N-UW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 579 



moderate estimate, there perished within a single century (1550- 

 1650) by an excruciating death, for this imaginary crime, not less 

 than a hundred thousand human lives — it may well be doubted 

 whether any single cause so often gave rise to an outbreak of the 

 persecution as the alleged bewitchment of some poor mad or fool- 

 ish or hysterical creature. The persecution thus once under way, 

 it fed itself ; for, under the terrible doctrine of " excepted cases,'* 

 by which in the religious crimes of heresy and witchcraft there 

 was no limit to the use of torture, the witch was forced to confess 

 to accomplices, who in turn accused others, and so on to the end 

 of the chapter.* 



The horrors of such a persecution, with the consciousness of 

 an ever-present devil it breathed and the panic terror of him it 

 inspired, could not but itself increase the insanity it claimed to 

 avenge. Well-authenticated, though rarer than is often believed, 

 were the cases where crazed women voluntarily accused them- 

 selves of the impossible crime ; and one of the most eminent 

 authorities on diseases of the mind declares that among the unfor- 

 tunate beings who were put to death for witchcraft he recognizes 

 well-marked victims of cerebral disorders ; while an equally emi- 

 nent authority in Germany tells us that, in a most careful study 

 of the original records of their trials by torture, he has often 

 found their answers and recorded conversations exactly like those 

 familiar to him in our modern lunatic asylums, and names some 

 forms of insanity which constantly and unmistakably appear 

 among those who suffered for criminal dealings with the Devil, f 



The result of this wide-spread terror was naturally a steady 

 increase in mental disorders. A great modern authority tells us 

 that, although modern civilization tends to increase insanity, the 

 number of lunatics at present is far less than in those ages of 

 faith and in the Reformation period. The treatment of the " pos- 

 sessed," as we find it laid down in standard treatises, sanctioned 

 by orthodox churchmen and jurists, accounts for this abundantly. 



* For a much fuller treatment of this phase of the subject, I must refer the reader to 

 my chapter on witchcraft. The Jesuit Stengel, professor at Ingolstadt, who (in his great 

 work, " De judiciis divinis ") urges, as reasons why a merciful God permits illness, his 

 wish to glorify himself through the miracles wrought by his Church, and his desire to test 

 the faith of men by letting them choose between the holy aid of the Church and the illicit 

 resort to medicine, declares that there is a difference between simple possession and that 

 brought by bewitchment, and that the latter is the more difficult to treat. 



f See D. H. Tuke, " Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles," London, 

 18S2, p. 36; also Kirchhoff, p. 340. The forms of insanity especially mentioned arc "de- 

 mentia senilis " and epilepsy. A striking case of voluntary confession of witchcraft by a 

 woman who lived to recover from the delusion is narrated in great detail by Reginald 

 Scot, in his "Discovery of Witchcraft," London, 1584. It is, alas, only too likely that the 

 " strangeness " caused by slight and unrecognized mania led often to the accusation of witch- 

 craft instead of to the suspicion of possession. 



