Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/10



history of Witchcraft, a subject as old as the world and as wide as the world,—since I understand for the present purpose by Witchcraft, Sorcery, Black Magic, Necromancy, secret Divination, Satanism, and every kind of malign occult art,—at once confronts the writer with a most difficult problem. He is called upon to exercise a choice, and his dilemma is by no means made the easier owing to the fact he is acutely conscious that whichever way he may decide he is laying himself open to damaging and not impertinent criticism. Since it is essential that his work should be comprised within a reasonable compass he may elect to attempt a bird’s-eye view of the whole range from China to Peru, from the half-articulate, rhythmic incantations of primitive man at the dawn of life to the last spiritistic fad and manifestation at yesterday’s séance or circle, in which case his pages will most certainly be thin and often superficial: or again he may rather concentrate upon one or two features in the history of Witchcraft, deal with these at some length, stress some few forgotten facts whose importance is now neglected and unrealized, utilize new material the result of laborious research, but all this at the expense of inevitable omissions, of hiatus, of self-denial, the avoidance of fascinating by-ways and valuable inquiry, of silence when he would fain be entering upon discussion and exposition. With a full sense of its drawbacks and danger I have selected the second method, since in dealing with a topic such as Witchcraft where there is no human hope of recording more than a tithe of the facts I believe it is better to give a documented account of certain aspects rather than to essay a somewhat huddled and confused conspectus of the whole, for such, indeed, even at best is itself bound to have no inconsiderable gaps and lacunæ, however carefully we endeavour to make it complete. I am conscious, then, that there is scarcely a paragraph in the present work which might not easily be