book
was reprinted. Already by 1668 it had reached a fourth impression.[4] In
this edition the work took the new title _A Blow at Modern Sadducism_,
and it was republished again in 1681 with further additions as
_Sadducismus Triumphatus_, which might be translated "Unbelief
Conquered."[5] The work continued to be called for faster than the
publisher could supply the demand, and went through several more
revisions and reimpressions. One of the most popular books of the
generation, it proved to be Glanvill's greatest title to contemporary
fame. The success of the work was no doubt due in large measure to the
collection of witch stories; but these had been inserted by the author
as the groundwork of his argument. He recognized, as no one on his side
of the controversy had done before, the force of the arguments made by
the opposition. They were good points, but to them all he offered one
short answer--the evidence of proved fact.[6] That such transformations
as were ascribed to the witches were ridiculous, that contracts between
the Devil and agents who were already under his control were absurd,
that the Devil would never put himself at the nod and beck of miserable
women, and that Providence would not permit His children to be thus
buffeted by the evil one: these were the current objections;[7] and to
them all Glanvill replied that one positive fact is worth a thousand
negative arguments. Innumerable frauds had been exposed. Yes, he knew
it,[8] but here were well authenticated cases that were not fraud.
Glanvill put the issue squarely. His confidence in his case at once wins
admiration. He was thoroughly sincere. The fly in the ointment was of
course that his best authenticated cases could not stand any careful
criticism. He had been furnished the narratives which he used by "honest
and honourable friends." Yet, if this scientific investigator could be
duped, as he had been at Tedworth, much more those worthy but credulous
friends whom he quoted.

From a simple assertion that he was presenting facts Glanvill went on to
make a plea used often nowadays in another connection by defenders of
miracles. If the ordinary mind, he said, could not understand "every
thing done by Mathematics and Mechanical Artifice,"[9] how much more
would even the most knowing of us fail to understand the power of
witches. This proposition, the reader can see, was nothing more than a
working out of one of the principles of his philosophy. There c