THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 65 



ranee is one of the very things that shame our so-called civilization. 

 Everybody lies — every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his 

 dreams, in his joy, in his mourning ; if he keeps his tongue still, 

 his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude, will convey deception — 

 and purposely. Even in sermons — but that is a platitude." 



Half an hour's reflection will convince anyone that, in the main, 

 this is a correct estimate of what results from the " intensity of 

 epithet," the " exaggeration with a purpose," that appears to be a 

 marked proclivity of the age. There are times and occasions when 

 even this general tendency to exaggeration in some men, or bodies 

 of men, goes beyond the ordinary standard, and then we recognise 

 phenomena but little removed from insanity, psychological diver- 

 gences from the standard of a sound mind. Many of these obli- 

 quities originate from a small basis of fact, but the fact is soon 

 lost in the distortion, like the true proportions of a human face 

 gazed at in a concave mirror. We are not concerned with revi- 

 valism, spirit-rapping, table-turning, millenianism, quaking, shak- 

 ing, or jumping, or any form of religious fanaticism, as it is termed, 

 but which is really nothing more than exaggeration culminating 

 in sensationalism. Yet, after all, the process is the same, and the 

 results the same, whatever the subject of the hallucination may be. 



Those who, like ourselves, have been able from experience to 

 compare these periodical outbursts during half a century must be 

 well satisfied that the mental phenomena are identical. It matters 

 not what the special subject, there is a decided and marked identity 

 in the restlessness, fanaticism, dogmatism, energy, excitement, 

 recklessness, and consequent suspension, or rather distortion, 

 of healthy mental action. 



The oldest of these waves, or currents, of popular idiosyncrasy 

 were religious ; the most modern are scientific or artistic. 



People have sometimes called them a " craze," and they have 

 not been far wrong. It was the " aesthetic craze " but a short 

 time since, and not long ago it was the " Darwinian craze." 

 Although this did not apply, in any sense, to Darwin, who kept 

 himself wholly clear of exaggeration and sensationalism, yet 

 hosts of those who called themselves his disciples rushed without 

 sense or reason into extremes which he repudiated, and made use 

 of his name as an apology for their fanaticism. 



Who does not remember the activity and intolerance of the 

 followers of Pouchet, before their last hopes were shattered, 



