do or seems to do strange things, beyond the known Power of Art and
ordinary Nature, by vertue of a Confederacy with Evil Spirits_.... The
_strange things_ are _really_ performed, and are not all _Impostures_
and _Delusions_. The Witch _occasions_, but is not the _Principal_
Efficient, she seems to do it, but the _Spirit_ performs the wonder,
sometimes immediately, as in _Transportations_ and _Possessions_,
sometimes by applying other Natural Causes, as in raising _Storms_, and
inflicting _Diseases_, sometimes using the _Witch_ as an _Instrument_,
and either by the Eyes or Touch, conveying Malign Influences: And
these things are done by vertue of a _Covenant_, or _Compact_ betwixt
the _Witch_ and an _Evil Spirit_. A _Spirit_, viz. an _Intelligent
Creature_ of the Invisible World, whether one of the Evil Angels called
_Devils_, or an Inferiour _Dæmon_ or _Spirit_, or a wicked _Soul_
departed; but one that is able and ready for mischief, and whether
altogether Incorporeal or not, appertains not to this Question.”[81]
Glanvill’s book was well known to the Mathers. So was Webster’s
Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft.[82] Could there be a moment’s doubt
which of the two would appeal the more powerfully to their logical
sense? Why, even we ourselves, if we look at the matter fairly,--taking
into consideration Webster’s whole case, and not merely such parts of
it as accord with our preconceived opinions,--are forced to admit that
Glanvill’s position is much the stronger.
In a well-known passage, in which the intellectual temper of
Massachusetts before 1660 is contrasted with that of the next
generation,[83] our classic New England essayist remarks that after
1660 the Colonists “sank rapidly into provincials, narrow in thought,
in culture, in creed.” “Such a pedantic portent as Cotton Mather,”
Lowell continues, “would have been impossible in the first generation;
he was the natural growth of the third.” To discuss these epigrammatic
theses would take us far beyond the limits of our present subject.
One thing, however, must be said. Pedantry in the latter half of the
seventeenth century was not confined to New England, nor to the ranks
of those who were controversially styled the witchmongers. Meric
Casaubon and Joseph Glanvill were not pedantic, but John Webster’s
Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft--which in some respects comes very
near to being a great book--is a monument of pedantry, and John Webster
was not a product of New England.
In Thomas Hobbes, whom we may next consider, we find a philosopher
who was altogether incredulous on the subject of witchcraft. “As for
witches,” he writes, “I think not that their witchcraft is any real
power; but yet that they are justly punished, for the false belief that
they have that they can do such mischief, joined with their purpose
to do it if they can; their trade being nearer to a new religion
than to a craft or science.”[84] This dictum may accord with reason,
but one must admit that it was cold comfort for persons accused of
diabolical arts. And so was the more famous remark of Selden: “The
Law against Witches does not prove there be any; but it punishes the
Malice of those people, that use such means, to take away mens lives.
If one should profess that by turning his Hat thrice, and crying Buz;
he could take away a man’s life (though in truth he could do no such
thing) yet this were a just Law made by the State, that whosoever
should turn his Hat thrice, and cry Buz; with an intention to take
away a man’s life, shall be put to death.”[85] Bayle, shortly after
the beginning of the eighteenth century, agreed with Selden as to the
justice of putting “sorciers imaginaires” to death.[86] Thomas Ady,
believing (like Scot, to whom he often refers) that the witches and
sorcerers of the Bible were mere cheats, and that the same is true of
all who pretend to similar arts in modern times, is ready to admit the
justice of the death penalty in cases of fraud. In describing the case
of a certain Master of Arts who was “condemned only for using himself
to the study and practice of the Jugling craft,” he concludes:--“If
he had been a Jugler, or practiser of that Craft to this end, to
withstand the Prophets when they wrought true miracles, as _Pharaohs_
Juglers withstood _Moses_, or if he were one that practised it to
seduce the people after lying delusions, to magnifie himself as a
false Prophet, like _Simon Magus_ in the _Acts_, or to cause people to
ascribe miraculous power to him, or to seek to the Devil as our common
Deceivers, called good Witches, do, he was deservedly condemned.”[87]
Four dissenters from the current witchcraft dogma we must pass over
in silence--John Wagstaffe, Sir Robert Filmer, Robert Calef, and Dr.
Francis Hutchinson. Calef came too late to be really significant in our
discussion; Filmer’s tract is a kind of _jeu d’esprit_, not likely to
have had any influence except upon lawyers;[88] and Wagstaffe’s book
is a quite inconsiderable affair. Yet, in parting, we must not neglect
an odd remark concerning two out of the four--as well as one other,
John Webster, whose lucubrations we have already criticised--a remark
which, occurring as it does in a work of much learning and unusual
distinction, illustrates in striking fashion the inaccuracy which we
have already had occasion to notice, now and again, in recent writers
who have busied themselves with the abstruse and complicated subject of
witchcraft. President White, in his Warfare of Science with Theology,
expresses his admiration for Webster, Wagstaffe, and Hutchinson in the
following terms:--“But especially should honour be paid to the younger
men in the Church, who wrote at length against the whole system:
such men as Wagstaffe and Webster and Hutchinson, who in the humbler
ranks of the clergy stood manfully for truth, with the certainty that
by so doing they were making their own promotion impossible.”[89]
Of the three men whom Dr. White thus commends for renouncing all
hope of ecclesiastical preferment, the first, John Webster, was
sixty-seven years old when he published his book; he had long been
a Non-Conformist, and he describes himself on his title-page as
“Practitioner in Physick.” The second, John Wagstaffe, was a gentleman
of independent means who damaged his health by “continual bibbing of
strong and high tasted liquors”[90] and who was not in orders at all;
the third. Dr. Francis Hutchinson, was Chaplain in Ordinary to King
George I. when he published his Essay and was advanced to a bishopric
two years after the first edition of the book appeared.[91]
When in 1692 and 1693, we come to The Enchanted World (De Betoverde
Weereld)[92] of the Dutch preacher and theologian Balthasar Bekker,
we arrive at a method of opposing the witch dogma different from
anything we have so far examined. Bekker was fully aware of the
difficulties of his theme, and he had an uncommonly logical head. His
method is perfect. He first sets forth the spiritual beliefs of the
Greeks and Romans and their practices in the way of sorcery. Then he
shows--with an anticipation of the process so often used by the modern
anthropological school--that the same doctrines and practices are
found among “the pagans of the present day,”--in Northern Europe, in
Asia, in Africa, and in America, as well as among the ancient Jews.
The Manichæan heresy, he contends, was a mélange of pagan and Jewish
doctrines. These doctrines--heathen, Jewish, and Manichæan--early
became current among Christians. Hence, Christians in general now hold
that all sorts of extraordinary happenings are due to the activity of
the devil. Thus Bekker succeeds in explaining the primary conceptions
of modern demonology and witchcraft as derived from heathen sources.[93]
Bekker’s next task is to define body and spirit, according to reason
and the Bible. Both body and spirit are creatures. God, being perfect
and increate, is neither body nor spirit, but superior to both. He is
called a spirit in the Bible, simply because there is no better word
to express the divine nature, but that nature is different from what
is ordinarily meant by the term. God being the governor of the world,
we have no ground for believing that there are demigods (_dæmons_
in the Greek sense) or vice-gods. Apart from the Scriptures, reason
affords us no proof that there are any spirits except men’s souls. The
Scriptures, however, teach that there are good angels, of whom Michael
is the chief, and bad angels, whose prince is the devil. Beyond this,
we learn practically nothing from the Bible with regard to a hierarchy
of angels or of devils. Demoniacal possession was a natural disease: it
had nothing to do with evil spirits. Such devils as are mentioned in
Scripture are not said to be vassals of Satan; in many cases we are to
understand the word “devil” merely as a figure of speech for a wicked
man. There is no warrant in Holy Writ for the belief that Satan can
appear to mortals under different forms, nor for the powers vulgarly
ascribed to him and his supposed demonic household. In particular,
there is no scriptural warrant for the opinion that Satan or his imps
can injure men bodily or even suggest evil thoughts to them. The devil
and the evil angels are damned in hell; they have not the power to
move about in this world. The only way in which Satan is responsible
for the sins which we commit is through his having brought about the
fall of Adam, so that men are now depraved creatures, prone to sin.
There is no place in the divine government for particular suggestions
to wickedness, made from time to time, since the Fall, either by Satan
himself or by any of his train. Diabolical influence upon mankind
was confined to the initial temptation in Eden. Since Adam, neither
Satan nor any evil spirit has been active in this world in any manner
whatever, spiritual or corporeal. God rules, and the devil is not a
power to be reckoned with at all. These revolutionary propositions
Bekker proves, to his own satisfaction, not only from reason, but from
the Word of God.[94]
Here at last we have a rational method. Bekker is not content with
half-measures; he lays the axe to the root. There is a devil, to be
sure, and there are fallen angels; but neither the one nor the other
can have anything to do with the life and actions of mortal men.
Practically, then, the devil is non-existent. We may disregard him
entirely. If Bekker’s propositions are admitted, the stately fabric
of demonology and witchcraft crumbles in an instant. And nothing
less drastic than such propositions will suffice to make witchcraft
illogical or incredible. Bekker’s argument, we see at once, is utterly
different from anything that his predecessors had attempted.
It now becomes necessary for Bekker to proceed to discuss those
passages in the Bible which appear to justify the common beliefs in
sorcery and witchcraft. These beliefs are contrary to reason, but, if
they rest upon revelation, they must still be accepted, for Bekker
regards himself as an orthodox Christian of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Accordingly Bekker takes up every scriptural passage which mentions
witches, enchanters, diviners, and the like, and interprets them all in
such a way that they lend no support to current beliefs in the reality
of compacts with the devil, of magic, or of witchcraft. Whatever
magicians and witches, so-called, may think of their own performances,
there is nothing in Scripture, as interpreted by this bold and expert
theologian and unsurpassed dialectician, to warrant us in believing in
intercourse with Satan, or in his intervention, with or without the
mediation of sorcerers and witches, in human life as it is to-day.[95]
But, Bekker hastens to admit, there remains a huge mass of recent
testimony which is regarded by almost everybody as sufficient to
establish the existence of sorcery and witchcraft, whether such things
are recognized in the Bible or not. To this testimony Bekker devotes
the Fourth (and last) Book of his treatise.
He first points out that all such testimony is prejudiced, since it
comes from persons who have a fixed and, so to speak, an inherited
belief in the truth of the marvels whose very existence is in
question. He then examines a great body of material, with splendid
sobriety and common sense. This is perhaps the most interesting part
of his work to us,--though in fact it is less original than much of
what precedes, since all opponents of the witch dogma, beginning
with Wier, had attacked the evidence in many particulars, and since
even those scholars and theologians who supported the dogma most
effectively--like Glanvill--had granted without hesitation that fraud
and delusion played a large part in the accumulation of testimony.
Bekker’s treatment of the subject, however, is better than anything
of the kind that had been written before. Fraud, terror, hysteria,
insanity, illusion of the senses,--due to disease or to what we should
now call hypnotic or semi-hypnotic conditions,--unknown laws of
nature--these are the sources from which he derives his interpretation
of the evidence. This part of his work, then, has a singularly modern
tone, and gives the author a valid claim to rank as an enlightened
psychologist.
It has seemed advisable to give particular attention to Bekker’s
Enchanted World because of its singular merits, as well as on account
of the distinguished position which it deservedly holds among the books
which oppose the belief in witchcraft. In strictness, however, we are
not bound to include this work in our survey of seventeenth-century
opinion, since it did not appear in season to exert any influence on
New England at the time of the Salem prosecution. The first two Books
of Bekker’s work were published in 1691; the second two, which deal
specifically with witchcraft, in 1693. The trouble in Salem began in
February, 1692, and the prosecution collapsed in January, 1693. It is
certain that New England scholars knew nothing about the first two
Books when they were engaged in witch trials, and the last two were
not published until the trials had come to an end. But this matter
of dates need not be insisted on. Even if our ancestors had received
advance sheets of The Enchanted World, their opinions would not, in
all probability, have been in the slightest degree affected. Indeed,
the reception which Bekker’s treatise met with in his own country is
a plain indication of the temper of the times in this business of
witchcraft. The publication of the first two Books in 1691 was the
signal for a storm of denunciation. The Dutch press teemed with replies
and attacks. Bekker was instantly called to account by the authorities
of the Reformed Church. Complicated ecclesiastical litigation ensued,
with the result that the Synod of North Holland issued a decree
declaring Bekker “intolerable as teacher in the Reformed Church” and
expelling him from his ministerial office (August 7, 1692).[96] Soon
after, the Church Council of Amsterdam voted to exclude him from the
Lord’s Supper (August 17),[97] and he was never admitted to communion
again. He died on June 11, 1698.[98]
Another reason for going so fully into Bekker’s arguments is that they
give us an excellent chance to take up a question which is of cardinal
importance in weighing the whole matter of witchcraft. I refer, of
course, to the question of Biblical exegesis.
If we wish to treat our forefathers fairly, we are required to
criticise the few opponents of the witch dogma in a really impartial
way. We ought not to commend such portions of their argument as chance
to square with our own ideas, and ignore the rest. We must review their
case as a whole, so as to discover how far it was right or reasonable
on the basis of their own postulates. We must test the correctness of
their premises, as well as the accuracy of their logic.
This process we have gone through with already in several instances.
We have seen that all the opponents of witchcraft so far examined
struggle to maintain a position that is strategically indefensible,
either because they admit too much, or because they ignore certain
difficulties, or because they are frankly eccentric. It does not help
their case to contend that what they admit or what they ignore does not
signify from our present scientific point of view. It _did_ signify
_then_. The only man whose argument covers the ground completely and
affords a thorough and consistent theory on which a seventeenth-century
Christian was logically justified in rejecting witchcraft and
demoniacal possession as facts of everyday experience is Balthasar
Bekker.
Now the truth or falsity of Bekker’s very radical conclusions
hinged--for Bekker himself and for his contemporaries--on the soundness
of his Biblical exegesis. If his way of disposing of those passages
which mention devils and witches and diviners and familiar spirits is
not justifiable--if the Biblical writers did not mean what he thinks
they meant--then his whole case goes to pieces. In discussing the
witchcraft dogma of the seventeenth century, we must accept the Bible,
for the nonce, as the men of the seventeenth century (Bekker included)
accepted it--as absolutely true in every detail, as dynamically
inspired by the Holy Ghost, as a complete rule of faith and practice.
Modern views on this subject have no _locus standi_.
Now, if we only keep these fundamental principles firmly in mind, we
shall have no doubt as to the outcome. Beyond question, the Bible
affords ample authority for belief in demoniacal possession, in
necromancy, in the ability of Satan and his cohorts to cause physical
phenomena, and in the power of sorcerers to work miracles.[99] True,
not all the details of the witchcraft dogma rest upon Biblical
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 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;[103] 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] 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.[107] From the annals of witchcraft in Great Britain one may cite
the following cases:--1581, at St. Osith’s, in Essex;[108] 1590-1597,
in Scotland;[109] 1612, at Lancaster,[110] and again in 1633;[111]
1616, in Leicestershire;[112] 1645-1647, the Hopkins prosecution;[113]
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 under the influence of some evil spirit; and
therefore unfit to be evidences either against themselves, or any one
else.”[120]