"[[124]]
III. THE FINAL STRUGGLE AND VICTORY OF SCIENCE.--
PINEL AND TUKE.
The theological current, thus re-enforced, seemed to become
again irresistible; but it was only so in appearance. In spite of
it, French scepticism continued to develop; signs of quiet change
among the mass of thinking men were appearing more and more; and
in 1672 came one of great significance, for, the Parliament of
Rouen having doomed fourteen sorcerers to be burned, their
execution was delayed for two years, evidently on account of
scepticism among officials; and at length the great minister of
Louis XIV, Colbert, issued an edict checking such trials, and
ordering the convicted to be treated for madness.
Victory seemed now to incline to the standard of science,
and in 1725 no less a personage than St. Andre, a court
physician, dared to publish a work virtually showing "demoniacal
possession" to be lunacy.
The French philosophy, from the time of its early
development in the eighteenth century under Montesquieu and
Voltaire, naturally strengthened the movement; the results of
_post-mortem_ examinations of the brains of the "possessed"
confirmed it; and in 1768 we see it take form in a declaration by
the Parliament of Paris, that possessed persons were to be
considered as simply diseased.
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