PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL. 
may be classed under two general heads, 
love and fear : to the former may be refer- 
red gratitude, confidence, and resignation, 
also enthusiasm, wliich may be. considered 
as a degeneration of it ; to the latter, reve- 
rence (which is a mixture of love and fear), 
also superstition and atheism, which are de- 
generations of it. — The love of God, with 
its related affections, is generated by the 
contemplation of his bounty and benignity, 
as these appear from the view of the natu- 
ral world, the declarations of the Scriptures, 
or a man’s own observation and experience 
respecting the events of life. It is support- 
ed and much increased by the conscious- 
ness of upright intentions and sincere en- 
deavours, with the consequent hope of fu- 
ture reward ; and by prayer, vocal and men- 
tal, public and private, inasmuch as this 
gives a reality and force to all the ideas be- 
fore spoken of. Frequent conversation and 
reading, in which the devout affections are 
excited, have great efficacy also from the 
infectious nature of our dispositions, and 
from the perpetual recurrency of the ap- 
propriate words, and of their secondary 
ideas, first in a faint state, afterwards in a 
stronger and stronger, perpetually. The 
contemplation of the rest of the divine at- 
tributes, His omnipotence, omniscience, 
eternity, omnipresence, &c. liave also a ten- 
dency to support and augment the love of 
God, when this is so far advanced as to be 
superior to the fear ; till then, these won- 
derful attributes enhance the fear so much, 
as for a time to check the rise and growtli 
of the love. Even the fear itself greatly 
contributes to the generation and augmen- 
tation of the love, and in a manner greatly 
analogous to the production of other plea- 
sures from pains. And indeed it seems, 
that notwithstanding the variety of the 
ideas and feelings which contribute to this 
afiection, there is so great a resemblance 
among them, that they must languish by 
frequent reciirrency, till ideas of an oppo- 
site nature, by intervening at certain sea- 
sons, give them fresh life. — On this theory, 
the love of God is evidently deduced in 
part from interested motives, directly, viz. 
from the hopes of a future reward ; and 
partly from motives or sources of it, in 
which direct explicit self-interest does not 
appear, but which may be traced up to it 
ultimately. However, after all the sources 
of this affection have coalesced together, it 
becomes as disinterested as any other. It 
appears also that this pure disinterested 
love of God may, by a concurrence o'f a 
sufficient number of sufficiently strong as* 
sociations, arise to such a height as to pre- 
vail over any other of the desires interested 
or disinterested. — Enthusiasm may be de- 
fined, a mistaken persuasion in any person 
that he is a peculiar favourite with God, and 
that he receives supernatural marks there- 
of. The vividness of the ideas of this class 
easily generates this false persuasion in per- 
sons of strong imaginations, religions igno- 
rance, and narrow understandings, (espe- 
cially where the moral sense is but imper- 
fectly formed), by giving a reality and cer- 
tainty to all the reveries of a man’s own 
mind, and confirming the associations in a 
preternatural manner. It may also be ea- 
sily contracted by contagion, as daily expe- 
rience shows ; and indeed more easily than 
most^other dispositions, from the lively lan- 
guage used by enthusiasts, and from the 
great flattery and support which enthusiasm 
gives to pride and self-conceit. 
91. The fear of God arises from a view 
of the evils of life, the threatenings of the 
Scriptures, the sense of guilt, the infinity of 
the divine attributes, and from prayer, me- 
ditation, conversation, and reading on such 
subjects. When confined in proper limits, 
it is awe, veneration, and reverence ; when 
excessive, or not duly regarded, it degene- 
rates either into .superstition or atheism. 
Superstition may be defined, a mistaken 
opinion concerning the severity and punish- 
ments of God, magnifying them in respect 
of ourselves or others. Atheism is either 
speculative, which denies the existence of 
a God ; or practical, which is the neglect 
of Him, where a person thinks of Him sel- 
dom, or with reluctance, and pays little or 
no regard to Him in actions, though he 
does not deny Him in words. Both kinds, 
in Christian countries, seem to proceed 
from an explicit or implicit sense of guilt, 
and consequent fear of Him, sufficient to 
generate an aversion to the tlioughts of 
him, and to the methods by which the love 
might be generated, and yet too feeble to 
restrain from guilt: and it is the tendency 
of all pain to prevent the recurrency of the 
circumstances which produced it. 
6. Of the Pleasures and Pains of the Moral 
Sense. 
92. There are certain dispositions of mind 
with the actions flowing from them, which 
when a person believes himself to be pos- 
sessed of, and reflects upon, a pleasing con- 
sciousness and self-approbation rises pp in 
