was merciful and judicious: for it did not attach to the guilt of
witchcraft the punishment of death, unless it had been used to destroy
life; that is, unless it had become murder.
On the demise of Elizabeth, James of Scotland ascended the throne. His
pedantic and eccentric character is well known. He had an early and
decided inclination towards abstruse or mysterious speculations. Before
he had reached his twentieth year, he undertook to accomplish what only
the most sanguine and profound theologians have ever dared to attempt:
he expounded the Book of Revelation. When he was about twenty-five
years of age, he published a work on the "Doctrine of Devils and
Witchcraft." Not long after, he succeeded to the British crown. It may
easily be imagined that the subject of demonology[i.376] soon became a
fashionable and prevailing topic of conversation in the royal saloons
and throughout the nation. It served as a medium through which
obsequious courtiers could convey their flattery to the ears of their
accomplished and learned sovereign. His Majesty's book was reprinted
and extensively circulated. It was of course praised and recommended in
all quarters.
The parliament, actuated by a base desire to compliment the vain and
superstitious king, enacted a new and much more severe statute against
witchcraft, in the very first year of his reign. It was under this law
that so many persons here and in England were deprived of their lives.
The blood of hundreds of innocent persons was thus unrighteously shed.
It was a fearful price which these servile lawgivers paid for the favor
of their prince.
But this was not the only mischief brought about by courtly deference
to the prejudices of King James. It was under his direction that our
present translation of the Scriptures was made. To please His Royal
Majesty, and to strengthen the arguments in his work on demonology, the
word "witch" was used to represent expressions in the original Hebrew,
that conveyed an entirely different idea; and it was freely inserted in
the headings of the chapters.[B] A person having "a familiar spirit"
was a favorite description of a witch in the king's book. The
trans[i.377]lators, forgetful of their high and solemn function,
endeavored to establish this definition by inserting it into their
version. Accordingly, they introduced it in several places; in the
eleventh verse of the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, for instance,
"a consulter with familiar spirits." There is no word in the Hebrew
which corresponds with "familiar." And this is the important, the
essential word in the definition. It conveys the idea of alliance,
stated connection, confederacy, or compact, which is characteristic and
distinctive of a witch. The expression in the original signifies "a
consulter with spirits,"—especially, as was the case with the "Witch of
Endor," a consulter with departed spirits. It was a shocking perversion
of the word of God, for the purpose of flattering a frail and mortal
sovereign! King James lived to see and acknowledge the error of his
early opinions, and he would gladly have counteracted their bad effect;
but it is easier to make laws and translations than it is to alter and
amend them.
While the law of the land required the capital punishment of witches,
no blame ought to be attached to judges and jurors for discharging
their respective duties in carrying it into execution. It will not do
for us to assert, that they ought to have refused, let the consequences
to themselves have been what they would, to sanction and give effect to
such inhuman and unreasonable enactments. We cannot consistently take
this ground; for there is nothing more certain than that, with their
notions, our ancestors had at least as[i.378] good reasons to advance
in favor of punishing witchcraft with death, as we have for punishing
any crime whatsoever in the same awful and summary manner. We appeal,
in defence of our capital punishments, to the text of Moses, "Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." The apologist of
our fathers, for carrying into effect the law making witchcraft a
capital offence, tells us in reply, in the first place, that this
passage is not of the nature of a precept, but merely of an admonition;
that it does not enjoin any particular method of proceeding, but simply
describes the natural consequences of cruel and contentious conduct;
and that it amounts only to this: that quarrelsome, violent, and
bloodthirsty persons will be apt to meet the same fate they bring upon
others; that the duellist will be likely to fall in private combat, the
ambitious conqueror to perish, and the warlike nation to be destroyed,
on the field of battle. If this is not considered by us a sufficient
and satisfactory answer, he advances to our own ground, points to the
same text where we place our defence, and puts his finger on the
following plain and authoritative precept: "Thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live." Indeed we must acknowledge, that the capital punishment
of witches is as strongly supported and fortified by the Scriptures of
the Old Testament—at least, as they appear in our present version—as
the capital punishment of any crime whatever.
If we adopt another line of argument, and say that it is necessary to
punish some particular crimes with[i.379] death, in order to maintain
the security of society, or hold up an impressive warning to others,
here also we find that our opponent has full as much to offer in
defence of our fathers as can be offered in our own defence. He
describes to us the tremendous and infernal power which was universally
believed by them to be possessed by a witch; a power which, as it was
not derived from a natural source, could not easily be held in check by
natural restraints: neither chains nor dungeons could bind it down or
confine it. You might load the witch with irons, you might bury her in
the lowest cell of a feudal prison, and still it was believed that she
could send forth her imps or her spectre to ravage the fields, and
blight the meadows, and throw the elements into confusion, and torture
the bodies, and craze the minds, of any who might be the objects of her
malice.
Shakspeare, in the description which he puts into the mouth of Macbeth
of the supernatural energy of witchcraft, does not surpass, if he does
justice to, the prevailing belief on the subject:—
"I conjure you, by that which you profess,
(Howe'er you came to know it) answer me,—
Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corn be lodged, and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germins tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken,—answer me
To what I ask you."
[i.380]
There was indeed an almost infinite power to do mischief associated
with a disposition to do it. No human strength could strip the witch of
these mighty energies while she lived; nothing but death could destroy
them. There was, as our ancestors considered, incontestable evidence,
that she had put them forth to the injury, loss, and perhaps death, of
others.
Can it be wondered at, that, under such circumstances, the law
connecting capital punishment with the guilt of witchcraft was resorted
to as the only means to protect society, and warn others from entering
into the dark, wicked, and malignant compact?
It is not probable that even King James's Parliament would have been
willing to go to the length of Selden in his "Table-Talk," who takes
this ground in defence of the capital punishment of witches. "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 men's lives. If one
should profess, that, by turning his hat thrice and crying 'Buzz,' 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 whoever should
turn his hat thrice and cry 'Buzz,' with an intention to take away a
man's life, shall be put to death."
There are other considerations that deserve to be weighed before a
final judgment should be made up respecting the conduct of our fathers
in the witchcraft delusion. Among these is the condition of physical
science in their day. But little knowledge of the[i.381] laws of nature
was possessed, and that little was confined to a few. The world was
still, to the mass of the people, almost as full of mystery in its
physical departments as it was to its first inhabitants. Politics,
poetry, rhetoric, ethics, and history had been cultivated to a great
extent in previous ages; but the philosophy of the natural and material
world was almost unknown. Astronomy, chemistry, optics, pneumatics, and
even geography, were involved in the general darkness and error. Some
of our most important sciences, such as electricity, date their origin
from a later period.
This remarkable tardiness in the progress of physical science for some
time after the era of the revival of learning is to be accounted for by
referring to the erroneous methods of reasoning and observation then
prevalent in the world. A false logic was adopted in the schools of
learning and philosophy. The great instrument for the discovery and
investigation of truth was the syllogism, the most absurd contrivance
of the human mind; an argumentative process whose conclusion is
contained in the premises; a method of proof, in the first step of
which the matter to be proved is taken for granted.[C] In a word, the
whole system of philosophy was made up of hypotheses, and[i.382] the
only foundation of science was laid in conjecture. The imagination,
called necessarily into extraordinary action, in the absence of
scientific certainty, was still further exercised in vain attempts to
discover, unassisted by observation and experiment, the elements and
first principles of nature. It had reached a monstrous growth about the
time to which we are referring. Indeed it may be said, that all the
intellectual productions of modern times, from the seventeenth century
back to the dark ages, were works of imagination. The bulkiest and most
voluminous writings that proceeded from the cloisters or the
universities, even the metaphysical disquisitions of the Nominalists
and Realists, and the boundless subtleties of the contending schools of
the "Divine Doctors," Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, fall under this
description. Dull, dreary, unintelligible, and interminable as they
are, they are still in reality works of fancy. They are the offspring,
almost exclusively, of the imaginative faculty. It ought not to create
surprise, to find that this faculty predominated in the minds and
characters of our ancestors, and developed itself to an extent beyond
our conception, when we reflect that it was almost the only one called
into exercise, and that it was the leading element of every branch of
literature and philosophy.
[i.383]
It is true, that, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, Lord
Bacon made his sublime discoveries in the department of physical
science. By disclosing the true method of investigation and reasoning
on such subjects, he may be said to have found, or rather to have
invented, the key that unlocked the hitherto unopened halls of nature.
He introduced man to the secret chambers of the universe, and placed in
his hand the thread by which he has been conducted to the magnificent
results of modern science, and will undoubtedly be led on to results
still more magnificent in times to come. But it was not for human
nature to pass in a moment from darkness to light. The transition was
slow and gradual: a long twilight intervened before the sun shed its
clear and full radiance upon the world.
The great discoverer himself refused to admit, or was unable to
discern, some of the truths his system had revealed. Bacon was numbered
among the opponents of the Copernican or true system of astronomy to
the day of his death; so also was Sir Thomas Browne, the great
philosopher already described, and who flourished during the latter
half of the same century. Indeed, it may be said, that, at the time of
the witchcraft delusion, the ancient empire of darkness which had
oppressed and crushed the world of science had hardly been shaken. The
great and triumphant progress of modern discovery had scarcely begun.
I shall now proceed to illustrate these views of the state of science
in the world at that time by presenting[i.384] a few instances. The
slightest examination of the accounts which remain of occurrences
deemed supernatural by our ancestors will satisfy any one that they
were brought about by causes entirely natural, although unknown to
them. For instance, the following circumstances are related by the Rev.
James Pierpont, pastor of a church in New Haven, in a letter to Cotton
Mather, and published by him in his "Magnalia:"[D]—
In the year 1646, a new ship, containing a valuable cargo, and having
several distinguished persons on board as passengers, put to sea from
New Haven in the month of January, bound to England. The vessels that
came over the ensuing spring brought no tidings of her arrival in the
mother-country. The pious colonists were earnest and instant in their
prayers that intelligence might be received of the missing vessel. In
the month of June, 1648, "a great thunder-storm arose out of the
north-west; after which (the hemisphere being serene), about an hour
before sunset, a ship of like dimensions with the aforesaid, with her
canvas and colors abroad (although[i.385] the wind was northerly),
appeared in the air, coming up from the harbor's mouth, which lies
southward from the town,—seemingly with her sails filled under a fresh
gale, holding her course north, and continuing under observation,
sailing against the wind for the space of half an hour." The
phantom-ship was borne along, until, to the excited imaginations of the
spectators, she seemed to have approached so near that they could throw
a stone into her. Her main-topmast then disappeared, then her
mizzen-topmast; then her masts were entirely carried away; and,
finally, her hull fell off, and vanished from sight,—leaving a dull and
smoke-colored cloud, which soon dissolved, and the whole atmosphere
became clear. All affirmed that the airy vision was a precise copy and
image of the missing vessel, and that it was sent to announce and
describe her fate. They considered it the spectre of the lost ship; and
the Rev. Mr. Davenport declared in public, "that God had condescended,
for the quieting their afflicted spirits, this extraordinary account of
his sovereign disposal of those for whom so many fervent prayers were
made continually."
The results of modern science enable us to explain the mysterious
appearance. It is probable that some Dutch vessel, proceeding slowly,
quietly, and unconsciously on her voyage from Amsterdam to the New
Netherlands, happened at the time to be passing through the Sound. At
the moment the apparition was seen in the sky, she was so near, that
her reflected image was painted or delineated, to the eyes of
the[i.386] observers, on the clouds, by laws of optics now generally
well known, before her actual outlines could be discerned by them on
the horizon. As the sun sunk behind the western hills, and his rays
were gradually withdrawn, the visionary ship slowly disappeared; and
the approach of night effectually concealed the vessel as she continued
her course along the Sound.
The optical illusions that present themselves on the sea-shore, by
which distant objects are raised to view, the opposite capes and
islands made to loom up, lifted above the line of the apparent
circumference of the earth, and thrown into every variety of shape
which the imagination can conceive, are among the most beautiful
phenomena of nature; and they impress the mind with the idea of
enchantment and mystery, more perhaps than any others: but they have
received a complete solution from modern discovery.
It should be observed, that the optical principles which explain these
phenomena have recently afforded a foundation for the science, or
rather art, of nauscopy; and there are persons in some places,—in the
Isle of France, as I have been told,—whose calling and profession is to
ascertain and predict the approach of vessels, by their reflection in
the atmosphere and on the clouds, long before they are visible to the
eye, or through the glass.
The following opinion prevailed at the time of our narrative. The
discoveries in electricity, itself a recent science, have rendered it
impossible for us to contemplate it without ridicule. But it was the
sober[i.387] opinion of the age. "A great man has noted it," says a
learned writer, "that thunders break oftener on churches than any other
houses, because demons have a peculiar spite at houses that are set
apart for the peculiar service of God."
Every thing that was strange or remarkable—every thing at all out of
the usual course, every thing that was not clear and plain—was
attributed to supernatural interposition. Indeed, our fathers lived, as
they thought, continually in the midst of miracles; and felt themselves
surrounded, at all times, in all scenes, with innumerable invisible
beings. The beautiful verse of Milton describes their faith:—
"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep."
What was to him, however, a momentary vision of the imagination, was to
them like a perpetual perception of the senses: it was a practical
belief, an everyday common sentiment, an all-pervading feeling. But
these supernatural beings very frequently were believed to have become
visible to our superstitious ancestors. The instances, indeed, were not
rare, of individuals having seen the Devil himself with their mortal
eyes. They may well be brought to notice, as illustrating the ideas
which then prevailed, and had an immediate, practical effect on the
conduct of men, in reference to the power, presence, and action of the
Devil in human affairs. This, in fact, is necessary, that we may
understand the narrative we are preparing to contemplate of
transactions based wholly on those ideas.[i.388]
The following passage is extracted from a letter written to Increase
Mather by the Rev. John Higginson:—
"The godly Mr. Sharp, who was ruling elder of the church of Salem
almost thirty years after, related it of himself, that, being bred up
to learning till he was eighteen years old, and then taken off, and put
to be an apprentice to a draper in London, he yet notwithstanding
continued a strong inclination and eager affection to books, with a
curiosity of hearkening after and reading of the strangest and oddest
books he could get, spending much of his time that way to the neglect
of his business. At one time, there came a man into the shop, and
brought a book with him, and said to him, 'Here is a book for you, keep
this till I call for it again;' and so went away. Mr. Sharp, after his
wonted bookish manner, was eagerly affected to look into that book, and
read it, which he did: but, as he read in it, he was seized on by a
strange kind of horror, both of body and mind, the hair of his head
standing up; and, finding these effects several times, he acquainted
his master with it, who, observing the same effects, they concluded it
was a conjuring book, and resolved to burn it, which they did. He that
brought it in the shape of a man never coming to call for it, they
concluded it was the Devil. He, taking this as a solemn warning from
God to take heed what books he read, was much taken off from his former
bookishness; confining himself to reading the Bible, and other known
good books of divinity, which were profitable to his soul."
Kircher relates the following anecdote, with a full belief of its
truth: He had a friend who was zealously and perseveringly devoted to
the study of al[i.389]chemy. At one time, while he was intent upon his
operations, a gentleman entered his laboratory, and kindly offered to
assist him. In a few moments, a large mass of the purest gold was
brought forth from the crucible. The gentleman then took his hat, and
went out: before leaving the apartment, however, he wrote a recipe for
making the precious article. The grateful and admiring mortal continued
his operations, according to the directions of his visitor; but the
charm was lost: he could not succeed, and was at last completely ruined
by his costly and fruitless experiments. Both he and his friend Kircher
were fully persuaded that the mysterious stranger-visitor was the
Devil.
Baxter has recorded a curious interview between Satan and Mr. White, of
Dorchester, assessor to the Westminster Assembly:—
"The Devil, in a light night, stood by his bedside. The assessor looked
a while, whether he would say or do any thing, and then said, 'If thou
hast nothing to do, I have;' and so turned himself to sleep." Dr.
Hibbert is of opinion, that the Rev. Mr. White treated his satanic
majesty, on this occasion, with "a cool contempt, to which he had not
often been accustomed."
Indeed, there is nothing more curious or instructive, in the history of
that period, than the light which it sheds upon the influence of the
belief of the personal existence and operations of the Devil, when that
belief is carried out fully into its practical effects. The Christian
doctrine had relapsed into a system almost identical with Manicheism.
Wierus thus describes[i.390] Satan, as he was regarded in the prevalent
theology: "He possesses great courage, incredible cunning, superhuman
wisdom, the most acute penetration, consummate prudence, an
incomparable skill in veiling the most pernicious artifices under a
specious disguise, and a malicious and infinite hatred towards the
human race, implacable and incurable." Milton merely responded to the
popular sentiment in making Satan a character of lofty dignity, and in
placing him on an elevation not "less than archangel ruined."
Hallywell, in his work on witchcraft, declares that "that mighty angel
of darkness is not foolishly nor idly to be scoffed at or blasphemed.
The Devil," says he, "may properly be looked upon as a dignity, though
his glory be pale and wan, and those once bright and orient colors
faded and darkened in his robes; and the Scriptures represent him as a
prince, though it be of devils." Although our fathers cannot be charged
with having regarded the Devil in this respectful and deferential
light, it must be acknowledged that they gave him a conspicuous and
distinguished—we might almost say a dignified—agency in the affairs of
life and the government of the world: they were prone to confess, if
not to revere, his presence, in all scenes and at all times. He
occupied a wide space, not merely in their theology and philosophy, but
in their daily and familiar thoughts.[E]
[i.391]
Cotton Mather, in one of his sermons, carries home this peculiar belief
to the consciences of his hearers, in a manner that could not have
failed to quicken and startle the most dull and drowsy among them.