uttered them on the
bench, in the pulpit, and in the other walks of practical life.

We have already had occasion to learn what the judges were thinking. We
listened to Matthew Hale while he uttered the pronouncement that was
heard all over England and even in the North American colonies. The
existence of witches, he affirmed solemnly, is proved by Scripture and
by the universality of laws against them. Justice Rainsford in the
following years and Justice Raymond about twenty years later seem to
have taken Hale's view of the matter. On the other side were to be
reckoned Sir John Reresby and Francis North. Neither of them was quite
outspoken, fearing the rage of the people and the charge of atheism.
Both sought to save the victims of persecution, but rather by exposing
the deceptions of the accusers than by denying witchcraft itself. From
the vast number of acquittals in the seventies and the sudden dropping
off in the number of witch trials in the eighties we know that there
must have been many other judges who were acquitting witches or quietly
ignoring the charges against them. Doubtless Kelyng, who, as a spectator
at Bury, had shown his skepticism as to the accusations, had when he
later became a chief justice been one of those who refused to condemn
witches.

From scientific men there were few utterances. Although we shall in
another connection show that a goodly number from the Royal Society
cherished very definite beliefs--or disbeliefs--on the subject, we have
the opinions of but two men who were professionally scientists, Sir
Thomas Browne and Sir Robert Boyle. Browne we have already met at the
Bury trial. It may reasonably be questioned whether he was really a man
of science. Certainly he was a physician of eminence. The attitude he
took when an expert witness at Bury, it will be recalled, was quite
consistent with the opinion given in his _Commonplace Book_. "We are
noways doubtful," he wrote, "that there are witches, but have not always
been satisfied in the application of their witchcrafts."[50] So spoke
the famous physician of Norwich. But a man whose opinion was of much
more consequence was Sir Robert Boyle. Boyle was a chemist and "natural
philosopher." He was the discoverer of the air pump, was elected
president of the Royal Society, and was altogether one of the greatest
non-political figures in the reign of Charles II. While he never, so far
as we know, discussed witchcraft in the abstract, he fathere