THE CONFLICT OF OLD AND NEW IDEAS 51 



Ignorance and Design ", 107 Once having espoused the belief it 

 behooved him to establish it by scientific argument and by facts. 

 This he endeavored to do by " evidence of authority and sense ". 

 The essay, which was later expanded into the book entitled Sad- 

 ducismus Triumphatus (1681), contains a number of stories of 

 witchcraft, the most famous of which is The Demon of Tedworth. 8 

 There is no need to review the arguments here. The import 

 ant point is to note the rise of the controversy, this final struggle 

 between the accepted belief and the scepticism of the new science. 

 This literary virtuoso employed his best talent in the defence of 

 the old. He was a gifted man, who, with all his acumen and often 

 far-sighted imagination, yet yielded obeisance to this figment of 

 melancholy and superstition. Among the numerous essays against 

 the belief, only two will be mentioned here. One was by John 

 Webster, Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 1676, which 

 called forth an answer by Glanvil and Henry More (Sadducismus 

 Triumphatus). "Webster declared that all witchcraft was founded 

 on imagination, 109 a view presented before the Royal Society. 110 

 The detailed answer was written by Glanvil, but he died before 

 its publication. The Controversy did not cease, however, with 

 Glanvil's death, (1680), for neither side would yield. ''At least 

 thirteen books in defence of the belief were published between 

 1680 and 1718, but they were powerless to check the sceptical 

 tendency. Among these writers Glanvil was regarded as the great 

 authority of their subject". 111 Finally, in 1718, Dr. Francis Hutch- 

 inson wrote An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, which 

 silenced, if it did not convince, the defenders of the belief. It 

 was his judgment, it was undoubtedly sound ,that the Royal 

 Society was the most potent cause of the decline of the supersti 

 tion. 112 The effect of this essay is illustrated in the different 

 attitudes in Addison's De Coverley Papers (1710) and The Drum 

 mer (1715) and of De Foe's Satiric History of the Devil (1726). 



107 Essay VI, p. 1. 



108 Essay VI, p. 23. Cf. also Addison's The Drummer. 



109 Webster, John, Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, p. 34. 



110 Phil. Trans. June-Aug., 1687. 



111 Greenslet, F., Joseph Glanvil, p. 173. 

 132 Ibid. p. 174. 



