56 On Popular Illufions. 



produce iafeds by his own power ; that, with 

 rerpe(5l to the human fubjed, he can aft upon the 

 animal fpirits, or even on the imagination, though 

 he cannot divine our thoughts ; and here the 

 good dodlor takes occafion to praife the devil's 

 learning; " he is an excellent optician and natu- 

 " ral philofopher," fays he, " on account of his 

 ** long experience;" Jiimmus opticus et phyftcuSy 

 propter diuturnam experientiam. This great man, 

 who has fo finely illuftrated the theory of fpaf- 

 modic difeafes, thinks they are fometimes pro- 

 duced by witchcraft, although he confiders the 

 witches merely as padive inftruments of the 

 demoniacal action : he relates the cafe of a 

 Woman who was afflifted with a fevere head-ach, 

 from the time of her refufing to fell a calf's head 

 to a fuppofed witch, and does not fcruple to 

 confider the difeafe as an effeft of the witch's 

 refentmenr. This differtation was publifhed in 

 the large edition of his works, by the do6tor 

 himfelf, in 1747. From the time of Hoffman, I 

 am not acquainted with any refpefbable writer in 

 favour of witchcraft (excepting that Brucker 

 mentions incidentally, in his excellent Hiftoria 

 Critica Philofophise, in 1766, that he thinks the 

 queftion ftill undecided*) till the year 1770, 

 when Dr. de Haen of Vienna publifhed a defence 

 of magic, chiefly on the authority of Philo- 



* Tom. V. p. 711. 



ftratus. 



