laborate work on the subject.
"_De praestigiis Daemonum et incantationibus et Veneficiis_," &c., 1568.
He advanced one step in philosophy by discovering that many of the
supposed cases of incantation originated in the imagination of these
sorcerers--but he advanced no farther, for he acknowledges the real
diabolical presence. The physician, who pretended to cure the disease, was
himself irrecoverably infected. Yet even this single step of Wierus was
strenuously resisted by the learned Bodin, who, in his amusing volume of
"Demonomanie des Sorciers," 1593, refutes Wierus. These are the leading
authors of the times; who were followed by a crowd. Thus James I. neither
wanted authorities to quote nor great minds to sanction his "Daemonologie,"
first published in 1597. To the honour of England, a single individual,
Reginald Scot, with a genius far advanced beyond his age, denied the very
existence of those witches and demons in the curious volume of his
"Discovery of Witchcraft," 1584. His books were burned! and the author was
himself not quite out of danger; and Voetius, says Bayle, complains that
when the work was translated into Dutch, it raised up a number of
libertines who laughed at all the operations and the apparitions of
devils. Casaubon and Glanvil, who wrote so much later, treat Scot with
profound contempt, assuring us his reasonings are childish, and his
philosophy absurd! Such was the reward of a man of genius combating with
popular prejudices! Even so late as 1687, these popular superstitions were
confirmed by the narrations and the philosophy of Glanvil, Dr. More, &c.
The subject enters into the "Commentaries on the Laws of England." An
edict of Louis XIV, and a statute by George II, made an end of the whole
_Diablerie_. Had James I. adopted the system of Reginald Scot, the king
had probably been branded as an atheist king!]

[Footnote B: Harris, with systematic ingenuity against James I., after
abusing this tract as a wretched performance, though himself probably had
written a meaner one--quotes the curious information the king gives of the
enormous abuse to which the practice of smoking was carried, expressing
his astonishment at it. Yet, that James may not escape bitter censure, he
abuses the king for levying a heavy tax on it to prevent this ruinous
consumption, and his silly policy in discouraging such a branch of our
revenues, and an article so valuable to our plantations, &c. As if James
I. could possibly