usion for interested reasons. The most
striking recent illustration of this latter behaviour was seen in the
Welsh revival led by Evan Roberts. Of this man's mental condition there
could be little doubt. Just as little doubt could there be that the
behaviour of the congregations was wholly due to the power of
suggestions upon weak and excitable natures. Yet scarcely a preacher in
Britain said a word in disapproval. Hundreds of them used the outbreak
to illustrate the power of religion. Many prominent preachers travelled
down to Wales and returned telling of the great manifestations of
'spiritual power' they had witnessed. How little removed such behaviour
is from that of the savage watching with awe the actions of one
suffering from epilepsy or insanity, readers of the foregoing pages will
be in a position to judge.

From the middle of the third century onward, Europe had been subject to
wave after wave of religious fanaticism. All along, religious belief had
been verified and strengthened by the occurrence of phenomena that now
admittedly fall within the purview of the pathologist. And from one
point of view the secularisation of life served but to emphasise the
dependence of religion upon the occurrence of these abnormal conditions.
For the more surely the phenomena of nature and of social life were
brought within the scope of a scientific generalisation, the more people
began to look for the life of religion in conditions that were removed
from the normal. But, above all, this long succession of waves of
fanaticism served to permeate the general mind with supernaturalism.
Each one cleared the way for a successor. And in the next chapter we
have to deal with one that, in some respects, is the most remarkable of
all, viz., that of the belief in witchcraft.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] It is estimated that 275,000 people formed the van of the first
crusade.

[177] L. O. Pike, _History of Crime in England_, i. pp. 164-9.

[178] _History of Latin Christianity_, iv. p. 188.

[179] _History of the Holy War_, bk. iii.

[180] _Intellectual Development of Europe_, 1872, p. 425.

[181] Milman, iv. p. 199.

[182] _Holy Roman Empire_, p. 164.

[183] See Bloch, _Sexual Life of our Time_, pp. 568-74.

[184] _Epidemics of the Middle Ages_, pp. 87-8.

[185] Hecker, p. 91.

[186] _Epidemics_, p. 105.

CHAPTER TEN

THE WITCH MANIA

In all stages of religious history the witch and the wizard are familiar
figures. I