cutors. They argue as to the practice of
witchcraft; and the argument is to establish that, although the
practicers of the crime are worthy of death, much of the vulgar
opinion on the subject is false. Even in the middle of the
fifteenth century, and in Spain, could be found an assertor, in
some degree, of common sense, whose sentiments might scandalise
some Protestant divines. Alphonse de Spina was a native of
Castile, of the order of St. Francis: his book was written
against heretics and unbelievers, but there is a chapter in which
some acts attributed to sorcerers, as transportation through the
air, transformations, &c., are rejected as unreal.

From that time two parties were in existence, one of which
advocated the entire reality of all the acts commonly imputed to
witches; while the other maintained that many of their supposed
crimes were mere delusions suggested by the Great Enemy. The
former, as the orthodox party, were, from the nature of the case,
most successful in the argument--a seeming paradox explained by
the nature and course of the controversy. Only the _received_
method of demoniacal possession was questioned by the adverse
side, accepting without doubt the possibility--and, indeed, the
actual existence--of the phenomenon. Thus the liberals, or
pseudo-liberals, in that important controversy were placed in an
illogical position. For (as their opponents might triumphantly
argue) if the devil's power and possession could be manifested in
one way, why not by any other method. Nor was it for them to
determine the appointed methods of his schemes, as permitted by
Providence, for the injury and ruin of mankind. The diabolic
economy, as evidently set forth in the work of man's destruction,
might require certain modes of acting quite above our reason and
understanding. To the sceptics (or to the _atheists_, as they
were termed) the orthodox could allege, 'Will you not believe
in witches? The Scriptures aver their existence: to the
jurisconsults will you dispute the existence of a crime against
which our statute-book and the code of almost all civilised
countries have attested by laws upon which hundreds and thousands
have been convicted; many, or even most, of whom have, by their
judicial confessions, acknowledged their guilt and the justice of
their punishment? It is a strange scepticism, they might add,
that rejects the evidence of Scripture, of human legislature, and
of the accused persons themselves.'[94