ENTAIL, in Law. See TAILZIE.

ENTHUSIASM, in a religious sense, implies a transport of the mind, by which it fancies itself inspired with some revelation, impulse, or the like, from heaven. "In all ages," says Locke, "men in whom melancholy has mixed with devotion, or whose conceit of themselves has raised them into an opinion of a great familiarity with God, and a nearer admittance to his favour than is afforded to others, have often flattered themselves with a persuasion of an immediate intercourse with the Deity; and frequent communications from the Divine Spirit. Their minds being thus prepared, whatever groundless opinion comes to settle itself strongly upon their fancies is an illumination from the Spirit of God; and whatsoever odd action they find in themselves a strong inclination to do, that impulse is concluded to be a call or direction from heaven, and must be obeyed. It is a commission from above, and they cannot err in executing it. This I take to be properly enthusiasm, which, though arising from the conceit of a warm and overweening brain, works, when it once gets footing, more powerfully on the persuasions and actions of man than either reason or revelation, or both together, men being most forwardly obedient to the impulses they receive from themselves."