^4 On Popular Illufions. 



Glanville. This very acute writer was induced 

 to publifli his Philofophical Confiderations about 

 Witchcraft^ by the apprehenfion, that the increaf- 

 ing difbelief of witches and apparitions tended 

 to affeft the evidences of religion, and even of 

 a Deity. In refpedl of argument, he was cer- 

 tainly fuperior to his adverfariesj his reafoning 

 is perfpicuous, though fometimes fubtle, refted 

 on the moft fpecious foundations of evidence, 

 and arranged with great fkill. In the firft edi- 

 tion, he contented himfclf with relating the 

 celebrated (lory of Mompeffon, as an example 

 of the reality of demoniacal illufions, but after- 

 wards he colle6ted a confiderable number of 

 hiftories*, which were publiflied after his death 

 by his friend Dr. Henry More, who took an 

 aftive part in the controverfy, and fubjoined to 

 the Saducifmus Triumphatus, as Glanville's 

 book was now entitled, a differtation of his own, 

 on the True Notion of a Spirit, Dr. More had 

 previoufly related various abfurd (lories in his 

 Antidotus Adverfus Atheifnium, for, in the 

 abundance of his zeal, he alfo confidered the 

 denial of the power of witches as atheiftical. 

 The celebrated Baxter added his name to the 

 defenders of witchcraft ; he made great ufe of the 

 German demonologifts, and of the unhappy affair 

 \x\ New England. He thought the devil fo 



• In this colleftion, by Dr. More's confeflion, there are 

 copfiderable miftakes both of perfons and places. 



aftion 



I 



