Germany, during the century following the Reformation, the great Saxon jurist, Benedict Carpzov, distinguished himself by his skill in demonstrating the reality of the crime from Scripture, and by his cruelty in detecting and punishing it by torture.
Typical as to the attitude of Scotch and English Protestants, was the theory and practice of King James I, "the crowned Solomon," himself the author of a book on demonology. James had married the Princess of Denmark, and the ship which bore her to the British shores encountered tempests. Skillful use of unlimited torture soon brought the causes to light. A Doctor Fian, while his legs were crushed in the "boots" and wedges driven under his finger-nails, confessed that several hundred witches had gone to sea in a sieve from the port of Leith, and had raised storms and tempests to drive back the king's bride.[1] Still later, in the second half of the seventeenth century, we see a typical example of the same superstition in England in the case of Meric Casaubon, Doctor of Divinity and an ecclesiastic in high position at Canterbury. He declared fully for the doctrine that witches raise storms, citing the foremost ecclesiastical authorities.[2]
In America, the great weight of the elder Mather was thrown on the same side.[3] But, in spite of all these great authorities, in every land, and in spite of such summary punishments as those of Loos and Bekker, scientific thought was developed; and, at the end of the seventeenth century, this vast growth of superstition began to wither and droop. Bayle in France, Calef in New England, and Thomasius in Germany, did much to create an intellectual and moral atmosphere fatal to it. Torture being abolished, "weather-makers" no longer confessed; and the fundamental proofs in which the system was rooted were evidently slipping away. Even the great theologian
- ↑ The best accounts of James's share in the extortion of these confessions may be found in the collection of "Curious Tracts" published at Edinburgh in 1820. (See also King James's own "Demonologie," and Pitcairn's "Criminal Trials of Scotland," vol. i, part ii, pp. 213-223.)
- ↑ See his "Credulity and Incredulity in Things Natural," pp. 66, 67.
- ↑ Thus, in his sermons (already cited) on "The Voice of God in Stormy Winds" (Boston, 1704), he says: "When there are great Tempests, the Angels oftentimes have an hand therein. ... Yea, and sometimes, by Divine Permission, Evil Angels have a Hand in such Storms and Tempests as are very hurtful to Men on the Earth." Yet, "for the most part, such Storms are sent by the Providence of God as a Sign of His Displeasure for the Sins of Men," and sometimes "as Prognosticks and terrible Warnings of Great Judgments not far off." And thus from the height of his erudition he rebukes the timid voice of scientific skepticism: "There are some who would be esteemed the Wits of the World, that ridicule those as Superstitious and Weak Persons, which look upon Dreadful Tempests as Prodromous [sic] of other Judgments. Nevertheless, the most Learned and Judicious Writers, not only of the Gentiles, but amongst Christians, have Embraced such a Persuasion; their Sentiments therein being Confirmed by the Experience of many Ages." For another curious turn given to this theory, with reference to sanitary science, see Deodat Lawson's famous sermon at Salem, in 1692, on "Christ's Fidelity a Shield against Satan's Malignity" (p. 21 of the second edition).
