its present shape, are certain modes of expression. The language
retains the character of an address by a speaker to his hearers; being
more familiar, direct, and personal than is ordinarily employed in the
relations of an author to a reader.

The former work was prepared under circumstances which prevented a
thorough investigation of the subject. Leisure and freedom from
professional duties have now enabled me to prosecute the researches
necessary to do justice to it.

The "Lectures on Witchcraft," published in 1831, have long been out of
print. Although frequently importuned to prepare a new edition, I was
unwilling to issue again what I had discovered to be an insufficient
presentation of the subject. In the mean time, it constantly became
more and more apparent, that much injury was resulting from the want
of a complete and correct view of a transaction so often referred to,
and universally misunderstood.

The first volume of this work contains what seems to me necessary to
prepare the reader for the second, in which the incidents and
circumstances connected with the witchcraft prosecutions in 1692, at
the village and in the town of Salem, are reduced to chronological
order, and exhibited in detail.

As showing how far the beliefs of the understanding, the perceptions
of the senses, and the delusions of the imagination, may be
confounded, the subject belongs not only to theology and moral and
political science, but to physiology, in its original and proper use,
as embracing our whole nature; and the facts presented may help to
conclusions relating to what is justly regarded as the great mystery