Michelet, in _La Sorciére_, which amid much lunacy or folly contains many truths and ingenious perceptions, has explained that the witchcraft of the Middle Ages was a kind of mad despairing revolt against the wrongs of society, of feudalism, and the Church. It was in very truth the precursor of Protestantism. Under the name of religion conscience had been abused, and artificial sins, dooming to hell, been created out of every trifle, and out of almost every form of natural instincts. The reaction from this (which was a kind of nihilism or anarchy), was to declare the antithetic _excess_ of free will. One of the forms of this revolt was the belief that the greatest sorcerers were born (_ex filio et matre_) from the nearest relations, and that to dare and violate all such ties was to conquer by daring will the greatest power. It was the strongest defiance of the morality taught by the Church, therefore one of the highest qualifications for an iron-willed magician. It is specially pointed out in the legend of Diana that she began by such a sin, and so came to be queen of the witches; and the same idea of entire emancipation or illumination, or freedom from all ties, is the first step to the absolute free will which constitutes the very basis of all magic. This, which is repugnant to humanity, was actually exalted by the Persian Magi to a duty or religious principle, and it was the same in Egypt as regarded “first families.” The sorcerer pursued by Intialo bases all his power to resist on the mere fact that he is beloved by a beautiful witch. This is the Astarte of the Italian drama, or a sister—the terrible tie which shows that a man is above conscience, and free from all fear of the powers that be, whether of earth or air. By it his triumph is complete. He surmounts the accusation of being without morals by utterly denying their existence from a higher or illuminated point of view. The _magus_ claims to rank with the gods, and if a divinity _creates_ mankind as his children, and then has a child by a woman, he is in the same state as the sorcerer, according to wizards.