rines. It is a
pleasure to turn to the writings of two men of somewhat bolder stamp,
Robert Filmer and Thomas Ady. Sir Robert Filmer was a Kentish knight of
strong royalist views who had written against the limitations of
monarchy and was not afraid to cross swords with Milton and Hobbes on
the origin of government. In 1652 he had attended the Maidstone trials,
where, it will be remembered, six women had been convicted. As Scot had
been stirred by the St. Oses trials, so Filmer was wrought up by what he
had seen at Maidstone,[44] and in the following year he published his
_Advertisement to the Jurymen of England_. He set out to overturn the
treatise of Perkins. As a consequence he dealt with Scripture and the
interpretation of the well known passages in the Old Testament. The
Hebrew witch, Filmer declared, was guilty of nothing more than "lying
prophecies." The Witch of Endor probably used "hollow speaking." In this
suggestion Filmer was following his famous Kentish predecessor.[45] But
Filmer's main interest, like Bernard's and Gaule's before him, was to
warn those who had to try cases to be exceedingly careful. He felt that
a great part of the evidence used was worth little or nothing.

Thomas Ady's _Candle in the Dark_ was published three years later.[48]
Even more than Filmer, Ady was a disciple of Scot. But he was, indeed, a
student of all English writers on the subject and set about to answer
them one by one. King James, whose book he persistently refused to
believe the king's own handiwork, Cooper, who was a "bloudy persecutor,"
Gifford, who "had more of the spirit of truth in him than many,"
Perkins, the arch-enemy, Gaule, whose "intentions were godly," but who
was too far "swayed by the common tradition of men,"[47] all of them
were one after another disposed of. Ady stood eminently for good sense.
It was from that point of view that he ridiculed the water ordeal and
the evidence of marks,[48] and that he attacked the cause and effect
relation between threats and illness. "They that make this Objection
must dwell very remote from Neighbours."[49]

Yet not even Ady was a downright disbeliever. He defended Scot from the
report "that he held an opinion that Witches are not, for it was neither
his Tenent nor is it mine." Alas, Ady does not enlighten us as to just
what was his opinion. Certainly his witches were creatures without
power.[50] What, then, were they? Were they harmless beings with
malevolent minds? Mr.