Every distemper of our minds is truly base and ignoble; yet some passions are accompanied with a sort of levity,
that makes men appear gay, prompt, and erect; but none,
we may say, are wholly destitute of force for action. But
the common charge upon all sorts of passions is, that they
excite and urge the reason, forcing it by their violent stings.
Fear alone, being equally destitute of reason and audacity,
renders our whole irrational part stupid, distracted, and unserviceable. Therefore it is called
δεῖμα because it
binds,
and
τάρβος because it
distracts the mind.
1 But of all fears,
none so dozes and confounds as that of superstition. He
fears not the sea that never goes to sea; nor a battle, that
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follows not the camp; nor robbers, that stirs not abroad;
nor malicious informers, that is a poor man; nor emulation,
that leads a private life; nor earthquakes, that dwells in
Gaul; nor thunderbolts, that dwells in Ethiopia: but he
that dreads divine powers dreads every thing, the land, the
sea, the air, the sky, the dark, the light, a sound, a silence,
a dream. Even slaves forget their masters in their sleep;
sleep lightens the irons of the fettered; their angry sores,
mortified gangrenes, and pinching pains allow them some
intermission at night.
Dear sleep, sweet easer of my irksome grief,
Pleasant thou art! how welcome thy relief!
2
Superstition will not permit a man to say this. That
alone will give no truce at night, nor suffer the poor soul
so much as to breathe or look up, or respite her sour and
dismal thoughts of God a moment; but raises in the sleep
of the superstitious, as in the place of the damned, certain
prodigious forms and ghastly spectres, and perpetually
tortures the unhappy soul, chasing her out of sleep into
dreams, lashed and tormented by her own self, as by some
other, and charged by herself with dire and portentous
injunctions. Neither have they, when awake, enough sense
to slight and smile at all this, or to be pleased with the
thought that nothing of all that terrified them was real;
but they still fear an empty shadow, that could never mean
them any ill, and cheat themselves afresh at noonday, and
keep a bustle, and are at expense upon the next fortuneteller or vagrant that shall but tell them:—
If in a dream hobgoblin thou hast seen,
Or felt'st the rambling guards o' th' Fairy Queen,
send for some old witch who can purify thee, go dip thyself in the sea, and then sit down upon the bare ground the
rest of the day.
O that our Greeks should found such barbarous rites,
3
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as tumbling in mire, rolling themselves in dunghills, keeping of Sabbaths, monstrous prostrations, long and obstinate
sittings in a place, and vile and abject adorations, and all
for vain superstition! They that were careful to preserve
good singing used to direct the practisers of that science to
sing with their mouths in their true and proper postures.
Should not we then admonish those that would address
themselves to the heavenly powers to do that also with a
true and natural mouth, lest, while we are so solicitous that
the tongue of a sacrifice be pure and right, we distort and
abuse our own with silly and canting language, and thereby expose the dignity of our divine and ancient piety to
contempt and raillery? It was not unpleasantly said somewhere by the comedian to those that adorned their beds with
the needless ornaments of silver and gold: Since the Gods
have given us nothing gratis except sleep, why will you
make that so costly? It might as well be said to the
superstitious bigot: Since the Gods have bestowed sleep on
us, to the intent we may take some rest and forget our
sorrows, why will you needs make it a continual irksome
tormentor, when you know your poor soul hath ne'er
another sleep to betake herself to? Heraclitus saith: They
who are awake have a world in common amongst them; but
they that are asleep are retired each to his own private
world. But the frightful visionary hath ne'er a world at
all, either in common with others or in private to himself;
for neither can he use his reason when awake, nor be free
from his fears when asleep; but he hath his reason always
asleep, and his fears always awake; nor hath he either an
hiding-place or refuge.
