SECT. XVI.
Now I have so successfully removed and dissipated those two vast Mounds of Night and Mistiness, that lay upon the Nature of Incorporeal Beings, and obscured it with such gross Darkness; it remains that we open and illustrate the true and genuine Nature of them in general, and propose such a definition of a Spirit, as will exhibit no difficulty to a Mind rightly prepared and freed from Prejudice: For the Nature of a Spirit is very easily understood, provided one rightly and skilfully shew the way to the Learner, and form to him true Notions of the thing, insomuch that I have often wondred at the superstitious consternation of Mind in those Men, (or the profaneness of their Tempers and innate aversation from the Contemplation of Divine things) who if by chance they hear any one professing that he can with sufficient clearness and distinctness conceive the Nature of a Spirit, and communicate the Notion to others, they are presently startled and amazed at the saying, and straitway accuse the Man of intolerable Levity or Arrogancy, as thinking him to assume so much to himself and to promise to others, as no humane Wit furnished with never so much Knowledge can ever perform. And this I understand even of such Men who yet readily acknowledge the Existence of Spirits.
But as for those that deny their Existence, whoever professes this skill to them, verily he cannot but appear a Man above all measure vain and doating, no Man more unskilful and ignorant, than he that esteems the clear Notion of a Spirit so hopeless and desperate an attempt; and that I shall plainly detect, that this high and boastful Profession of their Ignorance in these things does not proceed from hence, that they have any more a sharp or discerning Judgment than other Mortals, but that they have more gross and weak parts, anda shal-
