ent his being easily duped. His
observations are not by any means so entertaining as are his theories.
His effort to account for the instantaneous transportation of witches is
one of the bright spots in the prosy reasonings of the demonologists.
More was a thoroughgoing dualist. Mind and matter were the two separate
entities. Now, the problem that arose at once was this: How can the
souls of witches leave their bodies? "I conceive," he says, "the Divell
gets into their body and by his subtile substance more operative and
searching than any fire or putrifying liquor, melts the yielding
Campages of the body to such a consistency ... and makes it plyable to
his imagination: and then it is as easy for him to work it into what
shape he pleaseth."[37] If he could do that, much more could he enable
men to leave their bodies. Then arose the problem: How does this process
differ from death? The writer was puzzled apparently at his own
question, but reasoned that death was the result of the unfitness of the
body to contain the soul.[38] But no such condition existed when the
Devil was operating; and no doubt the body could be anointed in such
fashion that the soul could leave and return.

Meric Casaubon, son of the eminent classical scholar and himself a well
known student, was skeptical as to the stories told about the aerial
journeys of witches which More had been at such pains to explain. It was
a matter, he wrote in his _Treatise concerning Enthusiasme_,[39] of much
dispute among learned men. The confessions made were hard to account
for, but he would feel it very wrong to condemn the accused upon that
evidence. We shall meet with Casaubon again.[40]

Nathaniel Homes, who wrote from his pastoral study at Mary Stayning's in
London, and dedicated his work[41] to Francis Rous, member of
Parliament, was no halfway man. He was a thoroughgoing disciple of
Perkins. His utmost admission--the time had come when one had to make
some concessions--was that evil spirits performed many of their wonders
by tricks of juggling.[42] But he swallowed without effort all the
nonsense about covenants, and was inclined to see in the activities of
the Devil a presage of the last days.[43]

The reader can readily see that More, Casaubon, and Homes were all on
the defensive. They were compelled to offer explanations of the
mysteries of witchcraft, they were ready enough to make admissions; but
they were nevertheless sticking closely to the main doct