The most complete account of witches we find in the learned Dr. Nicolai Remigius's _Demonology_. This sagacious man had the best opportunity to learn the tricks of witches, as he officiated at their trials, and during his time, in Lotharingia alone, eight hundred women were burned at the stake, after trial and conviction. The trial was generally as follows:--Their hands and feet were tied together, and then they were thrown into the water. If they went under and were drowned, it was a proof that they were innocent, but if they floated on the surface, they were recognised as guilty and burned. Such was the logic of those times.... When the learned Dr. Remigius had completed his great work on witchcraft, he deemed himself so great a master of his subject as to be able to work magic, and, conscientious man that he was, did not fail to accuse himself before the courts; in consequence of which accusation he was burned as a sorcerer. ...I must confess that Luther did not understand the real nature of Satan. Whatever evil may be said of the devil, it cannot be denied that he is a spiritualist. Still less did Luther understand the real nature of Catholicism. He did not comprehend that the fundamental idea of Christianity, the deadening of the senses, was too antagonistic to human nature to be ever entirely practicable in life; he did not comprehend that Catholicism was a concordat between God and the devil--that is to say, between the spirit and the senses, in which the absolute reign of the spirit was promulgated in theory, but in which the senses were nevertheless practically reinstated in the enjoyment of their rights. Hence a wise system of concessions allowed by the Church to the senses, always, however, under formalities which cast a slur on every act of the senses, and maintained the sham usurpation of the spirit. You might yield to the tender impulses of your heart and embrace a pretty girl, but you must confess that it was a flagrant sin, and for this sin you must make atonement. That this atonement might be made with money was as beneficial to humanity as useful to the Church. The Church imposed fines, so to say, for every indulgence of the flesh; hence there arose taxes on all sorts of sins, and there were pious colporteurs who, in the name of the Roman Catholic Church, hawked for sale through the land absolutions for every taxed sin. Such a one was that Tetzel against whom Luther first entered the field.