One would not, of course, venture on conjectures so speculative as the above, if it were not that long tradition and history, and even modern experience, so singularly confirm or favor their general truth. The conception of a cloud-like ghost—sometimes visible, sometimes invisible[92]—leaving the body at death, roaming through the fields of Hades or some hidden world, and from time to time revisiting the glimpses of the moon and the gaze of wondering mortals—penetrates all literature and tradition. Among all primitive peoples it seems to be accepted as a matter of course; it informs the legends and the drama and the philosophies of the more cultivated; it claims detailed historical instances and proofs[93] (as in the case of Field-marshal von Grumbkoff, to whom the wraith of King Frederick Augustus announced his own death—which had just occurred; or in the case of the poet Petrarch, to whom Bishop Colonna made a similar announcement); and in modern times it has met with extraordinary and in many quarters quite unexpected confirmation at the hands of scientific investigation. To this evidence of general probability that at death a vital and subtle yet substantial inner body is withdrawn from every part and portion of the gross body, we may add the evidence, such as it is, from actual _sensation_ and _experience_. In the hour of death and in allied physical changes sensations are experienced corresponding to such a conclusion. Though necessarily there is little quite direct evidence, for the actual moment of death, yet in the just preceding stage, of extreme weakness, the sensation of depletion in every part of the body, and of withdrawal, as of a hand being drawn out of a glove, is very noticeable. (And it may be remarked that clairvoyants not unfrequently observe, at death itself, a luminous cloud of the general outline and shape of the dying person being slowly distilled, head first, from his or her head.) Furthermore, in the state of _ecstasy_—which is closely allied to death—the same sensation of withdrawal is experienced. The person seems to himself to stand outside and a little beyond his own body—and doubtless this experience is denoted in the very etymology of the word. In trance the same: the medium experiences the extreme of exhaustion while some portion of her vital being is functioning (as it appears) outside. Under anæsthetics it is a common experience to dream that one has left the body and is flying through space. (See _The Art of Creation_, p. 18.) And again, in the case of love—whose close relation to death we have several times already noted—whether it be in the strain of emotional desire or the stress of the physical orgasm this ‘hand from the glove’ sensation is often most acute and seems to suggest that every portion of the body is contributing its part to the process in hand; which indeed in this case of love may very fairly be supposed to consist in a transfer of the cloud-like organism (or a large part of