Enthusiasm comes from the degree to which our soul is able to represent to itself at the same time and in an indeterminate manner, all the pleasures or all the pains that we would gain from a particular situation, or from a certain person, and our relationship with him or her. This picture brings together in one instant what should in reality span over months, years and sometimes an entire life time. Enthusiasm, therefore, conceives of its object in an exaggerated sort of way, and because it presents the mind with a greater number of objects than it is able to consider distinctly, it is always vague in some respects. Our sensitivity is then subject to another form of amplification born out the multiplication of the pains and pleasures we imagine. There is even actual error involved here. We are then often moved by fears and desires that are either impossible in reality, or at least cannot be found together, but in the midst of our soul’s turmoil, we cannot untangle this impossibility. Habit has a distinct influence on this disposition: if a circumstance, or a person has provoked it in us on several occasions, they retain the power of provoking it, independently even of our thinking about them, and we can then consider enthusiasm as a passion of the soul....In the same way, enthusiasm towards certain qualities disposes us to sudden and rash sympathy for the people in whom we think we recognize them.--Sophie de Grouchy (1798) Letters on Sympathy, translated by Sandrine Berges, Letter III.
These days, when we use 'enthusiasm' we mean (and I am quoting an online dictionary), a feeling of energetic interest in a particular subject or activity and an eagerness to be involved in it. As etymologists can tell you, that's a pale imitation of the original Greek/Latin meaning of the word, which (roughly) meant 'divine inspiration/divinely inspired.' We find familiar echoes of this, when, say, David Hume treats of 'poetical enthusiasm' (Treatise 1.3.10.10-11).
But in Hume that's not the standard use of 'enthusiasm.' For, during the seventeenth century, 'enthusiasm' became something derogatory associated with (unseemly) fervor. Even Hume treats enthusiasm as something pernicious that corrupts true religion. (On true religion, recall this post.) In his wickedly funny essay, "Of Superstition and Enthusiasm," Hume treats enthusiasm as an emotional excess driven by an active imagination that arises from a kind of psychological elevation -- not far removed from magnanimity, but subtly different --, or ignorant pride, when one ends up with the mistaken idea that one is the subject of a special providence elected by the Divine. While enthusiasm is a key drive in religious fanaticism, it is not all bad for Hume--in fact, it can promote good long term consequences, including (anti-clerical) independence of mind which can be a desirable attitude in a modern polity, because it promotes what Hume calls (recall) a "spirit of liberty."
While I am not suggesting Grouchy is the source of the modern notion of enthusiasm, it is notable that in the quoted passage she secularizes 'enthusiasm.' Her use shares a lot of features with Hume's including the emphasis on the way its (intentional) object is something vague. But in context -- she is most concerned with the effects of demagoguery (recall), she treats enthusiastic fervor as directed at some inflated conception of a fellow human. This she notes is a dangerous emotion.
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