"Of Superstition and Enthusiasm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

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Copyright 1995, Christopher MacLachlan ([email protected]). See
end note for details on copyright and editing conventions.[1]

Editor's note: "Of Superstition and Enthusiasm" appeared in 1741 in
the first volume of Hume's Essays, Moral and Political. The text file
here is based on the 1875 Green and Grose edition. Spelling and
punctuation have been modernized.

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Of Superstition and Enthusiasm

That the corruption of the best things produces the worst, is
grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other
instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and
enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.

These two species of false religion, though both pernicious,
are yet of a very different, and even of a contrary nature.
The mind of man is subject to certain unaccountable terrors
and apprehensions, proceeding either from the unhappy
situation of private or public affairs, from ill health, from
a gloomy and melancholy disposition, or from the concurrence
of all these circumstances. In such a state of mind, infinite
unknown evils are dreaded from unknown agents; and where real
objects of terror are wanting, the soul, active to its own
prejudice, and fostering its predominant inclination, finds
imaginary ones, to whose power and malevolence it sets no
limits. As these enemies are entirely invisible and unknown,
the methods taken to appease them are equally unaccountable,
and consist in ceremonies, observances, mortifications,
sacrifices, presents, or in any practice, however absurd or
frivolous, which either folly or knavery recommends to a blind
and terrified credulity. Weakness, fear, melancholy, together
with ignorance, are, therefore, the true sources of
Superstition.

But the mind of man is also subject to an unaccountable
elevation and presumption, arising from prosperous success,
from luxuriant health, from strong spirits, or from a bold and
confident disposition. In such a state of mind, the
imagination swells with great, but confused conceptions, to
which no sublunary beauties or enjoyments can correspond.
Every thing mortal and perishable vanishes as unworthy of
attention. And a full range is given to the fancy in the
invisible regions or world of spirits, where the soul is at