368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



us what we now understand as Nonconformity ; since the devotees at 

 the various shrines neither deny one another's gods, nor call in ques- 

 tion in pronounced ways the current ideas concerning them. Only in 

 cases like that of Socrates, who enunciated a conception of supernatu- 

 ral agents diverging widely from the popular conception of them, do 

 we see in early societies Nonconformity properly so-called. 



What we have here to deal Avith under this name occurs chiefly in 

 societies which are substantially, if not literally, monotheistic ; and in 

 which there exists nominally, if not really, a tolerably uniform creed 

 administered by a consolidated hierarchy. 



Even as thus restricted. Nonconformity comprehends phenomena 

 widely unlike in their natures ; and that we may understand it, we must 

 exclude much that is allied with it only by outward form and circum- 

 stance. Though in most cases a separating sect espouses some unau- 

 thorized version of the accepted creed ; and though the nature of the 

 espoused version is occasionally not without its significance ; yet the 

 thing specially to be noted is the attitude assumed toward ecclesiastical 

 government. Though there is always some exercise of individual 

 judgment ; yet in early stages this is shown merely in the choice of 

 one authority as superior to another. Only in late stages does there 

 come an exercise of individual judgment which goes to the extent of 

 denying ecclesiastical authority in general. 



The growi;h of this later attitude we shall see on comparing some 

 of the successive stages. 



Ancient forms of dissent habitually stand for the authority of the 

 past over the present ; and since tradition usually brings from more 

 barbarous ages accounts of more barbarous modes of propitiation, 

 ancient forms of dissent are habitually revivals of practices more as- 

 cetic than those of the current religion. It was shown in § 620, that 

 the primitive monachism originated in this way ; and as Christianity, 

 with the higher moral precepts on which it insisted, joined renuncia- 

 tion of ordinary life and its aims (said to be derived from the Essenes), 

 there tended to be thereafter a continual re-genesis of dissenting sects 

 characterized in common by austerities. 



Kinds of dissent differing from these and differing from modem 

 kinds of dissent, arose during those times in which the early church 

 was spreading and becoming organized. For before ecclesiastical gov- 

 ernment had established itself and acquired sacredness, resistance to 

 each new encroachment made by it, naturally led to divisions. Be- 

 tween the time when the authority dwelt in the Christian congrega- 

 tions themselves, and the time when the authority was centred in the 

 pope, there necessarily went successive usurpations of authority, each 

 of which gave occasion for protest. Hence, such sects, arising in the 

 third century and onward to the seventh century, as the Noetians, 

 Novatians, Meletians, Aerians, Donatists, Joannites, liaesitantes, Ti- 

 motheans, and Athingani. 



