who pass for doing a great deal of harm,
either by virtue[686] of some imaginary compact, or by their own will,
or some diabolical instinct;" and who, having their brain deranged,
confess they have done many things, which they never have nor could
have performed. "Magicians,"[687] he says, "are led of themselves, and
by their own inclination, to learn this forbidden art, and seek
masters who can instruct them in it; wizards, on the contrary, seek
neither masters nor instructions; but the devil takes possession of
those women," whom he thinks the most likely to be deceived, "on
account of their old age, of their melancholy temperament, or their
poverty and misery." Everybody must see, and I have sufficiently shown
it already, to how many difficulties and contradictions all this
doctrine is subject; what we must conclude from it is, that wizards as
well as magicians have equally recourse to the demon, and place their
hope in him, without either of them ever obtaining what they wish. The
author sometimes believes he renders what he says of the power of
magic, and in short reduces it to nothing, by saying, that all the
wonderful effects attributed to it have no reality, and are but
illusions and vain phantoms; but he does not remark that it is even
miraculous to cause to appear that which is not. Whether the wands of
Pharaoh's magicians were really metamorphosed into serpents, or that
they appeared to be thus changed to the eyes of the beholders, would
either of them equally surpass all the power and industry of men. I
shall not amuse myself with discussing largely many inutilities which
may be found in this work; for instance, he does not fail to relate
the impertinent story of the pretended magic of Sylvester II., which,
as Panvinius has shown, had no other foundation than this pope's being
much given to the study of mathematics and philosophy.

X. It is owned in the new book, that it is very likely some woman may
be found "who, with the help of the demon, may be capable of
performing a great many things even hurtful to mankind," and that by
virtue "of a compact, express or tacit;" and it is added, that it
cannot be denied that it may be, without absolutely denying the
reality of magic. But when, so far from denying it, every effort on
the contrary is made to establish it; when it is loudly maintained
that persons may be found who, with the assistance of the demon, are
able to produce real effects, even of doing harm to