i64 TABOO AND GENETICS 



of securing the love of her husbands, who left 

 much property to her, by magic charms. These 

 claims were typical of the accusations against 

 witches in the trials which took place. 



By the sixteenth century, the cumulative 

 notion of witches had penetrated both cultivated 

 and uncultivated classes, and was embodied in 

 a great and increasing literature. " No com- 

 prehensive work on theology, philosophy, his- 

 tory, law, medicine, or natural science could 

 wholly ignore it," says Burr, " and to lighter 

 literature it afforded the most telling illustra- 

 tions for the pulpit, the most absorbing gossip 

 for the news-letter, the most edif3dng tales for 

 the fireside." (28.) 



As a result of this belief in the diabolic power 

 of woman, judicial murder of helpless women 

 became an institution, which is thus character- 

 ized by Sumner : " After the refined torture of 

 the body and nameless mental sufferings, 

 women were executed in the most cruel manner. 

 These facts are so monstrous that all other 

 aberrations of the human race are small in 

 comparison. . . . He who studies the witch 

 trials believes himself transferred into the 

 midst of a race which has smothered all its own 

 nobler instincts, reason, justice, benevolence 

 and sympathy." (24.) 



Any woman was suspect. Michelet, after a 

 thirty years' study, wrote : " Witches they are 



