deeds, although the most common feature of such charges, were not essential. A man named Drummond was burned for perform ing what were deemed miraculous cures, even where no malicious purpose was con ceivable. Here we perceive the influence of the factor which imparted the peculiar gravity to the charge of witchcraft, the con tempt of the Divine government of the world implied by the invocation of the enemy of mankind to interfere with the decrees of providence. At the root of the matter lay the question whether the devil was capable of conferring upon his servants occult powers of the char acter we have indicated. In discussing this question, Sir George found himself sorelyhindered by absurdities to which his belief in witches could not blind him. His common sense here got the better of his credulity. When, for instance, he maintained that Satan might give form to himself and appear with a body of condensed air, in the shape of man or woman, and could in that body transport witches from one place to another, he had to face a palpable difficulty. The devil was alleged to be a spirit, and the witches were human beings. The immaterial could not touch or carry the material. His mode of overcoming this obstacle was ingenious if not convincing. "If we consider how the adamant raises and transports the iron, and how the soul of man which is a spirit can raise or transport the body, and that a man's voice or a musical sound is able to occasion great and extraordinary motions in other men, we can easily conclude that devils, who are spirits of far more energy, may produce effects far surpassing our understanding." At the same time he entertained a doubt whether witches could cause a person to be possessed by evil spirits, remarking that, "if the devil could possess at pleasure we should see many more possessed than truly there are." He also displayed some clearness of perception in disputing the then popular belief that the devil could transform one
species into another,—as, a woman into a cat. Numerous tales are still told around the winter fireside in country places of witches who assumed at pleasure the forms of wolves, cats or hares, particularly the last. Sir George will not credit these. "He (the devil) behoved to annihilate some of the substance of the woman, or create some more substance to the cat, the one being much more than the other; and the devil can neither annihilate nor create, nor could he make the shapes return nain non datur regressus a privatione ad habitum " (for there is no return granted from deprivation to possession). Thus he answers the proposition neatly, conclusively and philosophically. He was willing to con cede to Satan the power to effect cures, for the very odd reason that "he knows the natural causes and the origin of natural diseases better than physicians can, who are not present when diseases are contracted, and who being younger than he must have less experience." There is here a really fine piece of unintended sarcasm, mixed with a foreshadowing of some modern theories respecting the origin of diseases. Cer tainly the statements of medical men about germs, bacteria and bacilli, would almost justify a belief that Sir George was not far wrong when he attributed to the Evil One a share in the production of disease. The charge having been made, and the prejudiced accusers, the perjured witnesses and the terrorized jurors having finished their work, there was no doubt as to the sentence of the judge. "The doom bears to be worried at the stake and burnt." Such was the end of that ghastly travesty of jus tice, a trial for witchcraft. Only one atom of mercy is visible in the proceedings, and that was the law which decreed the "worry ing" or strangling of the victim before she was involved in the agony of the fire. It is hard to say which one condemns the more, the brutal ignorance of the people or the pseudo-philosophy of the lawyers.— Henry H, Brown, in The Juridical Review.
