Luther’s action presents many other problems to the psychologist, for instance, in its waverings and contradictions. Strong in his belief in his Divine mission, he roundly abuses kings and princes in the vilest terms, and yet, at the same time, he teaches respect and obedience towards them and even sets himself up as a model in this respect, all according to his mood and as they happen to be favourable to him or the reverse. On the one hand, he presumes to incite the people to acts of violence, and, on the other, he preaches no less cogently the need of calmness and submission. He boasts of the courage with which he had dashed into the very jaws of Behemoth, and of his utter contempt for his foes; yet this same Luther is obsessed by the idea that his own life is threatened by poison and sorcery, just as his party is menaced by the hired assassins of the monks and Papists. While he extols the University of Wittenberg as the bulwark of theological unity, he is at the same time so distrustful of the doctrine of his friends that his intercourse with them suffers, and, to at least one of his intimates, Wittenberg becomes a “cave of the Cyclops.” Such contradictions and many of the like combined to induce in him an abnormal state of mind. Harmony and consistency of thought and feeling was something he never knew. Hence the charge brought against him, not merely by opponents, but even by many of his own followers, viz. of being muddled, illogical and not sure of his ground. While he is perfectly able at times to speak and write with such candour and truth that one cannot but admire the wholesome sense, and sober, witty, cheery style of his literary productions, yet their tone and character change entirely as soon as it becomes a question of his polemics or of his Evangel. Then his mind becomes overcast, his thoughts pursue one another like storm-clouds, assuming meanwhile the strangest shapes and the reader is over whelmed by a torrent of mingled abuse and paradox. His very proofs are caught up in the whirl and become so distorted that it is often impossible even to tell whether they are meant in earnest or are merely in the nature of a challenge. According to Luther, to mention only a few of the strangest of his sayings, his doctrine of justification and the forgiveness of sins is present “in all creatures” and is confirmed by analogy.[525] The very doctrine of creation rests on the doctrine of justification as on “its foundation.”[526] “If the article of our souls’ salvation is embraced and adhered to with a firm faith, then the other articles follow naturally, for instance, that of the Trinity.”[527]