Puritan faculty psychology provides a theory for looking at Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World. Puritan faculty psychology was an integral part of the intellectual make up of the Puritans. It worked, operated, and influenced their writings in ways that they could not acknowledge (Miller, Seventeenth Century 242-243). By using Puritan faculty psychology we can discern important and interesting aspects of Mather's Wonders that would otherwise remain hidden from us.

For the Puritan, man's faculties had a natural hierarchy of subordination. The passions depended on the will which in turn depended on right reason (Miller, Seventeenth Century 252-253). The passions were aroused by the senses, but they were not to cause action until they were mediated by the will through right reason (Miller, Seventeenth Century 252). A

Mather identified the reasons for the devil's attack on New England. At the top of this list of reasons was the perceived growth in degeneracy in the settlement since the original Puritans died and the next two generations of Puritans assumed their leadership roles in the settlement. The original settlers had formed a utopia, according to Mather. The subsequent generations, had, however, allowed the settlement to degenerate morally. New England had developed "Spiritual Disorders as the whole World abroad is overwhelmed with." (Mather, Witchcraft, 13). The devil, already mad as hell at New England for establishing a righteous community in his territory, but now God, because he was displeased with the degeneration of that settlement, unleashed the devil onto the inhabitants of the settlement. (Mather, Witchcraft 41).

Control of fear, the emotions, that haunted Salem in 1692 and lead to the trials and executions was Mather's goal as explained in the paragraphs above. The source of this fear, as perceived by Mather, made up the second unifying theme of Wonders. Mather believed that the incidents of witchcraft discovered in Salem was a result of and a confirmation of the beginnings of the end times and the final battle between good and evil.

Michael G. Hall, The Last American Puritan: The Life of Increase Mather, 1639-1723 (1988); Robert

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