d of, he went
into the prosecutions without misgivings, earnestly and vehemently
sustaining the Court, in all things, spectre evidence included, as
remains to be shown.

VIII.

COTTON MATHER AND SPECTRAL EVIDENCE.

I shall continue to draw, at some length, upon Mather's writings, to
which I ask the careful attention of the reader. The subject to which
they mostly relate, is of much interest, presenting views of a class of
topics, holding, for a long period, a mighty sway over the human mind.

In his _Life of Phips_, written in 1697, and constituting the concluding
part of the Second Book of the _Magnalia_, he gives a general account of
what had transpired, in the preliminary examinations at Salem, before
the arrival of Sir William, at Boston. In it, he spreads out, with
considerable fullness, what had been brought before the Magistrates,
consisting mainly of spectral testimony; and narrates the appearances
and doings of spectres assaulting the "afflicted children," not as mere
matters alleged, but as facts. It is true that he appears as a narrator;
yet, in the manner and tenor of his statement, he cannot but be
considered as endorsing the spectral evidence. Speaking of the examining
Magistrates, and saying that it is "now," that is, in 1697, "generally
thought they went out of the way," he expresses himself as follows: "The
afflicted people vehemently accused several persons, in several places,
that the _spectres_ which afflicted them, did exactly resemble _them_;
until the importunity of the accusations did provoke the Magistrates to
examine them. When many of the accused came upon their examination, it
was found, that the demons, then a thousand ways abusing of the poor
afflicted people, had with a marvellous exactness represented them; yea,
it was found that many of the accused, but casting their eye upon the
afflicted, the afflicted, though their faces were never so much another
way, would fall down and lie in a sort of a swoon, wherein they would
continue, whatever hands were laid upon them, until the hands of the
accused came to touch them, and then they would revive immediately: and
it was found, that various kinds of natural actions, done by many of the
accused in or to their own bodies, as leaning, bending, turning awry, or
squeezing their hands, or the like, were presently attended with the
like things preternaturally done upon the bodies of the afflicted,
though they were so far asunder, that the