authority, but enough of them do so rest to make the case of those who uphold the traditional opinion substantially unassailable, except upon the purely arbitrary assumption that all these wonders, though formerly actual, have ceased in recent times.100 Bekker's exegesis is erroneous in countless particulars and presents an altogether mistaken view of Biblical doctrines. As interpreters of the language of Scripture, the orthodox theologians of his time, who pinned their faith to witchcraft, were nearer right than he was. And what is true of Bekker's exegesis, is equally true of that followed by all previous opponents of the witchcraft dogma. My reason for not referring to this point in criticising their books is obvious. Bekker has gone farther, and succeeded better, in explaining away the testimony of Scripture than any of the others. It is more than fair to them to rest this part of the case upon his success or failure. If Bekker falls, all of them certainly fall, and Bekker falls.101

From our cursory examination of the works put forth by some of the chief opponents of the witch dogma, it must be evident that none of these works can have had a very profound influence on the beliefs of the seventeenth century,their function was rather, by keeping discussion alive, to prepare for the change of sentiment which took place soon. after 1700, in what we are accustomed to call "the age of prose and reason." Such an examination as we have given to these books was necessary to establish the proposition with which we set out,-that our ancestors in 1692 were

100 Cf. Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. Heppe, II, 243:—“Zu derjenigen freieren Kritik der biblischen Schriften selbst sich zu erheben, welche das Vorhandensein gewisser, aus den Begriffen der Zeit geschöpfter dämonologischen Vorstellungen in der Bibel anerkennt, ohne daraus eine bindende Norm für den Glauben herzuleiten, -diess war freilich erst einem späteren Zeitalter vorbehalten. Bekker kannte, um seine sich ihm aufdringende philosophische Ueberzeugung mit der Bibel zu versöhnen, keinen andern Weg, als den der üblichen Exegese, und daher kommt es, dass diese nicht überall eine ungezwungene ist." It is instructive to note the pains which Sir Walter Scott takes, in his Second Letter on Demonology and Witchcraft, to harmonize the Bible with his views on these subjects.

101 To avoid all possibility of misapprehension I shall venture to express my own feelings. The two men who appeal to me most in the whole affair of witchcraft are Friedrich Spee, the Jesuit, and Balthasar Bekker, the "intolerable" pastor of Amsterdam. But what I feel, and what all of us feel, is not to the purpose. There has been too much feeling in modern discussions of witchcraft already.

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in accord with the practically universal belief of their day. It has shown more than this, however,—it has demonstrated that their position was logically and scripturally stronger than that of their antagonists, provided we judge the matter (as we are in honor bound to do) on the basis of those doctrines as to supernaturalism and the inspiration of the Bible that were alike admitted by both sides. We may repeat, then, with renewed confidence, the statement already made:-Our forefathers believed in witchcraft, not because they were Puritans, not because they were Colonials, not because they were New Englanders, but because they were men of their own time and not of ours.

Another point requires consideration if we would arrive at a just judgment on the Salem upheaval. It is frequently stated, and still oftener assumed, that the outbreak at Salem was peculiar in its virulence, or, at all events, in its intensity. This is a serious error, due, like other misapprehensions, to a neglect of the history of witchcraft as a whole. The fact is, the Salem excitement was the opposite of peculiar,—it was perfectly typical. The European belief in witchcraft, which our forefathers shared without exaggerating it, was a constant quantity. It was always present, and continuously fraught with direful possibilities. But it did not find expression in a steady and regular succession of witch trials. On the contrary, it manifested itself at irregular intervals in spasmodic outbursts of prosecution. Notable examples occurred at Geneva from 1542 to 1546;102 at Wiesensteig, Bavaria, in 1562 and 1563;108 in the Electorate of Trier from 1587 to 1593;104 among the Basques of Labourd in 1609;105 at Mohra in Sweden in 1669 and 1670.106

102

143.

Sigmund Riezler, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse in Bayern, Stuttgart, 1896, p.

103 Ibid.

104

Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, revised by Heppe, II, 37; cf. G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade, 1891 (reprinted from the Papers of the American Historical Association, V).

105 Jean d'Espaignet and Pierre de Lancre, the special commissioners, are said to have condemned more than 600 in four months (Soldan, ed. Heppe, II, 162; cf. Baissac, Les Grands Jours de la Sorcellerie, 1890, p. 401). I have no certain evidence of the accuracy of these figures, for I have seen only one of de Lancre's two books, and I find in it no distinct statement of the number of witches convicted. He makes various remarks, however, which seem to show that 600 is no exaggeration. Thus he

107

In the district of Ortenau, in Baden, witchcraft prosecutions suddenly broke out, after a considerable interval, in 1627, and there were seventy-three executions in three years. From the annals of witchcraft in Great Britain one may cite the following cases:-1581, at St. Osith's, in Essex;' 1590-1597, in Scotland;109 1612, at Lancaster,110 and again in 1633;111 1616, in Leicestershire;112 1645-1647, the Hop

.108

says that the Parliament of Bordeaux, under whose authority he acted, condemned "an infinity" of sorcerers to death in 1609 (Tableau de l'Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons, Paris, 1613, p. 100). "On fait estat qu'il y a trente mille ames en ce pays de Labourt, contant ceux qui sont en voyage sur mer, & que parmy tout ce peuple, il y a bien peu de familles qui ne touchent au Sortilege par quelque bout" (p. 38). The commission lasted from July to November (pp. 66, 456, 470); besides those that the two commissioners tried during this period, they left behind them so many witches and wizards that the prisons of Bordeaux were crowded and it became necessary to lodge the defendants in the ruined château du Hâ (pp. 144, 560). Cf. pp. 35 ff., 64, 92, 114, 546. The panic fear that witchcraft excites is described by de Lancre in a striking passage:-"Qu'il n'y ayt qu'vne seule sorciere dans vn grand village, dans peu de temps vous voyez tant d'enfans perdus, tant de femmes enceintes perdas leur fruit, tant de haut mal donné à des pauures creatures, tant d'animaux perdus, tant de fruicts gastez, que le foudre ni autre fleau du ciel ne sont rien en comparaison" (pp. 543-544).

106 An Account of what Happened in the Kingdom of Sweden, in the Years 1669, 1670 and Upwards, translated from the German by Anthony Horneck, and included in Glanvill's Saducismus Triumphatus, ed. 1682 (ed. 1726, pp. 474 ff.). Horneck's version is from a tract entitled, Translation Der Königl. Herren Com

issarien gehaltenes Protocol uber die entdeckte Zauberey in dem Dorff Mohra und umbliegenden Orten, the Hague, 1670. Cf. Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, II, 244 ff.; Soldan, ed. Heppe, II, 175 ff.; Vilhelm Bang, Hexevæsen og Hexeforfølgelser især i Danmark, Copenhagen, 1896, pp. 48 ff. This is what Mr. Upham calls Cotton Mather's "favorite Swedish case" (Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather, Morrisania, 1869, p. 20). It was, in a manner, "Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero" toward the end of the seventeenth century, since it was one of the most recent instances of witchcraft on a large scale. The good angel in white who is one of the features of the Mohra case appears much earlier in England: see Potts, Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, 1613, Chetham Society reprint, sig. L (a reference which may serve as a note to Mr. Upham's essay, just cited, p. 34). 107 Franz Volk, Hexen in der Landvogtei Ortenau und Reichsstadt Offenburg, Lahr, 1882, pp. 24-25, 58 ff.

108 Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 543; F. Hutchinson, Historical Essay, 2d ed., p. 38; W. W., A True and Just Recorde, of the Information [etc.] of all the Witches, taken at S. Oses (London, 1582). For extracts from W. W.'s book I am indebted to Mr. Wallace Notestein, of Yale University.

109 F. Legge, The Scottish Review, XVIII, 261 ff.

110 Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (London, 1613), reprinted by the Chetham Society, 1845; Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, Chap. xxiii.

111 Whalley Lancashire, by Whitaker, pp. 213 ff.; Chetham Society reprint of Potts, as above, pp. lix ff.; Wright, as above, Chap. xxiii; Heywood and Brome's play, The Late Lancashire Witches, 1634; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1634-1635, pp. 77-79, 98, 129-130, 141, 152; Historical Manuscripts Commission, 10th Report, Appendix, Part IV, p. 433; 12th Report, Appendix, Part II, p. 53, cf. p. 77; Notes and Queries, 3d Series, V, 259, 385.

112 Nichols, History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, II, 471.*

kins prosecution;118 1649-1650, at Newcastle-on-Tyne;114 1652, at Maidstone, in Kent;115 1682, at Exeter.116 The sudden outbreak of witch trials in the Bermudas in 1651 is also worthy of attention.117

It is unnecessary for us to consider how much of the evidence offered at witch trials in England was actually true. Some of the defendants were pretty bad characters, and it would be folly to maintain that none of them tried to cause the sickness or death of their enemies by maltreating clay images or by other arts which they supposed would avail. Besides, now and then an injury is testified to which may well have been inflicted without diabolical aid. Thus Ann Foster, who was hanged for witchcraft at Northampton in 1674, confessed that she had set a certain grazier's barns on fire, and there is much reason to believe her, for she was under considerable provocation.118 As to occult or super-normal powers and practices, we may leave their discussion to the psychologists. With regard to this aspect of the Salem troubles, we must accept, as substantially in accordance with the facts, the words of Dr. Poole: "No man of any reputation who lived in that generation, and saw what transpired at Salem Village and its vicinity, doubted that there was some influence then exerted which could not be explained by the known laws of matter or of mind. "119 Even Thomas Brattle, in speaking of the confessing witches, many of whom he says he has "again and again seen and heard," cannot avoid the hypothesis of demoniacal action. They are, he feels certain, "deluded, imposed upon, and

113 See pp. 7 and 58.

114 Whitelocke's Memorials, Dec. 13, 1649, ed. 1732, p. 434; Brand, Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, III, 80; Ralph Gardner, England's Grievance Discovered, in Relation to the Coal-Trade, 1655 (reprinted, North Shields, 1849, Chap. 53, pp. 168 ff.). 115 A Prodigious & Tragicall History of the Arraignment [etc.] of Six Witches at Maidstone .. Digested by H. F. Gent, 1652 (reprinted in an Account, etc.,

London, 1837). 116 A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches, 1682. 117 Sir J. H. Lefroy, Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands, II, 601 ff.

118 A Full and True Relation of the Tryal [etc.] of Ann Foster, London, 1674 (Northampton, reprinted by Taylor & Son, 1878). Cf. W. Ruland, Steirische Hexenprozesse, in Steinhausen's Zeitschrift für Kulturgeschichte, 2. Ergänzungsheft, Weimar, 1898, pp. 45 ff.

119 N. E. Hist. Gen. Register, XXIV, 382.

under the influence of some evil spirit; and therefore unfit to be evidences either against themselves, or any one else.

120

One common misapprehension to which the historians of witchcraft are liable comes from their failure to perceive that the immediate responsibility for actual prosecution rests frequently, if not in the majority of instances, on the rank and file of the community or neighborhood. This remark is not made in exculpation of prosecutors and judges, -for my purpose in this discussion is not to extenuate anybody's offences or to shift the blame from one man's shoulders to another. What is intended is simply to remind the reader of a patent and well-attested fact which is too often overlooked in the natural tendency of historians to find some notable personage to whom their propositions, commendatory or damaging, may be attached. A prosecution for witchcraft presupposes a general belief among the common people in the reality of the crime. But this is not all. It presupposes likewise the existence of a body of testimony, consisting of the talk of the neighborhood, usually extending back over a considerable stretch of years, with regard to certain persons who have the reputation of being witches, cunning men, and so on. It also presupposes the belief of the neighborhood that various strange occurrences, such as storms, bad crops, plagues of grasshoppers and caterpillars, loss of pigs or cattle, cases of lunacy or hysteria or chorea or wasting sickness,—are due to the malice of those particular suspects and their unknown confederates. These strange occurrences, be it remembered, are not the fictions of a superstitious or distempered imagination, they are most of them-things that have really taken place; they are the res gestae of the prosecution, without which it could never have come about, or, having begun, could never have continued. And further, in very many instances of prosecution for witchcraft, there have been among the accused, persons

120 Letter of Oct. 8, 1692, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, V, 65. Compare, on the whole question, the remarks of Professor Wendell in his interesting paper, Were the Salem Witches Guiltless? (Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, XXIX, republished in his Stelligeri and Other Essays concerning America, New York, 1893) and in his Cotton Mather, pp. 93 ff.