Those who would form a conception of the extent of the belief in those
relations to the demons which could be openly avowed in spite of the
penalties attaching to witchcraft, may be referred to the much-read
work of Agrippa of Nettesheim 'On secret Philosophy.' He seems
originally to have written it before he was in Italy, but in the
dedication to Trithemius he mentions Italian authorities among others,
if only by way of disparagement. In the case of equivocal persons like
Agrippa, or of the knaves and fools into whom the majority of the rest
may be divided, there is little that is interesting in the system they
profess, with its formula, fumigations, ointments, and the rest of it.
But this system was filled with quotations from the superstitions of
antiquity, the influence of which on the life and the passions of
Italians is at times most remarkable and fruitful. We might think that
a great mind must be thoroughly ruined, before it surrendered itself to
such influences; but the violence of hope and desire led even vigorous
and original men of all classes to have recourse to the magician, and
the belief that the thing was feasible at all weakened to some extent
the faith, even of those who kept at a distance, in the moral order of
the world. At the cost of a little money and danger it seemed possible
to defy with impunity the universal reason and morality of mankind, and
to spare oneself the intermediate steps which otherwise lie between a
man and his lawful or unlawful ends.
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