Saducismus Triumphatus: Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions

Therefore, after several reasonings of this nature—by which I intended to prove to him the soul's distinction from the body and its immortality—when none of these subtle considerations had any more impact original: "execution" on his mind than lightning is said to have when it melts a sword while leaving the spongy original: "fuzzy" scabbard intact: "Well," I said, "Father L, though none of these things move you, I still have something in reserve—something that you yourself have acknowledged to me to be true—which might do the business. Do you remember the slap on your back when your servant was pulling off your boots in the hall? Assure yourself," I said, "Father L, that the goblin In this context, a "goblin" refers to a mischievous spirit or ghost. will be the first to welcome you into the other world." Upon hearing that, his facial expression changed visibly, and he was more unsettled by this refreshing of his memory than by all the rational or philosophical arguments I could produce.

Indeed, if there were any modesty left in mankind, the histories of the Bible might abundantly assure men of the existence of angels and spirits. But these "wits," as they are thought to be, are so suspicious and so "wise" that whatever is offered to them by way of established religion is suspected of being a piece of political trickery original: "Politick Circumvention". This is, nonetheless, as silly and childish as the whim of a friend of yours when he was a schoolboy in the lowest grade of a country grammar school. He could scarcely believe that there were ever any such men as Cato, Aesop, Ovid, Virgil, and Cicero original: "Tully", much less that they wrote any such books; he thought instead that it was a trick of our parents to keep us busy for so many hours of the day and hinder us from enjoying our innocent pastimes in the open air—the pleasure of planting little flower gardens, or hunting butterflies and bumblebees.

Besides, although what is once true never becomes false (so that it may never be truly said that it was not once true), yet these clever wits suspect the truth of things simply because of their antiquity; for that very reason, they think them less credible. This is as "wisely" done as the story told of an old woman who, being at church during the week before Easter and hearing the tragic description of all the circumstances of our Savior's crucifixion, was in great sorrow at the reciting of it. She was so worried about the matter that she came to the priest after the service with tears in her eyes; dropping him a curtsy, she asked him how long ago this sad accident happened. When he answered, "About fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago," The OCR reads "fifteen or sixteen Years ago," but context implies "hundred" was intended, referring to the time elapsed since the life of Jesus. she immediately began to be comforted and said, "Then, by the grace of God, it may be true" This is a humorous anecdote implying the woman thinks the event is so old it might as well be a harmless legend, or that its age somehow diminishes its tragic reality.. At this level of wit, found in children and old wives, is the reasoning of our self-proclaimed...