ied.(368) But the most contemptible
creatures in all those centuries were the physicians who took sides
with religious orthodoxy. While we have, on the side of truth, Flade
sacrificing his life, Cornelius Agrippa his liberty, Wier and Loos
their hopes of preferment, Bekker his position, and Thomasius his ease,
reputation, and friends, we find, as allies of the other side, a troop
of eminently respectable doctors mixing Scripture, metaphysics, and
pretended observations to support the "safe side" and to deprecate
interference with the existing superstition, which seemed to them "a
very safe belief to be held by the common people."(369)

(367) See D. H. Tuke, Chapters in the History of the Insane in the
British Isles, London, 1822, p. 36; also Kirchhoff, p. 340. The forms
of insanity especially mentioned are "dementia senilis" and epilepsy. A
striking case of voluntary confession of witchcraft by a woman who lived
to recover from the delusion is narrated in great detail by Reginald
Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, London, 1584. It is, alas, only
too likely that the "strangeness" caused by slight and unrecognised
mania led often to the accusation of witchcraft instead of to the
suspicion of possession.

(368) See Kirchhoff, as above.

(369) For the arguments used by creatures of this sort, see Diefenbach,
Der Hexenwahn vor und nach der Glaubensspaltung in Deutschland, pp.
342-346. A long list of their infamous names is given on p. 345.

Against one form of insanity both Catholics and Protestants were
especially cruel. Nothing is more common in all times of religious
excitement than strange personal hallucinations, involving the belief,
by the insane patient, that he is a divine person. In the most striking
representation of insanity that has ever been made, Kaulbach shows,
at the centre of his wonderful group, a patient drawing attention to
himself as the Saviour of the world.

Sometimes, when this form of disease took a milder hysterical character,
the subject of it was treated with reverence, and even elevated to
sainthood: such examples as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of
Siena in Italy, St. Bridget in Sweden, St. Theresa in Spain, St. Mary
Alacoque in France, and Louise Lateau in Belgium, are typical. But more
frequently such cases shocked public feeling, and were treated with
especial rigour: typical of this is the case of Simon Marin, who in his
insanity believed himself to