It may be proper, at this point, to inquire what was meant by the peculiar phraseology of the _third_, _fifth_, _seventh_, and latter part of the _fourth_, Sections. It is difficult, writing as Cotton Mather often did, and had great skill in doing, in what Calef calls "the ambidexter" style, to ascertain his ideas. After the reaction had taken effect in the public mind, and he was put upon the defensive, he had much to say about some difference between him and the Judges. It clearly had nothing to do with the "admission" of spectral evidence; for that was the point on which the opinion of the Ministers was asked, and on which he voluntarily proffered remarks in his letter to one of the Judges, Richards. If he had been opposed to its "admission," nothing would have been easier, safer, or more demanded by the truth and his own honor, than for him to have said so. Indeed, his writings everywhere show that he was almost a _one idea_ man, on the subject of spectres; and, in some way or form, deemed their evidence indispensable and reliable. He, evidently, had some favorite plan or scheme, as to the method in which that kind of evidence was to be handled; and it was because he could not get it carried into effect, and for this reason alone, so far as we can discover, that he disapproved of the methods actually pursued by the Court. He never disclosed his plan, but shrunk from explaining it at length, "as too Icarian and presumptuous" a task for him to undertake. Let us see if we can glean his ideas from his writings.
I call attention, in the first place, to the following clause, in his letter to Richards: "If, upon the bare supposal of a poor creature's being represented by a spectre, too great a progress be made by the authority, in ruining a poor neighbour so represented, it may be that a door may be thereby opened for the Devils to obtain from the Courts, in the invisible world, a license to proceed unto most hideous desolations upon the repute and repose of such as have been kept from the great transgression."
"Too great a progress" conveys the suggestion that, upon the introduction of spectral evidence, there should be a delay in the proceedings of the Court, for some intermediate steps to be taken, before going on with the trial.