Witchcraft, Demoniacal Possession, and Insanity

Abstract

The study of history, too often confined to the acquisition of bare records of facts and the mere recapitulation of actions, has more and more tended to widen its scope and to include in its purview the analysis of motives as an integral factor. It is true that the bald statement of events has an interest, and for some an overwhelming interest, whereto they confine themselves either by reason of intellectual inertia, or because compelled to restrict their wandering thoughts by reason of the powerful voice of authority; for others more intellectually alive or not subject to the same restrictions the conclusions do not suffice—the why and the wherefore must, if possible, be deduced. The keenly deductive type has been admirably delineated by Conan Doyle, and “Sherlock Holmes” may well stand as an example of those minds which urge their possessors inevitably to progress, so far as is humanly possible, to the unravelling of ultimate causes.