to be [Greek: isangeloi], why the wicked may not be supposed
to be [Greek: isodaimones] (in the worst sense of the word), I
know nothing to help me to imagine. And if it be supposed that
the imps of witches are sometimes wicked spirits of our own kind
and nature, and possibly the same that have been witches and
sorcerers in this life: this supposal may give a fairer and more
probable account of many of the actions of sorcery and witchcraft
than the other hypothesis, that they are always devils. And to
this conjecture I will venture to subjoin another, which hath
also its probability, viz. that it is not improbable but the
familiars of witches are a vile kind of spirits of a very
inferior constitution and nature; and none of those that
were once of the highest hierarchy now degenerated into the
spirits we call devils.... And that all the superior--yea, and
inferior--regions have their several kinds of spirits, differing
in their natural perfections as well as in the kinds and degrees
of their depravities; which being supposed, 'tis very probable
that those of the basest and meanest sorts are they who submit to
the servilities.'[150] It is a curious speculation how the old
apologists of witchcraft would regard the modern 'curiosos'--the
adventurous _spirit-media_ of the present day, and whether the
consulted spirits are of 'base and sordid rank,' or are 'a kind
of airy and more speculative fiends.' It is fair to infer,
perhaps, that they are of the latter class.

[150] _Sadducismus Triumphatus_, Part I. sect. 4. Affixed to
this work is a _Collection of Relations_ of
well-authenticated instances. Glanvil was one of the first
Fellows of the recently established Royal Society. He is the
author of a philosophical treatise of great merit--the
_Scepsis Scientifica_--a review of which occupies several
pages of _The Introduction to the Literature of Europe_, and
which is favourably considered by Hallam. Not the least
unaccountable fact in the history and literature of
witchcraft is the absurd contradiction involved in the
unbounded credulity of writers (who were sceptical on almost
every other subject) on the one subject of demonology.

The author of the 'Saints' Everlasting Rest,' the moderate and
conscientious Baxter, was a contemporary of the Anglican divine.
In another and later work this voluminous theological writer more
fully developed his spiritualistic ideas. 'The Certainty of the
World of S