EFFECT OF TIMES OF EXCITEMENT ON THE MANNERS AND MORALS OF A COMMUNITY.

HOWEVER strange the assertion may at first sight seem to be, the fact is certain, that the existence in the mind of an individual, of what he supposes to be a great object---either religious or political---often has the effect of giving a perverted character to his modes of action---and an unnatural tone to all the affections and sentiments of his heart.

Thus, take a man whose mind has been---from any cause--either private meditation erroneously conducted, or the influence of general taste---exalted into an overstrained tone of religious enthusiasm---previously he was, it may be, a person of kindly disposition---and of most acceptable manners in all companies into which he might have occasion to enter the affections of his heart flowed spontaneously in their natural channels---and he set a due value on all the proprieties and courtesies and natural feelings of human life. But how often do we perceive all this changed in such an individual, from the moment when the enthusiastic or fanatical religious feeling has taken possession of his mind -he no longer associates with the companions whom previously he had most valued, even when there has been nothing in their style of conduct that could justly give him offence---except the difference between their sentiments and his own respecting what he now regards as the chief concern of all rational creatures--he is less careful to make himself agreeable to his family, or to his neighbourhood-he shuts up the fountains of natural feeling in his heart---and in all this he seems to himself to perceive nothing that is wrong but the reverse, because from his erroneous notions of the purpose at which religion was intended to aim, he considers the cultivation of the ordinary proprieties and amiabilities of life, as out of the sphere of her operation-which he supposes to be occupied with things quite different from those which constitute

to other men the chief interest and charm of existence. In this way his manners undergo a melancholy change-and all his natural affections assume a perverted and erroneous character. We do not say that this is invariably the case, when strong religious impressions have been made upon the mind---but the fact is sufficiently common to justify the description we have now given.

And the same thing may be said of political enthusiasm—or the conception of something greater and better to which society may attain, than any thing which it exhibits in its actual acquirements or institutions. The existence of this idea in any mind is apt to be accompanied with a disregard of those ordinary objects that had formerly most interested and pleased it---such a person sets little value on the common offices and proprieties of life, because he is actuated by the supposition that there are things far above these, to which all the powers of his mind and all the affections of his heart ought to be directed---and he permits himself to indulge in many acts of presumption and of rudeness towards those who think not as he thinks---or who see not objects as he sees them, which before the enthusiastic feeling obtained the mas tery of him, he would have regarded as unpardonable acts of folly and of crime.

In both the cases now noticed, the solution to be given of the phenomenon in question is the same-the religious enthusiast has learnt to disregard the common actions and affections of men, as things far inferior to the purpose which chiefly actuates his heart-or rather as altogether different in kind from it—and having this erroneous impression of what constitutes his true duty, he cannot but feel an abatement of the attention he had formerly bestowed on all interests merely human, when these were regarded by him as the most important concerns with which he had to occupy himself. And, in the same manner, it is because the political fanatic has imbibed the notion that men and their institutions have hitherto proceeded in a wrong course, that he proceeds to treat all their affairs with contempt—and to permit both his habitual modes of acting, and his ordinary flow of feeling, to assume a character which all other men consider to be unsuitable and perverse-but which he regards as symptomatic of the high and pure feeling by which he has learnt to be actuated.

Now, what is true of individuals, becomes true of whole communities, when zeal, either religious or political, has risen to an undue height, and has assumed a character which is not suited to the ordinary ongoings of life. In such times the whole manners of the community become changed-all their usual affections and regards are perverted and abated-and folly and presumption are sheltered under the guise of great zeal and high principle.

In a word, human life is only happy when the affectionswhether of individuals or of masses of men---are directed to moderate and proper purposes-and when, as a consequence of this, the tone of manners is natural-and quiet-and unobtrusive. And hence the fact, that times of national excitement, either religious or political, have always been times in which there has been a notorious alteration of manners for the worse-even when the feeling which actuated the community has been upon the whole of a praiseworthy kind, and has only derived its power of perverting the character and manners of men from the undue degree of excitement to which it had given occasion-and from the consequent abatement of those quiet and natural trains of thought and feeling, on the indulgence of which the true good and most perfect happiness of human life is mainly dependent.

2. But manners are not the only things that suffer in such times ---understanding by manners, the mere outward aspect which human life, either in individual specimens, or on the general scale, exhibits--for the morals of a community have always, in such periods, undergone a similar perversion-and nothing is better known to all students of history, or observers of human life, than that vice and crime, in all their varieties, have often kept pace with the progress of illumination and have frightfully prevailed during those times when men professed to be most busied with giving to human society its most perfect and enduring forms.

For there are always, in the first place, a multitude of persons— in the most influential and elevated ranks of life-who are so occupied with the great interests that are then at issue-and so entirely under the dominion of the sentiments which these interests awaken, that they are little scrupulous about any means

which promise the ultimate attainment of the purposes, to which, as a party, they have pledged themselves and hence they allow themselves to go into practices-under a belief that the fancied goodness of the end will justify the means---which, if their minds had been in their usual and less excited state, they would only have regarded with scorn and indignation.

Then, if we descend from this high rank of life to the great body of the people who constitute the middle classes—and who are then called into active concern respecting the affairs of the community—what we shall invariably find in such times, is, that the great mass of this section of the people being chiefly intent on their private interest-and feeling but a slight regard for more public arrangements, except in so far as their private welfare may be promoted, never hesitate to make their lines of conduct coincident with the prevailing feeling of their hearts and thus, under the pretence of a regard for public good, are all the while studying only what may best forward the interest of their trade or their merchandise. Those who have seen the effect produced on this portion of the community by the extension of the political franchise, cannot doubt the truth of what is now stated—and it is as little to be questioned that honourable and upright feelings are thus attacked in their very essence---by a measure which professes to have only in view, the elevation of the people into a higher and purer strain of public sentiment and conduct.

And if we descend still lower in the scale of society, there are at all times among its lowest members many desperate persons who take occasion, from the wrench which has been given to all authority, to justify themselves in an increased contempt for all moral precept—because they are willing to believe that its foundations are as liable to question as any thing else which the community has agreed to subject to doubt and who, under this belief, proceed to the commission of crimes which, in times of greater quiet, they would neither have had the inclination nor the opportunity of committing.

So that morals, thus being unhinged throughout all the gradations of society, times of excitement-even when that excitement professes to be founded on a regard for higher forms of life and manners, have almost in every instance been times of unbounded and most audacious licentiousness.

"Revolutions," says Chateaubriand, "commit ravages in their course, like the poisonous streams, which cause the flowers to wither as they flow along. The eye of the law is closed during the convulsions of a state-and no longer watches over the citizen, who yields to his passions, and plunges into immorality. It requires years, and sometimes ages, to purify such a nation."

When knowledge and corruption have thus kept pace-that is, when the notions of men have outstripped the established institutions of society-and when, at the same time, vice has assumed forms, amidst all this general illumination, which ruder and less informed times would have rejected with horror, the crisis of a nation's fate is at hand-and it must either be swept from the list of kingdoms-or pass through one of those transition states, which purify morals commonly by the affliction of great, and unexpected, and long continued distresses." The point to which we should hold," says the author already quoted, "is a nation's morals, for that is the key that opens the secret book of fate. If I seem often to allude to morals, it is because they are the centre round which political worlds revolve. It is in vain that the latter attempt to extricate themselves from the influence of the former. They are compelled to describe their course round this point or must fall, when detached from the common focus of attraction, into the unfathomable void."

The preceding note may, in one view, be regarded as a comment on the pithy and well known lines of Dryden—

"Away, ye scum,

Which still comes upmost when the nation boils."