The Crucible p. 98-113

"The law, based upon the Bible, and the Bible, writ by the Almighty God, forbid the practice of witchcraft, and describe death as the penalty thereof" (102).

This is the root of the problem. To have a society whose law is based on a book written centuries and centuries before is unpractical. If this society's law was based on justice and righteousness and fairness, then this entire scandal would have been totally avoided. However, they judge each person as God would, and that is impossible to do, as God is supposedly the all perfect being. They rule based on religion, making the laws completely strict and ridiculous. Mr. Cheever actually said, "He plow on Sunday" (90), and expected it to be a legitimate argument in their court. This made Proctor less credible in Danforth's eyes, and the chance of Abigail actually being the word of God actually increased to him because of that. Because of this theocracy, the people are now in danger of their lives because of minor arguments that may have taken place years ago. It's ironic, that such a God-fearing place would so soon turn to killing their neighbor over pigs.


"Parris: We are here, Your Honor, precisely to discover what no one has ever seen" (104).

Basically, this is confirming that the entire town of Salem is on a wild goose chase. It's as if they are on a search for Santa Claus, or an imaginary friend. They might as well be searching for God Himself. You can not discover what you can not see, at least in this sense. You can discover air, or energy, but he is not speaking of science. He is speaking nonsense! And you can not discover an unseen force within a court! That's an absolute outrage! A court is based on cold, hard, tangible, visible facts, not an unseen something. Parris does not understand the idiocy of what he is saying. Sadly, this is the entire focus of the court system throughout the witch hunts. The judges and accusers are looking for witches; rather, they are feeling for them, loudly accusing them, trying to sniff them out, and they swear they are so close they can taste them. They are using basically each sense but their sight. And, because of this, there will be a dramatic number of innocent people hanged.