If we adopt another line of argument, and say that it is necessary to punish some particular crimes with death, in order to maintain the security of society, or hold up an impressive warning to others, here also we find that our opponent has full as much to offer in defence of our fathers as can be offered in our own defence.  He describes to us the tremendous and infernal power which was universally believed by them to be possessed by a witch; a power which, as it was not derived from a natural source, could not easily be held in check by natural restraints:  neither chains nor dungeons could bind it down or confine it.  You might load the witch with irons, you might bury her in the lowest cell of a feudal prison, and still it was believed that she could send forth her imps or her spectre to ravage the fields, and blight the meadows, and throw the elements into confusion, and torture the bodies, and craze the minds, of any who might be the objects of her malice.

Shakspeare, in the description which he puts into the mouth of Macbeth of the supernatural energy of witchcraft, does not surpass, if he does justice to, the prevailing belief on the subject:—­

    “I conjure you, by that which you profess,
    (Howe’er you came to know it) answer me,—­
    Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
    Against the churches; though the yesty waves
    Confound and swallow navigation up;
    Though bladed corn be lodged, and trees blown down;
    Though castles topple on their warders’ heads;
    Though palaces and pyramids do slope
    Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
    Of nature’s germins tumble all together,
    Even till destruction sicken,—­answer me
    To what I ask you.”

There was indeed an almost infinite power to do mischief associated with a disposition to do it.  No human strength could strip the witch of these mighty energies while she lived; nothing but death could destroy them.  There was, as our ancestors considered, incontestable evidence, that she had put them forth to the injury, loss, and perhaps death, of others.

Can it be wondered at, that, under such circumstances, the law connecting capital punishment with the guilt of witchcraft was resorted to as the only means to protect society, and warn others from entering into the dark, wicked, and malignant compact?

It is not probable that even King James’s Parliament would have been willing to go to the length of Selden in his “Table-Talk,” who takes this ground in defence of the capital punishment of witches.  “The law against witches does not prove there be any, but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men’s lives.  If one should profess, that, by turning his hat thrice and crying ‘Buzz,’ he could take away a man’s life (though in truth he could do no such thing), yet this were a just law made by the State, that whoever should turn his hat thrice and cry ‘Buzz,’ with an intention to take away a man’s life, shall be put to death.”