Note 99 — GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE

Theologians took infinite pains to distinguish between miracles (miracula), which could be wrought by divine power only, and the kind of wonders (mira) which Satan worked. See, for example, William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, 1608, pp. 12 ff., 18 ff.; Del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicæ, lib. ii, quæstio 7, ed. 1616, pp. 103 ff. Sir Robert Filmer, in An Advertisement to the Jurymen of England, Touching Witches (appended to The Free-holders Grand Inquest, 1679; cf. p. 34, note 88, above), makes merry with such fine-spun distinctions. “Both [Perkins and Del Rio],” he says, “seem to agree in this, that he had need be an admirable or profound Philosopher, that can distinguish between a Wonder and a Miracle; it would pose Aristotle himself, to tell us every thing that can be done by the power of Nature, and what things cannot; for there be daily many things found out, and daily more may be, which our Fore-fathers never knew to be possible in Nature” (pp. 322-323). Cf. Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700, p. 35.