understanding ;  her  brain  reeled  beneath  the  accumu-
lated suffering,  the  consciousness  of  innocence  disap-
peared, and  the  wretched  victim  went  raving  to  the
flames,  convinced  that  she  was  about  to  sink  for
ever  into  perdition.  The  zeal  of  the  ecclesiastics  in
stimulating  the  persecution  was  unflagging.  It  was
displayed  alike  in  Germany,  France,  Spain,  Italy,
Flanders,  Sweden,  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.
An  old  writer  who  cordially  approved  of  the  rigour
tells  us  that,  in  the  province  of  Como  alone,  eight  or
ten  inquisitors  were  constantly  employed ;  and  he  adds
that,  in  one  year,  the  number  of  persons  they  con-
demned amounted  to  a  thousand;  and  that  during
several  of  the  succeeding  years,  the  victims  seldom  fell
below  one  hundred.1

It  was  natural  that  a  body  of  learned  men  like  the
inquisitors,  whose  habits  of  thought  were  eminently
retrospective,  should  have  formed  some  general  theories
connecting  the  phenomena  of  sorcery  with  past  events,
and  reducing  them  to  a  systematic  form.  We  accord-
ingly find  that,  in  the  course  of  about  three  centuries,
a  vast  literature  was  formed  upon  the  subject.  The
different  forms  of  witchcraft  were  all  carefully  classi-
fied and  associated  with  particular  doctrines ;  the  whole
philosophy  of  the  Satanic  was  minutely  investigated,
and  the  prevailing  mode  of  thought  embodied  in
countless  treatises,  which  were  once  regarded  as  master-
pieces of  orthodox  theology.
was,  as  he  expresses  it, '  decenter  qurostionatus '  (Parsiii.  Qusest.  14,
15).     The  tortures  were  all  the  more  horrible,  because  it  was  gene-
rally believed  that  the  witches  had  charms  to  deaden  their  effect.
1  Spina,  cap.  xii.
