Note 96 — Front matter

That Thomasius was himself their author was, indeed, clearly stated in a letter appended to the “Theses,” wherein he says to the respondent: ...“In chartam conjeci breves has Theses, quae in perlectione prolixioris dissertationis Tuae in mentem venerunt.”... They were published the next year (and often thereafter) in German translation, under his own name, as “Kurtze Lehr-Sätze von dem Laster der Zauberey.” But this was only a beginning of Thomasius’ share in the crusade. He gathered, or led his students to gather, all that could be found written against the persecution (among the rest Spee’s book) and issued it afresh in German; he translated, with preface of his own, every new book upon it that appeared abroad; he encouraged his pupils to discuss it in their dissertations, or did so in their names; he assailed it in lecture and review and editorial; and he kept up the warfare till his death. An utterance of his even earlier than the “Theses” I find in his “Dissertatio ad Petri Poireti libros de Eruditione,” 1694 (reprinted in his “Programmata Thomasiana,” 1724), where he already takes strong ground against the persecution, though not wholly against the superstition.