A Skeptic Looks at Witch Hunting – Friedrich von Spee (1631)

page 5 of 11    print version    return to list

previous document      next document

ARGUMENT XI. Unless we may believe denunciations, there is no other means to detect and extirpate witches, so the state will not be cleansed of evildoers; we must therefore believe the denunciations. This is the argument of the judges today and of all those before whom I say that denunciations must be rejected as deceitful. However, Binsfeld vehemently insists on this argument, as do men who are in other respects learned, which always amazes me. So I will show how little they have considered the argument they are proposing. For

I ANSWER I. I deny that there will not be any other means for detecting the guilty, since there are other types of evidence that suffice for proceeding to investigations and torture. Tanner and Delrio enumerate several which it is too much trouble to write out in full. Whoever is interested can read them himself.

YOU WILL SAY, even if evidence for detecting common witches appears from time to time, evidence for the witches’ princes and rulers does not. Binsfeld writes, When have princes of this crime been seen either setting up brooms to cause rain, or putting them under the door to someone’s stable, or spreading quarrels and threats among the people, or performing other outward works that serve as evidence to prove their guilt? For these are the deeds of common and base people who inhabit the countryside and work among the people. This sort of evidence can be seen there sometimes. So he writes.

He thereby proves and vehemently insists that there should be a place for denunciations, without which there is no other way to drag the princes of witches out into the open. And so

I ANSWER II. Even if it were true that no other way to detect witches and their princes would remain, what then? Should I therefore use an unsuitable and dangerous way, as I showed it to be above, which operates though denunciations? I encounter a dilemma here: either my adversaries have sure and true ways for detecting witches, or they do not. If they have them, well, they should use them. If they do not have them, then they should abstain from detecting those whom they cannot detect. Who is forcing them to eradicate weeds of which they are unaware? Why do they harass and strike them down in vain and do not rejoice in the teaching of the Gospel that they should allow both to grow until the harvest? Did our heavenly Father not foresee this when he gave us this commandment? Or are we wiser than the Son of God?

I ANSWER III. I am amazed at the sort of proof this is. There is no other way detect witches. Therefore the method of detecting them through denunciations is a good one, just as if a priest wanting to celebrate mass concluded when he found no wine but only vinegar: there is no other material to consecrate here, therefore this is good.

YOU WILL SAY, this is to protect witches. But

I ANSWER. This is not the first time that I have heard this voice; nor it is the first time I will refute it. I am accustomed to arguing with reason, not jeers. Nevertheless Tanner responds beautifully when he says: This is to provide protection not for witches but for the innocent against the witches maliciously plotting against them. Otherwise outside the court witches could only attack people by risking the loss of their own lives and goods, but in court, once freed from this danger and fear, they could attack the lives, reputation, and fortunes of the innocent all the more freely and, consequently, all the more harmfully.