INSANITY.  See INSPIRATION.

INSPIRATION, an earnest, divinely-awakened, soul-subduing sense and perception of the presence of the invisible in the visible, of the infinite in the finite, of the ideal in the real, of the divine in the human, and, in ecstatic moments, of very God in man, accompanied with a burning desire to impart to others the vision revealed; distinguished as “seraphic” from insanity as “demonic” by this, that the inspired man sees an invisible which is there, and the insane an invisible which is not there, states of mind so like otherwise that the one may be, and often is, mistaken for the other, the inspired man taken for an insane, and the insane man for an inspired.

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES.  According to one view the Scriptures are throughout verbally inspired, and every word in them dictated by the Spirit of God; according to another, though they are not verbally inspired, they contain a record of divine things written under divine inspiration; according to a third, though not written under divine inspiration in any part, they contain a faithful record of a divine revelation; and according to a fourth, they contain a record merely of what a succession of God-fearing men in sympathy with each other and their race saw and felt to be the clear purpose of God in His providence of the world.

INSPIRED IDIOT, Horace Walpole’s name for Oliver Goldsmith.

INSTITUTE OF FRANCE was established by the Directory in 1795, to take the place of the four academies suppressed by the Convention two years previously.  In 1816 Louis XVIII. gave back the old names to its four sections, viz. L’Academie Francaise, L’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, L’Academie des Sciences, and L’Academie des Beaux Arts.  In 1832 was added L’Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.  Each academy has its own separate organisation and work, and participates besides in the advantages of the common library, archives, and funds.  Election, which is in every case subject to government confirmation, is by ballot, and every member receives an annual salary of at least 1500 francs.  Government votes a sum of money annually to the Institute.  Members of the French Academy have special duties and privileges, and in some cases special remuneration.  They allot every year prizes for eloquence and poetry; a prize “to the poor Frenchman who has done the most virtuous action throughout the year,” and one to the Frenchman “who has written and published the book most conducive to good morals.”  Membership in the Academie Francaise is strictly limited to 40 Frenchmen.  The others have, besides, from 40 to 70 members each, also Associate, foreign and corresponding, members.  The Institute centralises the pursuit of all branches of knowledge and art, and has been the model of similar national institutes in Madrid, Lisbon, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg.

INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, a celebrated work of Calvin’s, in exposition of the doctrines of the French Protestants, hence called Calvinists in France.  See CALVIN.