NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 467 



Germany, during the century following the Reformation, the great 

 Saxon jurist, Benedict Carpzov, distinguished himself by his skill in 

 demonstrating the reality of the crime from Scripture, and by his cru- 

 elty in detecting and punishing it by torture. 



Typical as to the attitude of Scotch and English Protestants, was 

 the theory and practice of King James I, " the crowned Solomon," 

 himself the author of a book on demonology. James had married 

 the Princess of Denmark, and the ship which bore her to the British 

 shores encountered tempests. Skillful use of unlimited torture soon 

 brought the causes to light. A Doctor Fian, while his legs were 

 crushed in the " boots " and wedges driven under his finger-nails, con- 

 fessed that several hundred witches had gone to sea in a sieve from 

 the port of Leith, and bad raised storms and tempests to drive back 

 the king's bride.* Still later, in the second half of the seventeenth 

 century, we see a typical example of the same superstition in England 

 in the case of Meric Casaubon, Doctor of Divinity and an ecclesiastic 

 in high position at Canterbury. He declared fully for the doctrine 

 that witches raise storms, citing the foremost ecclesiastical authorities. \ 



In America, the great weight of the elder Mather was thrown 

 on the same side.J But, in spite of all these great authorities, in 

 every land, and in spite of such summary punishments as those of 

 Loos and Bekker, scientific thought was developed ; and, at the end 

 of the seventeenth century, this vast growth of superstition began to 

 wither and droop. Bayle in France, Calef in New England, and 

 Thomasius in Germany, did much to create an intellectual and moral 

 atmosphere fatal to it. Torture being abolished, " weather-makers " 

 no longer confessed ; and the fundamental proofs in which the system 

 was rooted were evidently slipping away. Even the great theologian 



* The best accounts of James's share in the extortion of these confessions may be 

 found in the collection of " Curious Tracts " published at Edinburgh in 1820. (See also 

 King James's own " Demonologie," and Pitcairn's " Criminal Trials of Scotland," vol. i, 

 part ii, pp. 213-223.) 



f See his " Credulity and Incredulity in Things Natural," pp. 66, 6*7. 



\ Thus, in his sermons (already cited) on " The Voice of God in Stormy Winds " (Bos- 

 ton, 1704), he says: "When there are great Tempests, the Angels oftentimes have an 

 hand therein. . . . Yea, and sometimes, by Divine Permission, Evil Angels have a Hand 

 in such Storms and Tempests as are very hurtful to Men on the Earth." Yet, " for the 

 most part, such Storms are sent by the Providence of God as a Sign of His Displeasure 

 for the Sins of Men," and sometimes " as Prognosticks and terrible Warnings of Great 

 Judgments not far off." And thus from the height of his erudition he rebuke3 the timid 

 voice of scientific skepticism : " There are some who would be esteemed the Wits of the 

 World, that ridicule those as Superstitious and Weak Persons, which look upon Dreadful 

 Tempests as Prodromous [sic] of other Judgments. Nevertheless, the most Learned and 

 Judicious Writers, not only of the Gentiles, but amongst Christians, have Embraced such 

 a Persuasion; their Sentiments therein being Confirmed by the Experience of many 

 Ages." For another curious turn given to this theory, with reference to sanitary sci- 

 ence, see Deodat Lawson's famous sermon at Salem, in 1692, on "Christ's Fidelity a 

 Shield against Satan's Malignity" (p. 21 of the second edition). 



