THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MON^THLY. 



HABCH, 1889. 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L.H.D., 



rOEMEELT PEESIDENT OF COENELL lOTIVEESITY. 



"DEMONIACAL POSSESSION" AND INSANITY. 

 PART II. 



IN the foregoing chapter we have seen the culmination of the 

 old procedure regarding insanity, as it was developed under 

 theology and enforced by ecclesiasticism ; and we have noted how, 

 under the influence of Luther and Calvin, the Reformation rather 

 deepened than weakened the faith in the malice and power of a 

 personal devil. Nor was this in the reformed churches, any more 

 than in the old, mere matter of theory. As, in the early centuries 

 of Christianity, it was to their power over the enemy of mankind 

 in the bodies of men that the priests of the new faith especially 

 appealed in proof of its divine origin and nature, so now the 

 clergy of the rival creeds eagerly sought opportunities to estab- 

 lish the truth of their own doctrines and the falsehood of their 

 opponents' by the visible casting out of devils. True, their meth- 

 ods somewhat differed : where the Catholic used holy water and 

 consecrated wax, the Protestant was content with texts of Script- 

 ure and importunate prayer; but the supplementary physical 

 annoyance of the indwelling demon did not greatly vary. Sharp 

 was the competition for the unhappy objects of treatment. Each 

 side, of course, stoutly denied all efficacy to its adversaries' efforts, 

 urging that any seeming victory over Satan was due not to the 

 defeat but to the collusion of the fiend. As, according to the 

 Master himself, " no man can by Beelzebub cast out devils," the 

 patient was now in greater need of relief than before ; and more 

 VOL. sxxiv. — 37 



