2. _Falling down by the cast of an Eye proceeds not from a natural, but an arbitrary Cause;_[62] not from any Poyson in the Eye of the Witch, but from the Agency of some _Dæmon_: The opinion of Fascination by the Eye is an old Fable, and (saith Mr. _Perkins_) as fond as old. _Pliny_[63] speaks of a People that killed folks by looking on them; and he adds, that they had two Apples in each Eye: and _Tully_ writes of women who had two Apples in one Eye that always did mischief with their meer looks; so _Ovid_, _Pupula duplex fulminat._ And _Plutarch_[64] writes that some persons have such a Poyson in their Eyes, as that their Friends and Familiars are Fascinated thereby; nay he speaks of one that Bewitched himself sick by looking on his own Face in a Glass: Others write of Fascination by a meer Prolation of Words; and for ought I know, there may be as much Witchery in the Tongue as there is in the Eye. _Sennertus_[65] has discovered the Superstition of these Fancies; Sight does not proceed from an Emission of Rays from the Eye, but by a reception of the visible Species; and if it be (as Philosophers conclude) an innocent Action and not an Emission of optick Spirits, so that sight as such, does receive something from the Object, and not act upon it, the Notion of Fascination by the Eye is unphilosophical: It is true, that sore Eyes will affect those that look upon them, _Dum spectant Oculi Læsos, Leduntur & ipsi_, for which a natural Reason is easily to be assigned; but if the Witches Eyes are thus infected with a natural Contagion, Whence is it, that only Bewitched Persons are hurt thereby? If the vulgar Error concerning the _Basilisks_ killing with the Look of his Poysonful Eye were a Truth, whatever person that Serpent cast his Eye upon would be poysoned. So if Witches had a physical Venom in their Eyes, others as well as Fascinated Persons would be sensible thereof; there is as much Truth in this fancy of Physical Venom in the Eye of a Witch, as there is in what _Pliny_[66] and others relate concerning the _Thibians_, _viz._ that they have two Apples in one Eye, and the Effigies of an Horse in the other Eye; and that they are a people that cannot be drowned.
3. _As for that which concerns the Bewitched Persons being recovered out of their Agonies by the Touch of the suspected Party, it is various and fallible._