"The attitude of ordinary educated people towards miracles is not that of doubt, of hesitation, of discontent with the existing evidence, but rather of absolute, derisive, and even unexamining incredulity."

"In certain stages of society, and under the action of certain influences, an accretion of miracles is invariably formed around every prominent person or institution. We can analyse the general causes that have impelled men towards the miraculous; we can show that these causes have never failed to produce the effect; and we can trace the gradual alteration of mental conditions invariably accompanying the decline of the belief.

"We do not say they are impossible, or even that they are not authenticated by as much evidence as many facts we believe. We only say that, in certain states of society, illusions of this kind inevitably appear. ..."

"Sometimes we can discover the precise natural fact which the superstition has misread, but more frequently we can give only a general explanation, enabling us to assign these legends to their place, as the normal expression of a certain stage of knowledge or intellectual power; and this explanation is their refutation."

* The decline of the belief may, however, be due (as a friend has suggested to me) to a real decline in the occurrence of the phenomena which compelled the belief, due to a well-known natural law. It is certain that witches, and the persons subject to their influence, were what are now termed "mediums;" that is, persons of the peculiar organization required for the manifestation of modern spiritual phenomena. For several centuries all persons endowed in almost any degree with these peculiar powers were persecuted as witches, and burnt or destroyed by thousands all over the so-called civilised world. The mediums being destroyed, the production of the phenomena became impossible; added to which the persecution would lead to concealment of all incipient manifestations. Just at this time, too, physical science began to make those rapid strides which have changed the face of the world and induced a frame of mind which led men to look with horror and loathing at the barbarities and absurdities of the witch-persecutors. A century of repose has allowed the human organism to regain its normal powers; and the phenomena which were formerly imputed to the direct agency of Satan, are now looked upon by Spiritualists as, for the most part, the work of invisible intelligences very little better or worse than ourselves.

"The predominating characteristic of Glanvil's mind was an intense scepticism. He has even been termed by a modern critic the first English writer who has thrown scepticism into a definite form; and if we regard this expression as simply implying a profound distrust of human faculties, the judgment can hardly be denied. And certainly it would be difficult to find a work displaying less of credulity and superstition than the treatise on 'The Vanity of Dogmatising,' afterwards published as Scepsis Scientifica, in which Glanvil expounded his philosophical views. . . . The Sadducismus Tnumphatus is probably the ablest book ever published in defence of the reality of witchcraft. Dr. Henry Moore, the illustrious Boyle, and the scarcely less eminent Cudworth, warmly supported Glanvil; and no writer comparable to these in ability or influence appeared on the other side; yet the scepticism steadily increased."

"It was between the writings of Bacon and Locke that that latitudinarian school was formed which was irradiated by the genius of Taylor, Glanvil, and Hales, and which became the very centre and seedplot of religious liberty."

* The Rev. Joseph Glanvil, who witnessed some of the extraordinary disturbances at Mr. Mompesson's, and has given a full account of them, and has also collected the evidence for many remarkable cases of supposed witchcraft, was not the credulous fool many who hear that he wrote in favour of the reality of witches will suppose him to have been, but a man of education, talent, and judgment. Mr. Lecky, in his "History of the Eise and Progress of Rationalism in Europe," says of him:—"A divine who in his own day was very famous, and who I venture to think has been surpassed in genius by few of his successors. The works of Glanvil are far less known than they should be." I here give a few extracts from his-"Introduction to the Proof of the Existence of Apparitions, Spirits, and Witches."

"Section IV.—What things the author concedes in this controversy about witches and witchcraft":—

First: He grants that there are "witty and ingenious men "opposed to him in the matter.

Secondly : He admits that some who deny witches are good Christians.

Thirdly: He says, "I allow that the great body of mankind is very credulous, and in this matter, so that they do believe vain impossible things in relation to it. That converse with the Devil and real transmutation of men and women into other creatures are such. That people are apt to impute the extraordinaries of art or nature to witchcraft, and that their credulity is often abused by subtle and designing knaves through these. That there are ten thousand silly, lying stories of witchcraft and apparitions among the vulgar."

Fourthly: "I grant that melancholy and imagination have very great force and beget strange persuasions; and that many stories of witches, and apparitions have been but melancholy fancies."

Fifthly : "I know and yield that there are many strange natural diseases that have odd symptoms, and produce wonderful and astonishing effects beyond the usual course of nature, and that such are sometimes falsely ascribed to witchcraft."

Sixthly : "I own the Popish Inquisitors and other witch-finders have done much wrong, that they have destroyed innocent persons for witches, and that watching and torture hare extorted extraordinary confessions from some that were not guilty."

Seventhly: He acknowledges that of the facts which he affirms to be real many are very strange, uncouth, and improbable, and that we cannot understand them or reconcile them with the commonly received notions of spirits and the future state.

Having made these concessions to his adversaries he demands others in return.

" Section V.—The postulata which the author demands of his adversaries as his just right are, viz.:—

First: That whether witches are or are not is a question of fact.

Secondly: That matter of fact can only be proved by immediate sense or the testimony of others. To endeavour to demonstrate fact by abstract reasoning or speculation is as if a man should prove that Julius Cesar founded the Empire of Rome by algebra or metaphysics.

Thirdly: That Scripture is not all allegory, but generally has a plain, literal, and obvious meaning.

Fourthly: That some human testimonies are credible and certain, viz.:— They may be so circumstantiated as to leave no reason of doubt; for our senses sometimes report truth, and all mankind are not liars, cheats, and knaves—at least they are not all liars when they have no interest to be so.

Fifthly: That which is sufficiently and undeniably proved ought not to be denied because we know not how it can be, that is, because there are difficulties in the conceiving of it; otherwise sense and knowledge is gone as well as faith. For the modus of most things is unknown, and the most obvious in nature have inextricable difficulties in the conceiving of them, as I have shown in my Scepsis Scientifica.

Sixthly: We know scarcely anything of the nature of Spirits and the conditions of the future state."

And he concludes:—" These are my postulata or demands, which I suppose will be thought reasonable, and such as need no more proof."

The evidence adduced by a man who thus philosophically lays down his basis of investigation cannot be despised; and a perusal of Glanvil's works will well repay anyone who takes an interest in this inquiry.