is not the will in general but only the false and ignorant direction
of a will not recognising its only possible satisfaction. What religion
in this case opposes to the world is a special law, a special hope, a
life intense, ambitious, and aggressive, but excluding much which to an
ingenuous will might seem excellent and tempting. Worldliness, in a
word, is here met by fanaticism.

[Sidenote: and mysticism.]

The second type of unworldly religion does not propose to overwhelm the
old Adam by singleminded devotion to one selected interest, nor does it
refer vanity to an accidental error. On the contrary, it conceives that
any special interest, any claim made by a finite and mortal creature
upon an infinite world, is bound to be defeated. It is not special acts,
it conceives, which are sinful, but action and will themselves that are
intrinsically foolish. The cure lies in rescinding the passionate
interests that torment us, not in substituting for them another
artificial passion more imperious and merciless than the natural
passions it comes to devour. This form of religion accordingly meets
worldliness with mysticism. Holiness is not placed in conformity to a
prescriptive law, in pursuit of a slightly regenerated bliss, nor in
advancing a special institution and doctrine. Holiness for the mystic
consists rather in universal mildness and insight; in freedom from all
passion, bias, and illusion; in a disembodied wisdom which accepts the
world, dominates its labyrinths, and is able to guide others through
it, without pursuing, for its own part, any hope or desire.

[Sidenote: Both are irrational.]

If these two expedients of the conscience convicted of vanity were to be
subjected to a critical judgment, they would both be convicted of vanity
themselves. The case of fanaticism is not doubtful, for the choice it
makes of a special law or institution or posthumous hope is purely
arbitrary, and only to be justified by the satisfaction it affords to
those very desires which it boasts to supplant. An oracular morality or
revealed religion can hope to support its singular claims only by
showing its general conformity to natural reason and its perfect
beneficence in the world. Where such justification is wanting the system
fanatically embraced is simply an epidemic mania, a social disease for
the philosopher to study and, if possible, to cure. Every strong passion
tends to dislodge the others, so that fanaticism may often involv