ne which really checked those affections. At the
great popular gatherings of the Sabbath, of which we shall presently
speak, the _witches' herb_, mixed with mead, beer, cider,[47] or perry
(the strong drinks of the West), set the multitude dancing a dance
luxurious indeed, but far from epileptic.

[46] We should think that few physicians would quite agree
with M. Michelet.--TRANS.

[47] Cider was first made in the twelfth century.

* * * * *

But the greatest revolution caused by the witches, the greatest step
_the wrong way_ against the spirit of the Middle Ages, was what may be
called the reenfeoffment of the stomach and the digestive organs. They
had the boldness to say, "There is nothing foul or unclean."
Thenceforth the study of matter was free and boundless. Medicine
became a possibility.

That this principle was greatly abused, we do not deny; but the
principle is none the less clear. There is nothing foul but moral
evil. In the natural world all things are pure: nothing may be
withheld from our studious regard, nothing be forbidden by an idle
spiritualism, still less by a silly disgust.

It was here especially that the Middle Ages showed themselves in their
true light, as _anti-natural_, out of Nature's oneness drawing
distinctions of castes, of priestly orders. Not only do they count the
spirit _noble_, and the body _ignoble_; but even parts of the body are
called noble, while others are not, being evidently plebeian. In like
manner heaven is noble, and hell is not; but why?--"Because heaven is
high up." But in truth it is neither high nor low, being above and
beneath alike. And what is hell? Nothing at all. Equally foolish are
they about the world at large and the smaller world of men.

This world is all one piece: each thing in it is attached to all the
rest. If the stomach is servant of the brain and feeds it, the brain
also works none the less for the stomach, perpetually helping to
prepare for it the digestive _sugar_.[48]

[48] This great discovery was made by Claude Bernard.

* * * * *

There was no lack of injurious treatment. The witches were called
filthy, indecent, shameless, immoral. Nevertheless, their first steps
on that road may be accounted as a happy revolution in things most
moral, in charity and kindness. With a monstrous perversion of ideas
the Middle Ages viewed the flesh in its representative,
woman,