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Apparently, no syntax which was simple, direct, 

 and obvious, had any chance of acceptance at these 

 trials ; when the idea of witchcraft had once been 

 suggested all evidence was mentally arranged in 

 syntaxes which should involve supernatural causation. 

 Now Hume, writing some years after the date of the 

 last trial for witchcraft, showed that all the ideas 

 concerning cause and effect, which up to his time 

 had been current, w r ere "irrational," that is to say, 

 confused and unintelligible ; still more confused must 

 have been the ideas of those who imagined that they 

 could distinguish between natural and supernatural 

 causes. This indicates clearly enough why their 

 proofs of witchcraft cannot be accepted as true for 

 us. A complete demonstration of the truth of 

 these general statements could be obtained only by 

 examining a large number of trials ; a single specimen 

 must suffice here, but it is fair to suppose that a 

 state trial, presided over by the eminent judge Sir 

 Matthew Hale, would not be an unfavourable sample 

 of the bulk, especially as its date was 1665, long after 

 the grosser darkness of the Middle Ages had passed 

 away, and only about fifty years before trials for 

 witchcraft became obsolete. 



Two women were accused of having bewitched 

 young children, and the main points of the evidence 

 were as follows : There had been a quarrel between 

 the prisoners and the parents of the children, in con- 

 sequence of which the former had uttered threats. 

 E 



