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of strong nerves might resist it and go free, while a physically 

 delicate man, though innocent, would be forced to confess. Hence 

 it was that under paganism a limit was imposed to the torture 

 which could be administered ; but when Christianity had become 

 predominant throughout Europe, torture was developed with a 

 cruelty never before known. The theological doctrine of "ex- 

 cepted cases " was evolved these " excepted cases " being heresy 

 and witchcraft ; for hy a very simple and natural process of theo- 

 logical reasoning it was held that Satan would give supernatural 

 strength to his special devotees that is, to heretics and witches ; 

 and therefore, that in dealing with them there should be no limits 

 to the torture. The result was in this particular case, as in tens 

 of thousands besides, that the accused confessed everything which 

 could be suggested to them, and often in the delirium of their 

 agony confessed far more than all that the zeal of the prosecutors 

 could suggest. Finally, a great number of worthy people were 

 sentenced to the most cruel death which could be invented. The 

 records of their trials and deaths are frightful. The treatise 

 which in recent years has first brought to light in connected 

 form an authentic account of the proceedings in this affair, and 

 which gives at the end engravings of the accused submitting to 

 horrible tortures on their way to the stake and at the place of 

 execution itself, is one of the most fearful k monuments of theo- 

 logical reasoning and human folly. 



To cap the climax, after a poor apothecary had been tortured 

 into a confession that he had made the magic ointment, and had 

 been put to death with the most exquisite refinements of torture, 

 his family were obliged to take another name, and were driven 

 out from the city ; his house was torn down, and on its site was 

 erected " The Column of Infamy," which remained on this spot 

 until, toward the end of the eighteenth century, a party of young 

 radicals, probably influenced by the reading of Beccaria, sallied 

 forth one night and leveled this pious monument to the ground. 



Herein was seen the culmination and decline of the bull 

 " Summis Desiderantes." It had been issued by him whom a vast 

 majority of the Christian world believes to be infallible in his 

 teachings to the Church as regards faith and morals ; yet here 

 was a deliberate utterance in a matter of faith and morals which 

 even children now know to be utterly untrue. Though Beccaria's 

 book on Crimes and Punishments, with its declarations against 

 torture, was placed by the church authorities upon the Index, and 

 though the faithful throughout the Christian world were forbid- 

 den to read it, even this could not prevent the victory of truth 

 over this infallible utterance of Innocent VIII.* 



* As to the fearful effects of the papal bull " Summis Desiderantes " in south Ger- 

 many, on the Protestant seventies in north Germany, and the immense number of women 



