The real matter of difficult and perplexing investigation relates to certain abnormal or preternatural phenomena, which seem to indicate a partial liberation of the soul from the conditions of organic life and union with the body, and to that state of mystic contemplation which is called active or acquired. In these cases there is no liberty allowed us by sound theology or philosophy of resorting to the supernatural in its strict and proper sense. We are restricted to the sphere of the nature of man and the operations which can proceed from it or be terminated to it according to the natural laws of its being. There is one hypothesis, very intelligible and perfectly in accordance with psychology, which will remove all difficulty out of the way, if only it is found adequate to explain all the certain and probable facts and phenomena which have to be considered. Father Baker furnishes this explanation as a probable one, and it no doubt amply suffices for the greatest number of instances. That is to say, we may suppose that whenever the mind seems to act without any species, image, or idea, originally presented through the medium of the senses, and by a pure, spiritual intuition, it is really by a subtile and imperceptible image which it has elaborated by an abstractive and discursive process, and which exists in the imagination, that the intellect receives the object which it contemplates. But let us suppose that this hypothesis is found insufficient to explain all the facts to which it must be applied. Can it be admitted, without prejudice to rational psychology, that the soul may, by an abnormal condition of its relations to the body, or as the result of its efforts and habits, whether for evil or good, lawfully or unlawfully, escape from its ordinary limits in knowing and acting, and thus draw nearer to the state of separate spirits? We must briefly consider what is the mode of knowing proper to separate spirits before we can find any data for answering this question. Here we avail ourselves of the explication of the doctrine of St. Thomas given by Liberatore in his interesting treatise on the nature of man entitled _Dell’Uomo_.[37]