sat like a mighty incubus upon all the civilized world; and more than a hundred thousand persons fell victims to its rage. The whole amount of testimony in support of Homœopathy, compared with that which supported Witchcraft, is little more than a single grain compared with the amount required to reduce it to the thirtieth attenuation; and if the present testimony in favor of Homœopathy proves that there is truth in it, then Witchcraft was proved by evidence more than a million times as strong. This state of things had scarcely passed by, when Hahnemann came upon the stage. Germany had been the theatre upon which this dreadful infatuation had played its direst pranks. In that devoted country, thousands perished annually; victims bled every day; the sun rose and set in blood, and the earth drank it in like water. This blood had scarcely dried up—the witchfire had scarcely gone out—the wailings of the victims still echoed among the mountains, when Hahnemann was born. The first air he breathed was pregnant with fanaticism, and his first lessons were ghost stories. Superstition had filled the lurid
