the initial suspicions and complaints which form the basis and starting-point of all prosecutions would have been impossible and inconceivable. _With_ this popular belief, the rest was easy. The error into which Professor Burr has fallen is due, no doubt, to his keeping his eye too exclusively on the Continent, where the prosecutions were most extensive, where, in truth, the fully developed system was most prevalent, and where the inquisitorial methods of procedure give to the witch-trials a peculiar air of uniformity and theological schematism. Thus he has been led, like many other historians, to over-emphasise the learned or literary side of the question. For us, however, as the descendants of Englishmen and as students of the history of English colonies in America, it is necessary to fix our attention primarily on the Mother Country. And, if we do this, we cannot fail to perceive that the obstinate belief of the common people in _maleficium_--a belief which, it cannot be too often repeated, is not the work of theologians but the universal and quasi-primitive creed of the human race--is the root of the whole matter. (On savage witchcraft see the anthropologists _passim_. Good examples may be found in Karl von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Brasiliens, 1894, pp. 339 ff.) On _maleficium_ see especially Hansen, pp. 9 ff. Nothing could be truer than his words:--“Wie viel auch immer im Laufe der Zeit in den Begriff der Zauberei und Hexerei hineingetragen worden ist, so ist doch sein Kern stets das Maleficium geblieben. Aus dieser Vorstellung erwächst die angstvolle Furcht der Menschen und das Verlangen nach gesetzlichem Schutze und blutig strenger Strafe; von ihr hat die strafrechtliche Behandlung dieses Wahns ihren Ausgang genommen” (p. 9). “Das Maleficium, mit Ausnahme des Wettermachens, ist ohne alle Unterbrechung von der kirchlichen und bis in das 17. Jahrhundert auch von der staatlichen Autorität als Realität angenommen, seine Kraft ist nie ernstlich in Abrede gestellt worden; es bildet den roten Faden auch durch die Geschichte der strafrechtlichen Verfolgung” (p. 13). Everybody knows that the most convincing evidence of witchcraft--short of confession or of denunciation by a confederate--was held to be the _damnum minatum_ and the _malum secutum_. The difference between England and the Continent in the development of the witchcraft idea and in the history of prosecution is recognised by Hansen (p. 34, note 1). President White, like Professor Burr, has his eye primarily on the Continent (Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896, I, 350 ff.). His treatment of demoniacal possession, however, is much to our purpose (II, 97 ff., 135 ff.).