On Popular Illuftons. 41 



Hippocrates mufl allude to the nature of the 

 atinofphere, but thinks he refers to an occult 

 quality produced by the immediate ad of divine 

 power, or, according to his own theory, by 

 aftral influence. 



It would have been happy for Europe, if phy- 

 ficians, after the revival of letters, had followed 

 the wife and temperate dictates of their great 

 mafter, with as much care as they inveftigated ^ 

 his uncertain hypothefes. As medical men 

 generally determined the nature of the difeafes 

 imputed to fafcination, fome fpirited decifions on 

 the fide of common fenfe might have checked 

 the fanguinary proceedings, which difgraced all 

 the fixteenth, and great part of the feventeenth 

 centuries. But a pafTion for myfticifm, which 

 in one fhape or other haunts the infancy of lite- 

 rature, as well as of fociety, feized the faculty, 

 and they didated, at their eafe, thofe wretched 

 abfurdities, by the authority of which hundreds of 

 their fellow-creatures were fubjeded to imprifon- 

 ment, tortures, and an agonizing death. 



I cannot proceed without obferving, that the 

 hiftory of this delufion is a perpetual reproach, 

 to thofe who treat all innovations in fpeculative 

 opinions with indignation : x.\\t firft writers 

 againft the dodrine of witchcraft were fligma- 

 tized as atheifts*^ yet they only endeavoured 



* By Dr» Henry More, Glanville, and Cudworth, in this 

 country. 



to 



