d risk nothing by this stipulation, since he was free
to take it away or to leave it, and it was not probable that he should
ever lightly thus expose himself to certain death. That the demon had
some share in this virtue of the poisonous composition is very likely,
when we consider the circumstances of its operations, and those of the
death and despair of Hocque. This death is the just penalty of his
crimes, and of his confidence in the exterminating angel to whom he
had yielded himself.

It is true that impostors, weak minds, heated imaginations, ignorant
and superstitious persons have been found who have taken for black
magic, and operations of the demon, what was quite natural, and the
effect of some subtilty of philosophy or mathematics, or even an
illusion of the senses, or a secret which deceives the eye and the
senses. But to conclude from thence that there is no magic at all, and
that all that is said about it is pure prejudice, ignorance, and
superstition, is to conclude what is general from what is particular,
and to deny what is true and certain, because it is not easy to
distinguish what is true from what is false, and because men will not
take the trouble to examine into causes. It is far easier to deny
everything than to enter upon a serious examination of facts and
circumstances.

Footnotes:

[144] M. de St. Andre, Letter VI. on the subject of Magic, &c.

CHAPTER XI.

MAGIC OF THE EGYPTIANS AND CHALDEANS.

All pagan antiquity speaks of magic and magicians, of magical
operations, and of superstitious, curious, and diabolical books.
Historians, poets, and orators are full of things which relate to this
matter: some believe in it, others deny it; some laugh at it, others
remain in uncertainty and doubt. Are they bad spirits, or deceitful
men, impostors and charlatans, who, by the subtilties of their art,
make the ignorant believe that certain natural effects are produced by
supernatural causes? That is the point on which men differ. But in
general the name of magic and magician is now taken in these days in
an odious sense, for an art which produces marvelous effects, that
appear above the common course of nature, and that by the operation of
the bad spirit.

The author of the celebrated book of Enoch, which had so great a
vogue, and has been cited by some ancient writers[145] as inspired
Scripture, says that the eleventh of the watchers, or of those angels
who were in love with women, wa