JOURNAL 
THE 
OF SCIENCE. 
OCTOBER, 1884. 
I. MORAL EPIDEMICS AND CONTAGIONS. 
S HE word “ moral ” is condemned to serve as a kind of 
general antithesis, whenever such is needed. Thus it 
is alike employed in opposition or in contradistinction 
to “immoral,” to “intellectual,” to “logical ” (as when men 
speak of a moral certainty or a moral impossibility), and to 
“ physical.” It is in the last sense that we shall make use 
of it. 
The contagion of moral phenomena, and their propaga- 
tion to a distance, has been recognised in all ages. It would 
be very superfluous to give instances of the spread of delu- 
sions, manias, hysteric phenomena, &c., since the chronicles 
of the dancing mania, of the doings of the flagellants, and 
the like, are duly recorded in history. 
But one consideration must not be overlooked. The 
epidemiologist can tell us of the inroads of plague, of 
cholera, of smallpox. But they have no case on record 
where an epidemic of higher health, of increased vigour, 
has overspread a country or a continent. Just in the same 
manner with moral and intellectual phenomena : we are 
familiar with the spread of delusions, of follies, but we find 
no instance of a sudden and seemingly unaccountable fit of 
sound sense or rationality sweeping over a body of men, a 
class, or a nation. Hence we have the corollary that any 
“ movement ” or agitation, be it political, social, or religious, 
is in all probability essentially morbid in its origin and cha- 
racter. It is a pathological phenomenon most prevalent 
among individuals of ill-balanced intellect, and in nations 
where the penumbra of mental derangement is broadest. 
vol. vi. (third series^, r: 2 p 
