DEMO N 
fecond fight, or taifk , as it is called by the natives, con- 
fifts in a kind of day-vifio'n. A very diftimSt account of it 
may be found in Martin’s Hiftory of the Weftern Iflands, 
with a large collection of narrations, furniffied chiefly by 
the author’s friends ; feveral communicated by the feers 
themfelves. The vifions are faid to be frightful, and 
uneafy to the feer, who thinks himfelf unfortunate in 
poffeffing this faculty. His appearance to the fpedtators, 
during a vifion, (for he alone perceives it,) is,'as de- 
fcribed, fomething like that of a patient in catalepfy ; 
he becomes immoveable, his eyes are fixed, and the eye¬ 
lids fometimes reverted. However, if another feer be 
prefent, the firft can make him participate the vifion, if 
he has prefence of mind enough to touch him. They 
do not always underftand the meaning of what they fee, 
and even when they form an abfolute predidlion, in con- 
fequence of former experience, they are treated with de- 
rifion. Dr. Ferriar thinks it highly probable that thele 
feers are hypochondriacal perfons. Their infular fitua- 
tion, their folitary employments, their oppreflive po¬ 
verty, added perhaps to the wild uncultivated fcenes of 
their country, are fufficient to produce a depraved ftate 
of body, and confequently of imagination, in thole who 
are at all pre-difpofed. A proof that the vifions origi¬ 
nate in the perfon’s own fancy, is given, undefignedly, 
by Martin himfelf. He relates that a feer informed him, 
he was entirely relieved from his vifions by wearing a 
fprig of St. John’S-wort quilted in the cape of his coat. 
Whatever eftedts this plant (called fuga dcemonum from 
its fuppofed virtues) might have produced internally as 
a bitter, no medical qualities could be exerted by it in 
this cafe ; and it is difficult to account for the contempt 
with which Martin confelfes the predictions were at firft 
treated, otherwife than by fuppofing that the greater 
number had proved fallacious. 
The original opinion of magic feems to have been 
formed merely from the fuperior knowledge or dexterity 
of individuals. The fulleft proof of this may be found 
in Naude’s Apology for great Men accufed of Magic; 
where he makes it apparent, that, at particular times, fu¬ 
perior abilities always drew this imputation on their pof- 
felfor. And all the writers on this fubjecl allow, that 
natural magic, which is their firft divifion, implies no 
more than an acquaintance with the lead obvious fads 
of natural philofophy. Excellence in a particular pro- 
feffion fometimes conftitutcd a magician; thus, in the 
feventeenth century, Dr. Bartolo was feized by the in- 
quifition at Rome, on a charge of necromancy, becaufe 
he unexpectedly cured a nobleman of the gout. It is 
probable, that for a long time, magicians were fuppofed 
to operate only by natural means, the powers of which 
could not be eftimated in times of general ignorance. The 
repetition of verfes, or the preparation of herbs, were 
the firft magical ads: Cicero imputes the origin of the 
word J'aga to thele ideas. But by degrees, religious opi¬ 
nions were interwoven with magic, and at length Plato’s 
hypothefis of aerial demons furnilhed a fyftem from which 
magical arts were explained with fufficient plaulibility. 
After the eftablifliment of Chriftianity, thefe operations 
were afcribed to diabolical influence, exerted by corn- 
pad with the magician. Magic is ufually divided into 
natural and divine, lawful and unlawful. Necromancy 
confifted in employing members of dead bodies as charms 
or remedies : according to this definition, it was necro¬ 
mantic in all the colleges of Europe to infert the hu¬ 
man fkull as a remedy in their diipenfatories. But a 
complete table of its divifions, with the operations which 
they feverally include, may be feen in Paracelfus’s Phi - 
lofophia Sagax, where its branches appear very numerous. 
Of all thefe, however, the divifion of witchcraft, in¬ 
cluding polfeftions, has excited mod attention, and has 
indeed been mod interefting, as a theological, legal, and 
medical, queftion. 
That in early ftates of fociety, difeafes were fuppofed 
to be inflidled by fiipernatural powers, is an acknow= 
Vol. V. No, 307. 
O LOG Y. 705 
lodged fadt, and follows naturally from the general prin 
ciple, of men’s anxiety to furmount their ignorance of 
the relations of caufe and effedt. The difpofition which, 
in one age, made Efculapius a god, in another, made Dr. 
Bartolo a necromancer ; among the Egyptians the offices 
of prieft and phyfician were originally joined ; among the 
Jews, the prieft cured the leprous; among the Greeks, 
fpafmodic difeafes, and particularly epilepfy, were im¬ 
puted to the anger of the gods, and managed by diviners. 
The firft par: of Hippocrates’s treatife De Morbo Sacro is 
written againft this fuperftition, and contains a curious 
account of the diagnofts formed by the medical diviners. 
He adds, that belides the employment of ceremonies, they 
forbad their patients to wear a black veftment, becaufe 
black denoted death, or to deep on a goat-fkin, or to 
place either hand, or foot, upon the other. According 
to thefe rules, fays he, a Libyan would never be cured 
of this diftemper, for in Libya goat-fleins are univerfally 
worn and llept in. Galen followed Hippocrates in aferib- 
ing all difeafes to natural caufes, and Avicenna, Galen. 
An exprellion in Hippocrates’s Prognoftics, however, 
puzzled them a little, and was long urged by demono- 
logifts, who always think themfelves at liberty to repre- 
fent fadls and opinions in the way nroft favourable to 
themfelves. Thus Quinctius’s colledtion of dreams, ap¬ 
paritions, and prophecies, retailed in Cicero’s firft book 
of Divination, is quoted largely by thofe writers, with¬ 
out any notite of the refutation produced in the fecond. 
Hippocrates has faid that a phyfician ought to diftinguifli 
what is divine (n Seiok) in difeafes. As this apparently 
contradicts the fentinrents delivered in his treatife De 
Morbo Sacro, Galen, in his Commentary on the palfage, 
fuppofes that the phrafe is a Graecifm, though it appears 
to have been generally underftood in the literal fenfe ; 
he explains it to lignify, that a phyfician lhould ftudy 
the nature of the atmolphere, from which fo many dif¬ 
eafes were fuppofed to proceed. Aretaeus fupplies an 
ufeful criticifm on the word n^ov, as applied to epilepfy, 
which ftrengthens Galen’s fuppofition. The difeafe is 
thus termed, according to him, on account of its feve- 
rity, becaufe ngov and y.tya. were fynonymous with the 
Greeks. Among the modern commentators on Hippo¬ 
crates, Horftius has the ingenuity to reconcile his opi¬ 
nion, and that of Galen, with his own. He allows that 
Hippocrates mu ft allude to the nature of the atmofphere, 
but thinks he refers to an occult quality produced by the 
immediate adl of divine power, or, according to his own 
theory, by aftral influence. 
It would have been happy for Europe, if phyficians, 
after the revival of letters, had followed the wife and 
temperate didlates of their great mafter, with as much 
care as they inveftigated his uncertain hypothefes. As 
medical men generally determined the nature of the dif¬ 
eafes imputed to fafeination, feme fpirited decifions ore 
the fide of common fenfe might have checked the fan- 
guinary proceedings, which difgraced all the fixteenth, 
and great part of the feventeenth, centuries. But a p^f- 
fion for myfticifm, which in one ftiape or other haunts 
the infancy of literature, as well as of fociety, leized the 
faculty, and they dictated, at their eafe, thole wretched 
abfurdities, by the authority of which hundreds of their 
"fellow-creatures were fubjedted to imprifonment, tor¬ 
tures, and an agonizing death. 
The firft writers againft the dodtrine of witchcraft 
w r ere ftigmatized as atheifts, yet they only endeavoured 
to prove the imbecility of the perfons taxed with luper- 
natural operations, and the infatuation or knavery of 
their accufers. For a confiderable time after the inqui- 
fition was erected, the trials of witches (as heretics) 
were confined to that tribunal, but the goods of thofe 
who were condemned being confifcated to the holy office, 
its min tilers were fo active in difeovering forcerers, tint 
the different governments found it neceflary to deprive 
them of the cognifance of this crime. On the continent, 
commiflioners were then appointed for the difeovery and 
§ R conviction 
