All honour to this work and to the men who engaged in it;
but, as a rule, these establishments were few and poor, compared
with those for other diseases, and they usually degenerated into
"mad-houses," where devils were cast out mainly by cruelty.[[106]]
The first main weapon against the indwelling Satan continued
to be the exorcism; but under the influence of inferences from
Scripture farther and farther fetched, and of theological
reasoning more and more subtle, it became something very
different from the gentle procedure of earlier times, and some
description of this great weapon at the time of its highest
development will throw light on the laws which govern the growth
of theological reasoning, as well as upon the main subject in hand.
A fundamental premise in the fully developed exorcism was
that, according to sacred Scripture, a main characteristic of
Satan is pride. Pride led him to rebel; for pride he was cast
down; therefore the first thing to do, in driving him out of a
lunatic, was to strike a fatal blow at his pride,--to disgust him.
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