2 8o JEROME CARDAN 



Niger, he says that she must have been cured either by 

 the power of the imagination, or by the agency of the 

 demons. Here he anticipates the arguments which 

 Glanvil sets forth in Sadducismus Triumphatus. Writ- 

 ing on the belief in witchcraft Glanvil says, " We have 

 the attestation of thousands of eye and ear witnesses, 

 and these not of the easily-deceivable vulgar only, but 

 of wise and grave discerners ; and that when no interest 

 could oblige them to agree together in a common Lye. 

 I say, we have the light of all these circumstances to 

 confirm us in the belief of things done by persons of 

 despicable power and knowledge, beyond the reach of 

 Art and ordinary Nature. Standing public Records 

 have been kept of these well-attested Relations, and 

 Epochas made of those unwonted events. Laws in 

 many Nations have been enacted against those vile 

 practices ; those amongst the Jews and our own are 

 notorious ; such cases have often been determined near 

 us by wise and reverend Judges, upon clear and 

 convictive Evidence ; and thousands of our own Nation 

 have suffered death for their vile compacts with Apos- 

 tate spirits. All these I might largely prove in their 

 particular instances, but that 'tis not needful since these 

 did deny the being of Witches, so it was not out of 

 ignorance of these heads of Argument, of which 

 probably they have heard a thousand times ; but from 

 an apprehension that such a belief is absurd, and the 

 things impossible. And upon these presumptions they 

 condemn all demonstrations of this nature, and are 

 hardened against conviction. And I think those that 

 can believe all Histories and Romances; That all the 

 wiser would have agreed together to juggle mankind 

 into a common belief of ungrounded fables, that the 

 sound senses of multitudes together may deceive them, 



