It is somewhat strange that Cardan should have detected no trace of the snare of the enemy in this manoeuvre. Bearing in mind the character of the request made, and the fact that Cardan was by no means a _persona grata_ to the petitioners, it seems highly probable that they might have been more anxious to draw from Cardan a profession of his disbelief in witchcraft, than to procure the enlargement of the accused persons whose cause they had nominally espoused. At this period it was indeed dangerous to be a wizard, but it was perhaps still more dangerous to pose as an avowed sceptic of witchcraft. At the end of the fifteenth century the frequency of executions for sorcery in the north of Italy had provoked a strong outburst of popular feeling against this wanton bloodshed; but Spina, writing in the interest of orthodox religion, deplores that disbelief in the powers of Evil and their manifestations, always recognized by the Church, should have led men on to profess by their action any doubt as to the truth of witchcraft. But in spite of the fulminations of men of this sort, from this time onwards the more enlightened scholars of Europe began to modify their opinions on the subject of demoniac possession, and of witchcraft in general. The first book in which the new views were enunciated was the treatise _De Praestigiis Daemonum_, by Johann Wier, a physician of Cleves, published in 1563. The step in advance taken by this reformer was not a revolutionary one. He simply denied that witches were willing and conscious instruments of the malefic powers, asserting that what evil they wrought came about by reason of the delusions with which the evil spirits infected the persons said to be possessed. The devil afflicted his victims directly, and then threw the suspicion of the evil deed upon some old woman. Wier's book was condemned and denounced by the clergy--he himself was a Protestant--but the most serious counterblast against it came from the pen of Jean Bodin, the illustrious French philosopher and jurist. He held up Wier to execration as an impious blasphemer, and asserted that the welfare of Christendom must needs suffer great injury through the dissemination of doctrines so detestable as those set forth in his book.[218]