aturated with
supernaturalism the social atmosphere and impressed its power upon the
public mind. It gave supernaturalism a new and longer lease of life, and
paved the way for other outbreaks, of a less general, but still of a
thoroughly epidemic character.

FOOTNOTES:

[164] See _The Psychology of Peoples_ and _The Crowd_.

[165] _Origin and Development of Religious Belief_, i. pp. 343-8.

[166] _History of European Morals_, ii. pp. 107-10. For a careful
description of the monastic discipline in its more normal aspects, see
Bingham's Works, vol. ii. bk. vi. Gibbon gives his usual brilliant
summary of the movement in chapter xxxvii. of the _Decline and Fall_. A
host of facts similar to those cited by Lecky will be found in _The Book
of Paradise_, 2 vols., trans. by Wallis Budge. Lea's _History of
Sacerdotal Celibacy_ gives the classical and authoritative account of
the moral consequences of the practice of celibacy. For a vivid picture
of the psychology of the ascetic, see Flaubert's great romance, _St.
Antony_.

[167] Cited by Lecky, ii. p. 131.

[168] Dean Milman, _Hist. of Latin Christianity_, ii. pp. 81-2.

[169] Lecky, ii. pp. 134-5.

[170] _Hereditary Genius_, 1869, p. 357.

[171] Lea, p. 109.

[172] Lea, p. 332.

[173] See Lea, pp. 353-4.

[174] For a fine sketch of Roman municipal life, see Dill's _Roman
Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, chap. ii.

[175] _Hist. of Latin Christianity_, i. pp. 317-8.

CHAPTER NINE

RELIGIOUS EPIDEMICS--(_CONCLUDED_)

It is not easy to overestimate the influence of monasticism on
subsequent religious history. The lives of its votaries provided
examples of almost every conceivable kind of self-torture or
semi-maniacal behaviour. It had made the world thoroughly familiar with
extravagance of action as the symptom of intense religious conviction.
And its influence on social development had been such that the
susceptibility of the public mind to suggestions was as a raw wound in
the presence of a powerful irritant. Such an institution as the
Inquisition could only have maintained itself among a people thoroughly
familiar with supernaturalism, and to whom its preservation was the
first and most sacred of duties.

A society habituated to the commanding presence of the monk, fed upon
stories of their miraculous encounters with celestial and diabolic
visitants, and so accustomed to regard the priesthood as in a very
peculiar sense the mouthpiece of di