1882.] 
Witchcraft , Insanity, and Crime. 
5 ** 
cross-examination, which I have sometimes made; but in this 
dodtrine, the root, the basis, the life, the soul of witchcraft, 
— that the devil enters into and takes possession of men, 
and binds them over to himself, — they have made no 
advance, or but little advance, over their Puritan ancestors 
of 1692.” 
There is much of deep import in the following remarks 
on the commingling of delusion and imposture: — -“In 
psychology, if not in theology, the doctrine of the trinity is 
verifiable ; in a single person we shall find the deceiver, the 
partially deceived, and the wholly deceived ; three in one 
and one in three ; unity in diversity and diversity in unity ; 
an engrafted tree bearing varied fruits all nourished from a 
common trunk, and rooted in the soil of superstition. We 
are often deceived when we suppose we are deceivers — dupes 
even more than charlatans.” However widely the reader 
may differ from some of Dr. Beard’s fundamental views, 
he cannot fail to recognise the fearful truths conveyed in this 
passage. 
Not less significant is the author’s comment on the part 
played by witchcraft in the education of our race : — “ Delu- 
sions are not only inevitable, but they are indispensable to 
mankind. Our planet is ruled, is destined to be ruled, by 
the imagination. The world can do without science — the 
demonstrably true ; few indeed have any science, and those 
few but little ; the world can even exist for a time without 
religion, or with almost none ; the demonstrably false it will 
not and cannot do without. Witchcraft, bloody and terrible 
as it is, has probably been of supreme service to civilisation, 
if indeed it be not a part of the very foundation of all our 
culture. Our not very far distant ancestors were coarse and 
brutal savages who must be frightened into the pathway of 
civilisation ; and for such the belief not only in a personal 
and ever-present God, but in a personal and ever-present, or 
liable to be present, Devil was requisite. Says Varro — ‘ It 
is necessary that the people should be ignorant of many 
things that are true, and believe many things that are 
false.’ ” 
At least, whether necessary or not, it is the case not less 
now than heretofore. 
