The extreme uniformity of witchcraft from the Tagus to the Vistula, and in New England as in Old England, is adduced as an additional evidence of its having been "manufactured" by the Inquisition. Nothing is gained, however, by looking upon it as a mere invention; nor would such an explanation apply to the wizards and witches who are repeatedly mentioned and condemned in Holy Writ. Witchcraft was neither purely artificial, a mere delusion, nor can it be accounted for upon a purely natural basis. The essential part in it is the magic force, which does not belong to the natural but to the spiritual part of man. Hence it is not so very surprising, as many authors have thought it, that thousands of poor women should have done their best to obtain visions which only led to imprisonment, torture, and death by fire, while they procured for them apparently neither comfort nor wealth, but only pain, horror, and disgrace. For there was mixed up with all this a sensation of pleasure, vague and wild, though it was in conformity with the rude and coarse habits of the age. It is the same with the opium eater and hasheesh smoker, only in a more moderate manner; the delight these pernicious drugs afford is not seen, but the disease, the suffering, and the wretched death they produce, are visible enough. The stories of witches' sabbaths taking place on certain days of the year, arose no doubt from the fact that the prevailing superstition of the times regarded some seasons as peculiarly favorable for the ceremony of anointing one's self with narcotic salves, and this led to a kind of spiritual community on such nights, which to the poor deluded people appeared as a real meeting at appointed places. In like manner there was nothing absolutely absurd or impossible in the idea of a compact with the Devil. Satan presented himself to the minds of men in those ages as the bodily incarnation of all that is evil and sinful, and hence when they fancied they made a league with him, they only aroused the evil principle within themselves to its fullest energy and activity. It was in fact the selfish, covetous nature of man, ever in arms against moral laws and the commandments of God, which in these cases became distinctly visible and presented itself in the form of a vision. This evil principle, now relieved from all constraint and able to develop its power against a feebly resisting soul, would naturally destroy the poor deluded victim, in body and in spirit. Hence the trials of witchcraft had at least some justification, however unwise their form and however atrocious their abuses. The majority of the crimes with which the so-called witches were charged, were no doubt imaginary; but many of the accused also had taken real delight in their evil practices and in the grievous injury they had done to those they hated or envied. Nor must it be forgotten that the age in which these trials mainly occurred was emphatically an age of