If we reflect on the many known instances of prophetic dreams, and on the alleged and respectably attested cases of somnambulistic prevision, we shall see reason to hesitate before we deny the possibility of the occurrence, in certain individuals, of prophetic visions. We are far from imagining that, if such have been the case with our German seers, they have enjoyed direct communications from Heaven; on the contrary, were we satisfied of the fact, we should regard it as a phenomenon depending on some obscure physical cause, which may in time be discovered and traced; and which, at all events, exists by Divine permission. Here we may allude to the remarkable prophecy of Monsieur de Cazotte, who, some years previous to 1787, predicted to a large company of persons of rank, science, and literature, with much detail, the atrocities of the Reign of Terror. He likewise told many of those present, both male and female, that they should perish on the guillotine. To Condorcet he said, that he should die in prison, of the effects of a poison which he should long, with the view of escaping a public execution, have carried about his person—which happened. He also predicted the fate of Louis XVI. and his Queen. This prophecy caused much amazement, and soon became known. Persons are yet alive, both in France and England, who heard it detailed before 1789. We have seen one of them. Now, it might be said, that Cazotte merely exercised a rare sagacity, in judging of the course of events, at a time when all France was enthusiastically looking forward to the blessings of liberty, and while yet no one dreamed of violence or bloodshed. But this would hardly account for the details he gave. On the other hand, he often uttered predictions; and it is very remarkable, although it has been too much overlooked, that those who report his prophecies, including the above one, always state that, when about to predict, he fell into a peculiar state, _as if asleep_—yet not ordinary sleep. It can hardly be doubted that this was a trance, in which he saw visions. That they were fulfilled to the letter is surely, if only a coincidence, a most wonderful one. If, again, it was merely the result of sagacious reflection, how came it that Cazotte alone, of all the able thinkers then in Paris, made these reflections, and was laughed at for his pains? The laborious, minute, and conscientious researches of the Baron von Reichenbach have proved, beyond a doubt, that we are far from being acquainted with all the physical influences which surround us; and he has even referred to a physical cause—_one_ source of the belief in ghosts—by proving that luminous appearances are visible, to sensitive persons, over recent graves. No one can fail to see the resemblance between the Sensitives of Baron von Reichenbach, who are far from rare, and the Spoikenkiker, or ghost seers, of the curate of Dortmund.