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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
This paper is but a fragmentary contribution to that study of the “Varieties of Religious Experience” which William James has so significantly brought to the attention of students of human nature. I propose to sketch some personal peculiarities of the founder of Quakerism, George Fox, and in the end to show what place was filled in his life by what may be called his experiences as a mystic. Every one knows that the typical Quakers have made prominent amongst their spiritual exercises what they call “silent worship” as conducted in their meetings, and that they have held that this “silent worship” often brings the worshipper under the direct influence of the movings of the Divine Spirit. I have here no concern with any question as to the truth or as to the ultimate merits of this or of any other tenet of George Fox or of his followers. I intend simply to show the place that the experiences of silent worship occupied in the mental life of Fox himself, and why he found this form of what is technically called mysticism a valuable feature of his religious consciousness. This study will bring us into somewhat closer contact with the mental complications of a remarkable personality—a personality in which the normal and the abnormal were in a very interesting way united. We shall see how certain tendencies that, in another context, would have proved highly dangerous to the sanity of their possessor were so combined in Fox that the ultimate result was prevailingly good, both for himself and for his environment. Religious history contains many instances where men whose mental life showed numerous abnormal traits still were so constituted that they retained their essential self-control and accomplished a great work. The study of Fox presents one more such instance, and may also possess genuine psychological interest.
Since my discussion deals with Fox as a mystic, I shall first have to explain what one technically means by mysticism in religion. Then I shall have to show that Fox had many traits which were not those of the typical mystic. And, finally, I shall try to point out what part Fox's mystical tendencies played in determining certain aspects of his mind and of his career.
1 There is indeed one exceptional automatism which occurred during Fox's youth, and which has suggested to many critics a graver interpretation. This is his famous act of walking barefoot through the city of Lichfield, by the command of the Lord, crying, “Woe! Woe! to the bloody city of Lichfield.” This has often been regarded as a peculiarly insane expression of excitement, because there was no discoverable objective ground for the act. I regard the incident as intelligible enough in the context of Fox's early life, although it was indeed pathological. But its pathological significance appears less when we remember the time, and Fox's training in automatisms, and finally his relatively normal grounds for feeling confidence in any of his “openings.” Fox had just been released from his year's imprisonment at Derby. His temperament was restless, and his long confinement must have been extremely irritating. After such a release from prison the ordinary youthful convict plunges into some vicious excess. But Fox gave vent to his long imprisoned motor tendencies by this otherwise useless outburst. It was indeed plainly no normal incident. But it was less abnormal than might at first appear. The sight of the church steeples in Lichfield first stirred up hostile feelings in Fox's mind. He then felt a restless sense that something must be done—something vigorous, intense, significant. Then came a state of confusion, then an automatism to which Fox himself could assign no coherent intent, and then the final outburst. Relieved by yielding to his strange impulse, Fox forthwith became calm; and, by chance, no such incident ever occurred again.