And the ordeal without question frequently operated by the mere terror.

Many persons, from a dread of the event, chose to discover rather than to endure the trial.
Of those that did endure it, many must certainly have been guilty.

The innocency of some who suffered could never be known with certainty.
Others by accident might have escaped; and this apparently miraculous escape had great weight in confirming the authority of this trial.

How long did we continue in punishing innocent people for witchcraft, though experience might, to thinking persons, have frequently discovered the injustice of that proceeding! whilst to the generality a thousand equivocal appearances, confessions from fear or weakness, in fine, the torrent of popular prejudice rolled down through so many ages, conspired to support the delusion.
[Sidenote: Compurgation.] To avoid as much as possible this severe mode of trial, and at the same time to leave no inlet for perjury, another method of clearing was devised.

The party accused of any crime, or charged in a civil complaint, appeared in court with some of his neighbors, who were called his Compurgators; and when on oath he denied the charge, they swore that they believed his oath to be true.[65] These compurgators were at first to be three; afterwards five were required; in process of time twelve became necessary.[66] As a man might be charged by the opinion of the country, so he might also be discharged by it: twelve men were necessary to find him guilty, twelve might have acquitted him.