Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times - Volume 1

Section 2.

...terror through a host of enemies with the help of a small company, whose cries he managed to good advantage among the echoing rocks and caverns of a woody valley. The hoarse bellowing of the caves, joined with the hideous appearance of such dark and desert places, raised such horror in the enemy that, in this state, their imagination helped them to hear voices and undoubtedly to see forms that were more than human; meanwhile, the uncertainty of what they feared made their fear even greater and spread it faster through silent looks than any spoken account could convey. And this was what in later times men called a panic. The story indeed gives a good hint of the nature of this passion, which can hardly exist without some mixture of fanaticism original: "Enthusiasm" and horrors of a superstitious kind.

One may with good reason call every passion panic that is raised in a crowd original: "Multitude" and conveyed by looks, or as it were by contact or sympathy. Thus, popular fury may be called panic when the rage of the people—as we have sometimes seen—has put them beyond themselves, especially where religion has been involved. And in this state, their very looks are infectious. The fury flies from face to face, and the disease is no sooner seen than caught. Those who, in a better state of mind

• See below, p. 45. and VOL. 3. p. 66. in the notes.