My friend laid his arms, properly prepared against intrusion of any kind, by the bed-side, and retired to rest, not without some degree of apprehension. He was visited, in a dream, by a frightful apparition, and awaking in agony, found himself sitting up in bed, with a pistol grasped in his right hand. On casting a fearful glance round the room, he discovered, by the moon-light, a corpse, dressed in a shroud, reared erect, against the wall, close by the window. With much difficulty, he summoned up resolution to approach the dismal object, the features of which, and the minutest parts of its funeral apparel, he perceived distinctly. He passed one hand over it; felt nothing; and staggered back to the bed. After a long interval, and much reasoning with himself, he renewed his investigation, and at length discovered that the object of his terror was produced by the moon-beams, forming a long, bright image, through the broken window, on which his fancy, impressed by his dream, had pictured, with mischievous accuracy, the lineaments of a body prepared for interment. Powerful associations of terror, in this instance, had excited the recollected images with uncommon force and effect. In another instance, related by an Italian writer, whole multitudes were deceived for several hours, by an apparition of a more specious kind. A croud was assembled in the streets of Florence, earnestly beholding the image of an angel, hovering in the sky, and expecting some miraculous consequences. He soon perceived, that the deception was produced by a partial mist, which covered the dome of the church, and left the gilded figure of an angel, which surmounted the building, illuminated by the rays of the sun. Without the presence of a philosopher, this would have passed for a supernatural appearance. CHAP. II. _A lawyer’s argument for the existence of witchcraft--Proofs of spectral impressions, from recollected perceptions--New England witches--Cardan--Donne--Jonson--The maid of France--and other visionaries._ In a compilation, on the duties of a Justice of Peace, published by Nelson, we meet with a proof of the existence of witchcraft, which the editor appears to have thought irrefragable. “It seems,” saith he, “that there must formerly have been such a crime as witchcraft, because divers statutes have been made against it.” Were we to reason in the same manner, respecting demoniacal agency, in medical cases, proof could be brought, (particularly from the older German writers), that medicines have been administered, for the purpose of expelling the devil from human bodies, into which it was supposed that he had entered, and that many different remedies had been employed to this end. Instead of resorting to any arguments of this nature, I shall now proceed to shew, that the forms of objects which have no external prototypes, are exhibited to the mind, in certain states of the brain. § II.