others, and so on to the end of the chapter.(366)

(366) The Jesuit Stengel, professor at Ingolstadt, who (in his great
work, De judiciis divinis) urges, as reasons why a merciful God permits
illness, his wish to glorify himself through the miracles wrought by his
Church, and his desire to test the faith of men by letting them choose
between the holy aid of the Church and the illicit resort to medicine,
declares that there is a difference between simple possession and
that brought by bewitchment, and insists that the latter is the more
difficult to treat.

The horrors of such a persecution, with the consciousness of an
ever-present devil it breathed and the panic terror of him it
inspired, could not but aggravate the insanity it claimed to cure.
Well-authenticated, though rarer than is often believed, were the cases
where crazed women voluntarily accused themselves of this impossible
crime. One of the most eminent authorities on diseases of the mind
declares that among the unfortunate beings who were put to death for
witchcraft he recognises well-marked victims of cerebral disorders;
while an equally eminent authority in Germany tells us that, in a most
careful study of the original records of their trials by torture, he has
often found their answers and recorded conversations exactly like those
familiar to him in our modern lunatic asylums, and names some forms
of insanity which constantly and un mistakably appear among those who
suffered for criminal dealings with the devil.(367) The result of this
widespread terror was naturally, therefore, a steady increase in mental
disorders. A great modern authority tells us that, although modern
civilization tends to increase insanity, the number of lunatics at
present is far less than in the ages of faith and in the Reformation
period. The treatment of the "possessed," as we find it laid down
in standard treatises, sanctioned by orthodox churchmen and jurists,
accounts for this abundantly. One sort of treatment used for those
accused of witchcraft will also serve to show this--the "tortura
insomniae." Of all things in brain-disease, calm and regular sleep is
most certainly beneficial; yet, under this practice, these half-crazed
creatures were prevented, night after night and day after day, from
sleeping or even resting. In this way temporary delusion became chronic
insanity, mild cases became violent, torture and death ensued, and the
"ways of God to man" were justif