He often said and did strange things; but only when everybody around him was greatly excited, was he at all liable to violent outbreaks of passion.
Squire Hathorne seemed half-convinced; but the Reverend Master Parris rose from the bench where he had been sitting, and said he would like to be heard for a few moments.

Permission being accorded: "What is insanity ?" said he.

"What is the scriptural view of it?
Is it anything but a judgment of the Lord for sin, as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar; or a possession by a devil, or devils, as in the Case of the Gadarene who made his dwelling among the tombs as told in the fifth chapter of Mark and the eighth of Luke?
That these were real devils is evident--for when permission was given them to enter into the herd of swine, they entered into them, and the swine ran down a steep place into the sea and were drowned.

And as there were about two thousand swine, there must have been at least two thousand devils in that one so-called insane man; which no doubt accounted for his excessive violence.

After the devils had left him, we are told that his countrymen came and saw him sitting at the feet of Jesus, no longer naked, but clothed and in his right mind.