man, furnished with stores of acquired knowledge, and able to devise wicked thoughts and put them into our minds,[80] and it was idle to deny--in the face of the best philosophic and theological opinion of the ages--that these demonic beings can make actual covenants with witches or furnish them with the means of doing injury to their fellow-creatures. “_A Witch_,” according to Glanvill’s definition, “_is one, who can do or seems to do strange things, beyond the known Power of Art and ordinary Nature, by vertue of a Confederacy with Evil Spirits_.... The _strange things_ are _really_ performed, and are not all _Impostures_ and _Delusions_. The Witch _occasions_, but is not the _Principal_ Efficient, she seems to do it, but the _Spirit_ performs the wonder, sometimes immediately, as in _Transportations_ and _Possessions_, sometimes by applying other Natural Causes, as in raising _Storms_, and inflicting _Diseases_, sometimes using the _Witch_ as an _Instrument_, and either by the Eyes or Touch, conveying Malign Influences: And these things are done by vertue of a _Covenant_, or _Compact_ betwixt the _Witch_ and an _Evil Spirit_. A _Spirit_, viz. an _Intelligent Creature_ of the Invisible World, whether one of the Evil Angels called _Devils_, or an Inferiour _Dæmon_ or _Spirit_, or a wicked _Soul_ departed; but one that is able and ready for mischief, and whether altogether Incorporeal or not, appertains not to this Question.”[81] Glanvill’s book was well known to the Mathers. So was Webster’s Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft.[82] Could there be a moment’s doubt which of the two would appeal the more powerfully to their logical sense? Why, even we ourselves, if we look at the matter fairly,--taking into consideration Webster’s whole case, and not merely such parts of it as accord with our preconceived opinions,--are forced to admit that Glanvill’s position is much the stronger. In a well-known passage, in which the intellectual temper of Massachusetts before 1660 is contrasted with that of the next generation,[83] our classic New England essayist remarks that after 1660 the Colonists “sank rapidly into provincials, narrow in thought, in culture, in creed.” “Such a pedantic portent as Cotton Mather,” Lowell continues, “would have been impossible in the first generation; he was the natural growth of the third.” To discuss these epigrammatic theses would take us far beyond the limits of our present subject. One thing, however, must be said. Pedantry in the latter half of the seventeenth century was not confined to New England, nor to the ranks of those who were controversially styled the witchmongers. Meric Casaubon and Joseph Glanvill were not pedantic, but John Webster’s Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft--which in some respects comes very near to being a great book--is a monument of pedantry, and John Webster was not a product of New England.