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Under this proclamation they all came in, like reconstructed rebels, and signed whatever document was put before them. Toward the middle of the seventeenth century, the safe thing was still to believe, or at any rate to profess belief. Sir Thomas Browne, though he had written an exposure of
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Vulgar Errors, testified in court to his faith in the possibility of witchcraft. Sir Kenelm Digby, in his
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Observations on the Religio Medici, takes, perhaps, as advanced ground as any, when he says:
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Neither do I deny there are witches; I only reserve my assent till I meet with stronger motives to carry it. The position of even enlightened men of the world in that age might be called semi-sceptical. La Bruyère, no doubt, expresses the average of opinion:
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Que penser de la magie et du sortilége? La théorie en est obscurcie, les principes vagues, incertains, et qui approchent du visionnaire; mais il y a des faits embarrassants, affirmés par des hommes graves qui les ont vus; les admettre tous, ou les nier tous, paraît un égal inconvénient, et j'ose dire qu'en cela comme en toutes les choses extraordinaires et qui sorteut des communes règles, il y a un parti à trouver entre les âmes crédules et les esprits forts.