act in supernatural
ways in our every-day world. And there was nothing more inconsistent in
failing to bridge this gap than in the position of the Christian people
today who believe in a spirit world and yet discredit without
examination all that is offered as new evidence of its existence.

The truth is that Webster was too busy at destroying the fortifications
of his opponents to take the trouble to build up defences for himself.
But it is not too much to call him the most effective of the seventeenth
century assailants of witch persecution in England.[47] He had this
advantage over all who had gone before, that a large and increasing body
of intelligent people were with him. He spoke in full consciousness of
strong support. It was for his opponents to assume the defensive.

We have called John Webster's a great name in the literature of our
subject, and we have given our reasons for so thinking. Yet it would be
a mistake to suppose that he created any such sensation in his time as
did his arch-opponent, Glanvill. His work never went into a second
edition. There are but few references to it in the writings of the time,
and those are in works devoted to the defence of the belief. Benjamin
Camfield, a Leicestershire rector, wrote an unimportant book on _Angels
and their Ministries_,[48] and in an appendix assailed Webster. Joseph
Glanvill turned fiercely upon him with new proofs of what he called
facts, and bequeathed the work at his death to Henry More, who in the
several following editions of the _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ attacked him
with no little bitterness.

We may skip over three lesser writers on witchcraft. During the early
eighties John Brinley, Henry Hallywell, and Richard Bovet launched their
little boats into the sea of controversy. Brinley was a bold plagiarist
of Bernard, Hallywell a logical but dull reasoner from the Bible, Bovet
a weakened solution of Glanvill.[49]

We turn now from the special literature of witchcraft to a sketch of the
incidental evidences of opinion. Of these we have a larger body than
ever before, too large indeed to handle in detail. It would be idle to
quote from the chap-books on witch episodes their _raisons d'etre_. It
all comes to this: they were written to confute disbelievers. They refer
slightingly and even bitterly to those who oppose belief, not however
without admitting their numbers and influence. It will be more to our
purpose to examine the opinions of men as they