One of the most surprising facts in the whole history of witchcraft is the insensibility or indifference of even men of science, and therefore observation, to the obvious origin of the greatest part of the confessions elicited; confession of such a kind as could be the product only of torture, madness, or some other equally obvious cause. Bodin himself, however, sufficiently explains the fact and exposes the secret. 'The trial of this offence,' he enunciates, 'must not be conducted like other crimes. Whoever adheres to the ordinary course of justice perverts the spirit of the law both divine and human. He who is accused of sorcery should _never_ be acquitted unless the malice of the prosecutor be clearer than the sun; for it is so difficult to bring full proof of this secret crime, that out of a million of witches _not one would be convicted if the usual course were followed_.'[101] He speaks of an old woman sentenced to the stake after confessing to having been transported to the sabbath in a state of insensibility. Her judges, anxious to know how this was effected, released her from her fetters, when she rubbed herself on the different parts of her body with a prepared unguent and soon became insensible, stiff, and apparently dead. Having remained in that condition for five hours, the witch as suddenly revived, relating to the trembling inquisitors a number of extraordinary things proving she must have been _spiritually_ transported to distant places.[102] An earlier advocate of the orthodox cause was a Swiss friar, Nider, who wrote a work entitled 'Formicarium' (_Ant-Hill_) on the various sins against religion. One section is employed in the consideration of sorcery. Nider was one of the inquisitors who distinguished themselves by their successful zeal in the beginning of the century. [101] Yet the lawyer who enunciated such a maxim as this has been celebrated for an unusual liberality of sentiment in religious and political matters, as well as for his learning. Dugald Stewart commends 'the liberal and moderate views of this philosophical politician,' as shown in the treatise _De la Republique_, and states that he knows of 'no political writer of the same date whose extensive, and various, and discriminating reading appears to me to have contributed more to facilitate and to guide the researches of his successors, or whose references to ancient learning have been more frequently transcribed without acknowledgment.'--Bayle considered him 'one of the ablest men that appeared in France during the sixteenth century.'--_Dissertation First_ in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Hallam (_Introduction to the Literature of Europe_) occupies several of his pages in the review of Bodin's writings. Jean Bodin, however, on the authority of his friend De Thou, did not escape suspicion himself of being heretical.