GINNINGS OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.

We have now seen the culmination of the old procedure regarding
insanity, as it was developed under theology and enforced by
ecclesiasticism; and we have noted how, under the influence of Luther
and Calvin, the Reformation rather deepened than weakened the faith in
the malice and power of a personal devil. Nor was this, in the Reformed
churches any more than in the old, mere matter of theory. As in the
early ages of Christianity, its priests especially appealed, in proof
of the divine mission, to their power over the enemy of mankind in the
bodies of men, so now the clergy of the rival creeds eagerly sought
opportunities to establish the truth of their own and the falsehood of
their opponents' doctrines by the visible casting out of devils. True,
their methods differed somewhat: where the Catholic used holy water and
consecrated wax, the Protestant was content with texts of Scripture
and importunate prayer; but the supplementary physical annoyance of the
indwelling demon did not greatly vary. Sharp was the competition for the
unhappy objects of treatment. Each side, of course, stoutly denied all
efficacy to its adversaries' efforts, urging that any seeming victory
over Satan was due not to the defeat but to the collusion of the fiend.
As, according to the Master himself, "no man can by Beelzebub cast out
devils," the patient was now in greater need of relief than before; and
more than one poor victim had to bear alternately Lutheran, Roman, and
perhaps Calvinistic exorcism.(363)

(363) For instances of this competition, see Freytag, Aus dem Jahrh. d.
Reformation, pp. 359-375. The Jesuit Stengel, in his De judiciis divinis
(Ingolstadt, 1651), devotes a whole chapter to an exorcism, by the great
Canisius, of a spirit that had baffled Protestant conjuration. Among
the most jubilant Catholic satires of the time are those exulting in
Luther's alleged failure as an exorcist.

But far more serious in its consequences was another rivalry to which in
the sixteenth century the clergy of all creeds found themselves subject.
The revival of the science of medicine, under the impulse of the new
study of antiquity, suddenly bade fair to take out of the hands of the
Church the profession of which she had enjoyed so long and so profitable
a monopoly. Only one class of diseases remained unquestionably
hers--those which were still admitted to be due to the direct personal
interference of S