Hume: A Re-evaluation (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 101 magic as ignorant superstition and an offence against enlightened buon gusto. Magic was not Carli's bad science; it was a trick played by charlatans on the ignorant. Tartarotti's distinction was mistaken because witchcraft and magic were simply two masks worn by the same unknowing monster. The exchange between Maffei and Tartarotti provoked Constantino Grimaldi's Dissertazione of 1751. Grimaldi's most original contribution was his demonstration that scientific progress made it difficult to deploy the categories "natural" and "supernatural" in a clear and regular way. Today's miracle is tomorrow's illusion. Caught between the sanctimonious outrage of the Bonellis and the unbending rationalism of the Maffeis, Tartarotti published an Apologia del congresso (1751)that showed that his dedication to ending the horror of the trials was enough to steel him against purist and pious arguments both. The debate continued through the early 1750s with contributions from Clemente Baroni and Paolo Frisi. Eventually Maffei conceded that there was some value in Tartarotti's prudence. Parinetto has written a very informative book. It is especially to be commended to Englishspeaking students of the occultist tradition, who are likely to be ignorant of the Italian Enlightenment and of the many contributions made by the eighteenth-centurythinkers to the modern understanding of witchcraft and magic. There are faults in the book, however. Parinetto should have told his readers more about the witchcraft literature of the three centuries preceding the Congresso, especially since Tartarotti and the others seem to have known this literature so well. The modernity of some of the debate on the Congresso evaporates when compared, for example, to the works explored by Giancarlo Zanier in his study of the influence of Pomponazzi's De incanlationibus.' It is also disturbing that Parinetto seems not to appreciate the occultist connotations of terminology such as humor melancholicus, spiritus animalis, or imaginatio when used in the witchcraft literature to describe body-soul relations. Animistico is another elusive term that Parinetto might have used more precisely. Why did Carli associate Renaissance humanism with the cosmo animistico? What are Parinetto's assumptions in connecting an animist worldview with witchcraft? Some of these questions might have been answered had Parinetto been more energetic in his scrutiny of secondary sources, especially nonItalian works. One thinks of Caro Baroja, Russell, Cohn, Midelfort, Thomas, Monter, Kieckhefer , and Anglo, though some of these surely were unavailable to Parinetto at the time of publication. Parinetto should be encouraged to answer some of these complaints in future studies of witchcraft in the Enlightenment, which will be useful indeed if they are as informative as Magia e ragione. BRIANP. COPENHAVER Western Washington University Donald W. Livingston and James T. King, eds. Hume: A Re-evaluation. Bronx, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 1976. Pp. x + 417. $25.00. This volume of so many pages in large octavo is the most capacious I have seen of the memorials devoted to the centenary of Hume's death. It contains nineteen essays by eighteen contributors, all but three of these in Canada and the U.S.A. It deserves to be made widely known. The reproduction of a painting of Hume, full figure and seated in a chair, is of special interest, for it has not been reproduced in any other book. A review in the usual sense of a book so large would require more space than any periodical could provide. An introduction by one of the two editors gives an able and ordered guide to the collection. I can only draw s Ricerche sulla d~ffusione e fortuna del "De incantationibus'" di Pomponazzi, Pubblicazioni del "Centro di studi del pensiero filosofico del cinquecento e del seicento in relazione ai problemi della scienza" del Consiglionazinnale dellericerche, SerieI, Studi4 (Florence: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1975). 102 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY attention to a small number of the topics treated in this collection (omitting names to save space). The most quoted work is the Treatise, especially Book I with its many ambiguities and inconsistencies. It is a fair question whether the minute analysis of the Treatise is worthwhile in view of Hume's vehement repudiation of it towards the end of his life, stamping it as...