of Learning_, bk. II; _ibid._, III, 490.

[65] _Works_, IV, 400-401.

[66] _Ibid._, IV, 296.

[67] Selden, _Table Talk_ (London, 1689). The book is supposed to have
been written during the last twenty years of Selden's life, that is,
between 1634 and 1654.

[68] Selden, _Table Talk_, _s. v._ "Witches."

[69] Nor did Selden believe in possessions. See his essay on Devils in
the _Table Talk_.

[70] See article on Hobbes in _Dict. Nat. Biog._

[71] See, for example, Bishop Burnet's _History of his Own Time_
(Oxford, 1823), I, 172, 322-323.

[72] _Leviathan_ (1651), 7. See also his _Dialogue of the Common Laws of
England_, in _Works_ (ed. of London, 1750), 626: "But I desire not to
discourse of that subject; for, though without doubt there is some great
Wickedness signified by those Crimes, yet have I ever found myself too
dull to conceive the nature of them, or how the Devil hath power to do
many things which Witches have been accused of." See also his chapter on
Daemonology in the _Leviathan_, in _Works_, 384.

[73] He continues, "Some doe maintaine (but how wisely let the wiser
judge) that all Witchcraft spoken of either by holy writers, or
testified by other writers to have beene among the heathen or in later
daies, hath beene and is no more but either meere Cousinage [he had been
reading Scot], or Collusion, so that in the opinion of those men, the
Devill hath never done, nor can do anything by Witches." _The Witches of
Northamptonshire, ..._ A 4.

[74] Potts, _The Wonderfull Discoverie ..._, X 4 verso.

[75] Fairfax, _A Discourse of Witchcraft_ (Philobiblon Soc.), 12.

[76] _Ibid._, 20.

[77] One notable instance must be mentioned. "H. F.," the narrator of
the Essex affair of 1645 (_A true and exact Relation_) not only
recognized the strong position of those who doubted, but was by no means
extreme himself. "I doubt not," he wrote, "but these things may seeme as
incredible unto some, as they are matter of admiration unto others....
The greatest doubt and question will be, whether it be in the power of
the Devil to perform such asportation and locall translation of the
bodies of Witches.... And whether these supernaturall works, which are
above the power of man to do, and proper only to Spirits, whether they
are reall or only imaginary and fained." The writer concludes that the
Devil has power to dispose and transport bodies, but, as to changing
them into animals, he thinks these are "but jugling transm