ven under the terribly serious
Puritans skepticism began to avail itself of that weapon, a weapon of
which it could hardly be disarmed.

In following the history of opinion we must needs mention again some of
the incidents of certain cases dealt with in earlier chapters, incidents
that indicate the growing force of doubt. The reader has hardly
forgotten the outcome of the Lancashire cases in 1633. There Bishop
Bridgeman and the king, if they did not discredit witchcraft,
discredited its manifestation in the particular instance.[84] As for
William Harvey, he had probably given up his faith in the whole business
after the little incident at Newmarket.[85] When we come to the time of
the Civil Wars we cannot forget that Stearne and Hopkins met
opposition, not alone from the Huntingdon minister, but from a large
party in Norfolk, who finally forced the witchfinder to defend himself
in court. Nor can we forget the witch-pricker of Berwick who was sent
a-flying back to his native northern soil, nor the persistent Mrs.
Muschamp who tramped over Northumberland seeking a warrant and finding
none.

The course of opinion is a circuitous one. We have followed its windings
in and out through more than half a century. We have listened as
respectfully as possible to the vagaries of country parsons and
university preachers, we have heard from scholars, from gentlemen, from
jurists and men of affairs, from physicians and philosophers. It matters
little now what they thought or said, but it did matter then. We have
seen how easy a thing it was to fall into the error that a middle course
was nearest truth. Broad was the way and many there were that walked
therein. Yet even those who travelled that highway found their direction
shifting. For there was progress in opinion. With every decade the
travellers, as well those who strayed aside as those who followed the
crowd, were getting a little nearer to truth.

[1] "Printed by Cantrel Legge, Printer to the Universitie of Cambridge"
(1608, 1610).

[2] See _Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft_, ch. VII, sect. I.

[3] His literary executor, Thomas Pickering, late of Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, and now "Minister of Finchingfield in Essex," who prepared
the _Discourse_ for the press (both in its separate form and as a part
of Perkins's collected works), and who dedicates it to Sir Edward Coke,
is, however, equally silent as to James, though in his preface he
mentions Scot by name.