The superstition which heightened their affection to their friends, even to a pitch of extravagance, produced the same effect in exalting the fervour of their indignation. The "Sean Dana" (ancient poems) are full of instances, in which the spirit of the departed came sadly to his surviving friend, shewed the wound in his breast, and invoked him, by all that was dear and sacred in their past affection, to revenge his death.

Such, no doubt, were the lively dreams suggested by sorrow and resentment, and their fatal consequences seldom concluded with the death of the aggressor. Thus ardent love, unrestrained in its effects, produced the fruits of deadly hatred, as might be shewn in many instances, which I cannot here enumerate.

I shall next endeavour to point out the influence which the belief of spec

tral appearances had on popular opinion, in a more advanced period, when it was blended with religious faith, and, in some measure, considered as essential to piety.

ESSAY V.

The Influence of Superstition, when combined with: Religion, and rendered, in some degree, subservient to the imperfect sense of it which then prevailed.

"Of solemn visions, and repeated dreams,

"That hint pure thought, and warn the favoured soul For future trial, fated to prepare."

I THINK I have satisfactorily shewn, that the period of society which I have stiled the reign of the affections, though productive of high sentiments of tenderness and generosity, was necessarily sanguinary and unsettled. There can, indeed, be no medium in either the vices or virtues of impulse. And, with re

gard to the established principles of clanship, though these do not depend upon immediate impulse, yet are they so constructed, that the conduct, which is accounted virtuous, with regard to friends, becomes vicious, where it ap plies to those who are not so.

No long chain of reasoning, or proba ble foresight of remote consequences, can take place in this early state, where strong and deep feeling of present injury or benefit, glory or shame, intercept the view of future results.

In a more advanced period of mental culture, though more enlarged views might, in some degree, obtain, and though the light of religion began to dawn upon the obscurity of opinion, that light continued to be so imperfect, that superstition mingled with, and accommodated itself to it.

Those unreal appearances which, still in this improved state, held their ground

in those visionary regions, were not so pernicious in their effects, as might be supposed.

Such things ought not to be believed by those whom cultivated reason, and enlightened religion, have raised above the childhood of the faculties: By those who possess no share of a creative fancy, they cannot be believed, for an opposite reason: Yet the same implicit manner of talking after others, which makes very silly people triumph in all the superiority, and repeat by rote all the arguments against immateriality, as far as it deceives or affects our senses;these very people, had they been bred among the mountains, would have been shuddering slaves to the grossest superstition. This class of persons, destined by Nature to live by borrowing, would have been full as ready to borrow readymade spectres in a highland glen, as