Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD
1. Incredibly among us Germans, and especially (I am
ashamed to say) among Catholics, are popular superstitions,
envy, calumnies, backbiting, insinuations, and the
like, which, being neither punished nor refuted, stir up
suspicion of witchcraft. No longer God or nature, but
witches are responsible for everything.
2. Hence everybody sets up a clamour that the magistrates
investigate the witches - whom only popular gossip has
made so numerous.
3. Princes, therefore, bid their judges and counsellors bring
proceedings against the witches.
4. The judges hardly know where to start, since they have
no evidence [indicia] or proof.
5. Meanwhile, the people call this delay suspicious; and the
princes are persuaded by some informer or another to
this effect.
6. In Germany, to offend these princes is a serious offence;
even clergymen approve whatever pleases them, not
caring by whom these princes (however well-intentioned)
have been instigated.
7. At last, therefore, the judges yield to their wishes and
contrive to begin the trials.
8. Other judges who still delay, afraid to get involved in this
ticklish matter, are sent a special investigator. In this
field of investigation, whatever inexperience or arrogance
he brings to the job is held zeal for justice. His zeal
for justice is also whetted by hopes of profit, especially
with a poor and greedy agent with a large family, when
he receives as stipend so many dollars per head for each
witch burned, besides the incidental fees and perquisites
which investigating agents are allowed to extort at will
from those they summon.
9. If a madman's ravings or some malicious and idle rumour
(for no proof of the scandal is ever needed) points to
some helpless old woman, she is the first to suffer.
10. Yet to avoid the appearance that she is indicted solely on
the basis of rumour, without other proofs, a certain
presumption of guilt is obtained by posing the following
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