70. But that explanation, however plausible the facts upon which it rests, can at most be received as regards the Evil Spirits which possess bodies or, through malefice, infect them with diseases or other infirmities; it does not at all meet the case of Incubi. For, these neither possess bodies nor infect them with diseases; they, at most, molest them by blows and ill-treatment. If they cause the mares to grow lean because of their not yielding to coition, it is merely by taking away their provender, in consequence of which they fall off and finally die. To that purpose the Incubus need not use a natural agent, as the Evil Spirit does when imparting a disease: it is enough that it should exert its own native organic force. Likewise, when the Evil Spirit possesses bodies and infects them with diseases, it is most frequently through signs agreed upon with himself, and arranged by a witch or a wizard, which signs are usually natural objects, indued with their own noxious virtue, and of course opposed by other equally natural objects endowed with a contrary virtue. But not so the Incubus: it is of his own accord, and without the cooperation of either witch or wizard, that he inflicts his molestations. Besides, the natural things which put the Incubi to flight exert their virtue and bring about a result without the intervention of any exorcism or blessing; it cannot therefore be said that the ejection of the Incubus is initiated by natural, and completed by divine virtue, since there is in this case no particular invocation of the divine name, but the mere effect of a natural object, in which God cooperates only as the universal agent, the author of nature, the first of efficient causes. 71. Duas circa hoc historias do, quarum primam habui a Confessario Monialium, viro gravi, ac fide dignissimo. Alterius vero sum testis oculatus.