But here, too, science continued its work. The old belief
was steadily undermined, an atmosphere favourable to the truth
was more and more developed, and the act of Parliament, in 1735,
which banished the crime of witchcraft from the statute book, was
the beginning of the end.
In Germany we see the beginnings of a similar triumph for
science. In Prussia, that sturdy old monarch, Frederick William I,
nullified the efforts of the more zealous clergy and orthodox
jurists to keep up the old doctrine in his dominions; throughout
Protestant Germany, where it had raged most severely, it was, as
a rule, cast out of the Church formulas, catechisms, and hymns,
and became more and more a subject for jocose allusion. From
force of habit, and for the sake of consistency, some of the more
conservative theologians continued to repeat the old arguments,
and there were many who insisted upon the belief as absolutely
necessary to ordinary orthodoxy; but it is evident that it had
become a mere conventionality, that men only believed that they
believed it, and now a reform seemed possible in the treatment of
the insane.
Pages:
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951