One circumstance seems to militate against the supposition that possession involved nothing but simple mania, namely, the numbers of those who are spoken of as possessed. If the Gospel narratives are historical, it would appear that such cases were numerous. Not only are several miracles of this description definitely recorded, but the Evangelists several times affirm that our Lord cured demoniacs in considerable numbers, without furnishing us with the details. Now it is difficult to believe that maniacs existed in such large numbers in a country of the size and population of Judæa. Yet all the phenomena of possession point to maniacal, and not to harmless lunacy. The number of the cases of mania that occur bears but a small proportion to those of the latter form of derangement. It is true that at times of popular excitement various forms and numerous cases of frenzy manifest themselves; but these differ from mania, though they not unfrequently terminate in it. I have made these observations, because, in discussing such a subject, it is only right to state fully the difficulties with which particular theories are attended. It is very probable, however, that as the symptoms so closely resembled each other, many cases of actual mania would be confounded in popular estimation with possession, and, therefore, that cases of actual possession may not have been so numerous as at first sight would appear. On the supposition that possession was a reality, we have no means of determining what moral or physical preconditions were necessary for its manifestation. It is clear that the authors of the Gospels must have considered that it was owing to some predisposing causes, physical or moral, though they have not described them. Unless this was the case, the evil, instead of being partial, would have been universal. Various moral causes would naturally form a suitable precondition for its manifestation. There can be no doubt that a number of vices, when indulged in beyond a certain point, reduce man’s moral being to a wreck and render him obnoxious to the action of external agency. The power of self‐control may be indefinitely weakened. If vice is carried to its extreme forms, it produces phenomena hardly, if at all, distinguishable from madness. Such a state of man’s moral nature would form a suitable precondition to enable a superhuman being to overpower the reason and the will, the supremacy of which was already impaired by an influence from within. In such cases possession would have been rendered possible by a man’s self‐induced moral corruption.