Royce, J. (1898). The case of John Bunyan. In J. Royce, Studies of good and evil: A series of essays upon problems of philosophy and of life (pp. 29-75). New York, NY, US: D Appleton & Company.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14141-002
The present paper is but a very modest contribution to the casuistry of the morbidly insistent mental processes. I have no new phobia or mania to define, and in any case I speak only as student of psychology. The medical reader might be able to see much more in the documents to which I here wish to attract his attention than I am able to see. My task is simply one of summary and report. The case to which I wish to call attention is meanwhile one of peculiar interest, namely, that of the author of the Pilgrim's Progress. The principal document concerned is John Bunyan's remarkable confession, entitled Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, an autobiographical statement which Bunyan wrote and published, as the title-page tells us, "for the support of the weak and tempted people of God." This little book is, from the literary point of view, of very high interest, ranking, as I suppose, amongst all the author's works, second only to the great Pilgrim's Progress itself. As a record of human experience, the Grace Abounding will never lose its charm, both for lovers of religious biography, and for admirers of honesty, of sincerity, and of simple pathos. Nothing that can be said as to the psychological significance of the author's recorded experiences will ever detract from the worth of the book, even when viewed just as the author viewed it, as a "support" for the "weak and tempted." Bunyan, as we shall see, had at one time a decidedly heavy and morbid burden to bear. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)