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CHAP. II.

A lawyer's argument for the existence of witchcraft-Proofs of spectral impressions, from recollected perceptions-New England witches-Cardan-DonneJonson-The maid of France-and other visionaries.

IN a compilation, on the duties of a

Justice of Peace, published by Nelson, we meet with a proof of the existence of witchcraft, which the editor appears to have thought irrefragable. "It seems," saith he, "that there must formerly "have been such a crime as witchcraft, "because divers statutes have been made

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against it." Were we to reason in the same manner, respecting demoniacal

agency, in medical cases, proof could be brought, (particularly from the older German writers), that medicines have been administered, for the purpose of expelling the devil from human bodies, into which it was supposed that he had entered, and that many different remedies had been employed to this end.

Instead of resorting to any arguments of this nature, I shall now proceed to shew, that the forms of objects which have no external prototypes, are exhi bited to the mind, in certain states of the brain.

§ II.

In the course of my professional employment, I have frequently conversed with persons, who imagined that they saw demons, and heard them speak, This species of delusion admits of many gradations, and distinctions, exclusive of actual insanity.

When the brain is partially irritated, the patient fancies that he sees spiders crawling over his bed-clothes, or person; or beholds them covering the roof and walls of his room. If the disease increases, he imagines that persons who are dead, or absent, flit round his bed; that animals croud into his apartment, and that all these apparitions speak to him. These impressions take place, even while he is convinced of their fallacy. All this occurs sometimes, without any degree of delirium.

I had occasion to see a young married woman, whose first indication of illness was a spectral delusion. She told me, that her apartment appeared suddenly to be filled with devils, and that her terror impelled her to quit the house. with great precipitation, When she was brought back, she saw the whole staircase occupied by diabolical forms, and was in agonies of fear for several days.

After this first impression wore off, she heard a voice tempting her to selfdestruction, and prohibiting her from all exercises of piety. Such was the account given by her, when she was sensible of the delusion, yet unable to resist the horror of the impression. When she was nearly recovered, I had the curiosity to question her, as I have interrogated others, respecting the forms of the demons with which they had been alarmed; but I never could obtain any other account, than that they were small, very much deformed, and had horns and claws, like the imps of our terrific modern romances.

I have been forced to listen with much gravity, to a man partially insane, who assured me that the devil was lodged in his side, and that I should perceive him thumping and fluttering there, in a manner which would perfectly convince me of his presence.

Another lunatic believed that he had swallowed the devil, and had retained him in his stomach. He resisted the calls of nature during several days, lest he should set the foul fiend at liberty. I overcame his resolution, however, by administering an emetic in his food.

In Mather's Wonders of the invisible World, containing the trials of the American witches, in 1692, a work which may be regarded as official, it appears that the visions of several persons who thought themselves bewitched, were occasioned by the night-mare.

On the trial of Bridget Bishop, at Salem, for example; "John Cook testi"fied, that about five or six years ago, "one morning about sun-rise, he was "in his chamber assaulted by the shape "of this prisoner, which looked on him,

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