But the jurisprudence of witchcraft has been the most profoundly treated by one Boguet, "grand juge en dernier ressort" of an abbey of St. Claude in Franche-Comté. He gives an account of all the executions to which he condemned wizards and witches, and the number is very considerable. Nearly all the witches are supposed to have had commerce with the goat.
It has already been said that more than a hundred thousand sorcerers have been executed in Europe. Philosophy alone has at length cured men of this abominable delusion, and has taught judges that they should not burn the insane.
GOD—GODS.
SECTION I.
The reader cannot too carefully bear in mind that this dictionary has not been written for the purpose of repeating what so many others have said.
The knowledge of a God is not impressed upon us by the hands of nature, for then men would all have the same idea; and no idea is born with us. It does not come to us like the perception of light, of the ground, etc., which we receive as soon as our eyes and our understandings are opened. Is it a philosophical idea? No; men admitted the existence of gods before they were philosophers.
Whence, then, is this idea derived? From feeling, and from that natural logic which unfolds itself with age, even in the rudest of mankind. Astonishing effects of nature were beheld—harvests and barrenness, fair weather and storms, benefits and scourges; and the hand of a master was felt. Chiefs were necessary to govern societies; and it was needful to admit sovereigns of these new sovereigns whom human weakness had given itself—beings before whose power these men who could bear down their fellow-men might tremble. The first sovereigns in their time employed these notions to cement their power. Such were the first steps; thus every little society had its god. These notions were rude because everything was rude. It is very natural to reason by analogy. One society under a chief did not deny that the neighboring tribe should likewise have its judge, or its captain; consequently it could not deny that the other should also have its god. But as it was to the interest of each tribe that its captain should be the best, it was also interested in believing, and consequently it did believe, that its god was the mightiest. Hence those ancient fables which have so long been generally diffused, that the gods of one nation fought against the gods of another. Hence the numerous passages in the Hebrew books, which we find constantly disclosing the opinion entertained by the Jews, that the gods of their enemies existed, but that they were inferior to the God of the Jews.
Meanwhile, in the great states where the progress of society allowed to individuals the enjoyment of speculative leisure, there were priests, Magi, and philosophers.
Some of these perfected their reason so far as to acknowledge in secret one only and universal god. So, although the ancient Egyptians adored Osiri, Osiris, or rather Osireth (which signifies this land is mine); though they also adored other superior beings, yet they admitted one supreme, one only principal god, whom they called "Knef", whose symbol was a sphere placed on the frontispiece of the temple.