Dreams and Ghosts
Have you not found, like me, that they are the origin of the opinion so generally diffused throughout antiquity touching spectres and manes? A man deeply afflicted at the death of his wife, or his son, sees them in his sleep; they have the same characteristics; he speaks to them, they reply; they have certainly appeared to him. Other men have had similar dreams. It is impossible, then, to doubt that the dead return; but it is certain at the same time that these dead—whether buried or reduced to ashes, or lost at sea—could not reappear in their bodies. It is, then, their soul that has been seen. This soul must be extended, light, impalpable, since in speaking with it we cannot embrace it. Effugit imago per levibus vetitis (Virgil). It is moulded, designed upon the body which it habited, since it perfectly resembles it. It is given the name of shade or manes, and from all this a confused idea remains in the head, which perpetuates itself all the better because nobody understands it.—Dict. Phil. (Art. “Somnambulists and Dreams” ).