SECT. VII.
Obj. VI. BUT (VI) another Prejudice against the belief of Witches, is a presumption upon the enormous Force of Melancholy and Imagination, which without doubt can do wonderful things, and beget strange perswasions; and to these Causes some ascribe the presum'd effects of Sorcery and Witchcraft.
To which I Reply briefly, and yet I hope sufficiently.
( I ) THat to resolve all the clear Circumstances of Fact, which we find in well-attested and confirmed Relations of this kind, into the power of deceivable Imagination, is to make Fancy the greater Prodigie, and to suppose that it can do stranger Feats than are believed of any other kind of Fascination. And to think that Pins and Nails, for instance, can by the power of Imagination be conveyed within the Skin; or that Imagination should deceive so many as have been Witnesses in Objects of Sense, in all the Circumstances of Discovery; this I say is to be infinitely more credulous than the assertors of Sorcery and Dæmoniac-Contracts. And by the same Reason it may be believed, that all the Battles and strange Events of the World, which our selves have not seen, are but Dreams and fond Imaginations, and likewise those that are fought in the Clouds, when the Brains of the deluded Spectators are the only Theatre of those fancied Transactions. And (2) to deny Evidence of Act, because their Imagination may deceive the Relators, when we have no reason to think so, but a bare presumption that there is no such thing as is related, is quite to destroy the credit of all humane Testimony, and to make all Men liars, in a larger sense than the Prophet concluded in his haste. For not only the Melancholic and the Fanciful, but the Grave and the Sober, whose Judgments we have no reason to suspect to be tainted by their Imaginations, have from their own Knowledge and Experience made reports of this Nature. But to this it will possibly be rejoined, and the Reply will be another Prejudice against the belief for which I contend, viz.
