cience, by droves;" but he praises "the reverend judges of England,
now ... much wiser than before," who "give small or no encouragement to
such accusations."

We come now to the second great figure among the witch-ologists of the
Restoration, John Webster. Glanvill and Webster were protagonist and
antagonist in a drama where the others played somewhat the role of the
Greek chorus. It was in 1677 that Webster put forth _The Displaying of
Supposed Witchcraft_.[36] A Non-Conformist clergyman in his earlier
life, he seems to have turned in later years to the practice of
medicine. From young manhood he had been interested in the subject of
witchcraft. Probably that interest dates from an experience of his one
Sunday afternoon over forty years before he published his book. It will
be recalled that the boy Robinson, accuser of the Lancashire women in
1634, had been brought into his Yorkshire congregation at an afternoon
service and had come off very poorly when cross-questioned by the
curious minister. From that time Webster had been a doubter. Now and
again in the course of his Yorkshire and Lancashire pastorates he had
come into contact with superstition. He was no philosopher, this
Yorkshire doctor of souls and bodies, nor was he more than a country
scientist, and his reasoning against witchcraft fell short--as Professor
Kittredge has clearly pointed out[37]--of scientific rationalism. That
was a high mark and few there were in the seventeenth century who
attained unto it. But it is not too much to say that John Webster was
the heir and successor to Scot. He carried weight by the force of his
attack, if not by its brilliancy.[38] He was by no means always
consistent, but he struck sturdy blows. He was seldom original, but he
felled his opponents.

Many of his strongest arguments, of course, were old. It was nothing new
that the Witch of Endor was an impostor. It was Muggleton's notion, and
it went back indeed to Scot. The emphasizing of the part played by
imagination was as old as the oldest English opponent of witch
persecution. The explanation of certain strange phenomena
as ventriloquism--a matter that Webster had investigated
painstakingly--this had been urged before. Webster himself did not
believe that new arguments were needed. He had felt that the "impious
and Popish opinions of the too much magnified powers of Demons and
Witches, in this Nation were pretty well quashed and silenced" by
various writers and by the