toration, although the laws were still in force, and although
little or no direct reasoning had been brought to bear upon the
subject. In order to combat it, Glanvil proceeded to examine the
general question of the credibility of the miraculous. He saw that
the reason why witchcraft was ridiculed was, because it was a phase
of the miraculous and the work of the devil; that the scepticism was
chiefly due to those who disbelieved in miracles and the devil; and
that the instances of witchcraft or possession in the Bible were
invariably placed on a level with those that were tried in the law
courts of England. That the evidence of the belief was overwhelming,
he firmly believed; and this, indeed, was scarcely disputed; but,
until the sense of _a priori_ improbability was removed, no possible
accumulation of facts would cause men to believe it. To that task he
accordingly addressed himself. Anticipating the idea and almost the
words of modern controversialists, he urged that there was such a
thing as a credulity of unbelief; and that those who believed so
strange a concurrence of delusions, as was necessary on the
supposition of the unreality of witchcraft, were far more credulous
than those who accepted the belief. He made his very scepticism his
principal weapon; and, analyzing with much acuteness the _a priori_
objections, he showed that they rested upon an unwarrantable
confidence in our knowledge of the laws of the spirit world; that
they implied the existence of some strict analogy between the
faculties of men and of spirits; and that, as such analogy most
probably did not exist, no reasoning based on the supposition could
dispense men from examining the evidence. He concluded with a large
collection of cases, the evidence of which was, as he thought,
incontestable."

We have quoted this sketch because Glanvil's argument against the _a
priori_ objection of absurdity is fatiguingly urged in relation to other
alleged marvels which, to busy people seriously occupied with the
difficulties of affairs, of science, or of art, seem as little worthy of
examination as aeronautic broomsticks. And also because we here see
Glanvil, in combating an incredulity that does not happen to be his own,
wielding that very argument of traditional evidence which he had made the
subject of vigorous attack in his "Scepsis Scientifi