This is all that the laws of Church or State require, and is a very different thing from seizing poor women possessed by diabolic delusions, or on the malicious accusations or foolish suspicions of the ignorant vulgar, and casting them into horrible dungeons, whence they are dragged to be torn and crushed by every imaginable instrument of torture, till, however guiltless they are, they confess to sorcery, since it is better to give their souls to God in innocence, even through flame, than longer endure the hideous torments of bloodthirsty tyrants. And should they die under torture or in prison, the accusers and judges cry out triumphantly that they have committed suicide, or that the devil has broken their necks. Here follows a burst of indignant eloquence which would have cost Weyer dear had he fallen into the clutches of the witch-hunters, and which may be given in the terse vigour of the original: ‘Sed ubi tandem is apparuerit quem nihil latet, Scrutator cordium et renum, ipsius abstrusissimae etiam veritatis Cognitor et Iudex, vestri actus palam fient, O vos praefracti tyranni, O iudices sanguinarii, hominem exuti et caecitate ab omni misericordia procul remoti. Ad ipsius extremi iudicii tribunal iustissimum vos provoco, qui inter vos et me decernet ubi sepulta et culcata Veritas resurget vobisque in faciem resistet latrociniorum ultionem exactura.’[332] Their credulity almost equals their cruelty, as shown by the belief that a certain old woman caused the excessive cold of the preceding winter, and by the absurd swimming test. What effect can denial of faith, evil intentions, or a corrupt fantasy have upon a person’s specific gravity, on which floating depends? Moreover, women usually float, since their specific gravity is less than that of men, as Hippocrates pointed out.[333] But nothing is too absurd for a witch inquisitor. Some fishermen at Rotterdam drew up their nets full of stones but fishless. This was clearly witchcraft, so they seized an unfortunate woman who confessed in her terror that she had flown out of the window through a hole the size of a finger-end, dived under the sea in a mussel-shell,[334] and there terrified the fishes and put stones in the nets. The woman, says Weyer, was evidently mad or deluded by the devil, but they burnt her all the same. Treachery and cruelty go together. A priest, having failed to make a witch confess, promised that if she would admit some small act of sorcery, he would see that she was released after some slight penance. Thereupon she confessed and was burnt alive.[335]