t this pestilent and abandoned race of
men, most civilized countries have enacted penal laws. But what rendered
such persons peculiarly detestable in modern times, was the
communication which they were supposed to hold with the devil, to whom
they sold themselves, and from whom, in return, they derived their
information. And by this principle the penal statutes, instead of
extirpating, inflamed the evil. They alarmed the imaginations of the
people; they tempted them to impute the cause of their misfortunes and
disappointment to the malice or resentment of their neighbours; they
induced them to trust to their suspicions, much more than to their
reason; and they multiplied witches and wizards, by putting into
possession of every foolish informer the means of punishment. In several
countries of Europe, these statutes still subsist; they were not
abolished in Britain till a period still at no great distance. Since the
abolition of persecution, the faith of witchcraft has disappeared even
among the vulgar. It was long found inconsistent with any considerable
progress in philosophy.

For these reasons we read, with some degree of astonishment, a treatise
on this exploded subject, by a philosopher, an eminent physician, a
privy counseller of the then Empress Queen, and a professor in the
university of Vienna. It was long doubted whether the professor was in
earnest, but the world was at length forced to admit, that the great
Antonius de Haen certainly believed in witchcraft, and reckoned the
knowledge of it, in treating a disease, of great importance to a
physician--to the acquisition of which useful knowledge, he dedicated a
great part of his time. In the year 1758, three old women, condemned to
death for witchcraft, were brought by order of the Empress from Croatia
to Vienna, to undergo an examination, with regard to the equity of the
sentence pronounced against them. The question was not whether the crime
existed; the only object of inquiry respected the justice of its
application. The author, and the illustrious van Swieten, were appointed
to make the investigation. After reading over the depositions, produced
on the trials with the greatest care, and interrogating the culprits
themselves _most vigorously_ by means of a Croatian interpreter, these
great physicians discovered that the _three old_ women were not witches,
and prevailed with the Empress to send them home in safety. It was this
circumstance that induced de Haen