●   ●   ●    at all, but subtle and valid influences, always starting up, mowing, muttering in our path, and shading our day. 28 An interesting if casual contribution to the still largely unexplored area between the superstitious and the scientific was made in 1892 by Barrett Wendell, Harvard professor and biographer of Cotton Mather, in a paper—“Were the Salem Witches Guiltless?”—read before the Essex Institute.