into beasts, or that the devil hath a power to transpeciate
a man into a horse, who tempted Christ (as a trial of his
divinity) to convert but stones into bread. I could
believe that spirits use with man the act of carnality;
and that in both sexes. I conceive they may assume,
steal, or contrive a body, wherein there may be action
enough to content decrepit lust, or passion to satisfy
more active veneries; yet, in both, without a possibility
of generation: and therefore that opinion, that Anti-
christ should be born of the tribe of Dan, by conjunc-
tion with the devil, is ridiculous, and a conceit fitter
for a rabbin than a Christian. I hold that the devil
doth really possess some men; the spirit of melancholy
others; the spirit of delusion others: that, as the devil
is concealed and denied by some, so God and good
angels are pretended by others, whereof the late defec-
tion of the maid of Germany hath left a pregnant
example.<47>

Sect. 31.--Again, I believe that all that use sorceries,
incantations, and spells, are not witches, or, as we term
them, magicians. I conceive there is a traditional
magick, not learned immediately from the devil, but
at second hand from his scholars, who, having once the
secret betrayed, are able and do empirically practise
without his advice; they both proceeding upon the
principles of nature; where actives, aptly conjoined to
disposed passives, will, under any master, produce their
effects. Thus, I think, at first, a great part of philosophy
was witchcraft; which, being afterward derived to one