producing striking results on different forms of maniacal disease. This being so, it follows that exorcists might be capable of exerting upon maniacs a powerful influence favourable to cure. In the ancient world the usual treatment was that of extreme harshness. The demoniac of Gadara had been bound with chains and fetters. This is now known to have a direct tendency to aggravate the disease, rather than to cure it. It is no wonder, therefore, if the exorcist, by adopting an opposite mode of treatment, and even by sympathizing with the sufferer’s delusions, was capable of alleviating the symptoms of the complaint, if not of effecting a cure. The whole result may have been due to moral influence and spiritual power, which may have been taken for the expulsion of a demon. In whatever way it was effected, the cure or the alleviation was no less real. It follows, therefore, that the exorcists of the ancient world were far from necessarily being a set of impostors, even on the supposition that possession was simple mania. They may have been able to effect real alleviations or even cures of the complaint, although they were ignorant as to its cause, or how their exertions produced a successful result. There is nothing inconsistent with their general honesty, if they themselves were under the belief that they were expelling demons, while they were really curing ordinary mania. It should also be observed, that a real power of exerting an influence on madmen was one which in those times of ignorance, both of mental and physical science, admitted of fearful abuse, and if exercised for evil purposes, was capable of producing many of the worst results with which the practice of witchcraft and sorcery have been attended. A large portion of these latter operations no doubt resulted from the successful practice of ocular deception, but another portion of them unquestionably resulted from the mighty influences that a powerful mind can exert over a weak, imaginative, and superstitious one. There are many depths of human nature into which science has as yet failed to penetrate; and among these are the entire phenomena of mania and religious frenzy.