, which threw them into such Transports as overcame their Reason. The Extasys express'd themselves outwardly in Quakings, Tremblings, Tossings of the Head and Limbs, Agitations, and (as Livy calls them) Fanatical Throws or Convulsions, extemporary Prayer, Prophecy, Singing, and the like. All Nations have their Lymphaticks of some kind or another; and all Churches (Heathen as well as Christian) have had their Complaints against Fanaticism.
(pp. 49-50; pp. 25-6 in Klein)

Container::Stock

Reading; text from C-H Lion

At least 10 entries in ESTC (1708, 1711, 1714, 1733, 1744, 1751, 1757, 1758, 1773, 1790). Letter dated September, 1707; printed the following year.

See A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, To My Lord ***** (London: J. Morphew, 1708). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>

See also "A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>

Some text drawn from EEBO and ECCO, most from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]

07/09/2013