The other trait that should be considered here in the religious spirit of the Mesopotamian Semites is fanaticism, an emotional quality which often affords a useful basis of comparison between various religions. This religious phenomenon is best known by its deadly results; but in itself it is most difficult to define, as are other special moral terms that imply blame and are highly controversial. It is only found among those who feel their religion so deeply as to be relatively indifferent to other functions of life. We impute fanaticism {198} when the tension of religious feeling destroys the moral equilibrium or stunts development of other parts of our nature, or prompts to acts which, but for this morbid influence, would excite moral indignation. It may display itself in the artistic and intellectual sphere, as by iconoclasm or the suppression of arts and sciences; or in the discipline of individual life, as by over-ascetic self-mortification. Its coarsest and most usual manifestation is in war and the destruction of peoples of alien creed. A war or a slaughter is called fanatical, if its leading motive is the extermination of a rival religion, not for the sake of morality or civilisation, but as an act in itself acceptable to one’s own jealous god. The ascetic type of fanaticism is specially a product of the Far East: the murderous type is peculiar to the Semitic spirit, when unchastened by a high ethical sympathy or a sensitive humanism; for the chief record of it is in the pages of the history of Israel, Islam, and Christianity, so far as this last religion has been in bondage to certain Semitic influence. It is a question of interest whether we find fanaticism of this type in the Mesopotamian area and in the ancient polytheistic communities of the Western Semites. We might expect to find it because of the intensity of the religious spirit that seems to have been a common inheritance of all these stocks. The more fervent the worship, the more is the likelihood that the dangerous idea of a “jealous” god will emerge, especially when races are living under the illusion of the “fallacy of names.” By a fatal logic of devotion, the jealous god may be thought to favour or ordain the destruction of those who worship the deity under other names, which meant, for the old world, other gods. Only this must be carefully distinguished from the other more innocent {199} idea, proper to all tribal religions, that the deity of the tribe, like a good citizen, will desire victory for his people’s arms.