Those who, to give themselves the air and appearance of men of solid wisdom and gravity, load other men, who believe in spirits, with the titles of being men of folly, levity, or melancholy, are desired to learn, that the same folly, as they are pleased to term it, of opinion, is to be found in the greatest men of learning that ever existed in the universe. Let them, in order to be convinced of this, read Apuleius's book, _de deo Socrat._; Censorinus's book _de die Nat._ c. 3; Porphyrius, in his book _de Abstinentia_; Agrippa, in his _Treatise de Occult. Phil._ 1. 3, c. 22, and also c. 21; _Natalis_ comes in his _Myth._ 1. 4, c. 3; Maraviglia, in his _Pseudomantia. Dissertation._ 9 and 11, and _Animadversion_. 10; Plato in his _Timoeus et Cratylus_; Ammianus Marcellinus's History, book 21; Hieronimus Cardanus in his book _de Vita Propria_, c. 47; the great Kircher, in his _OEdipus AEgyptiacus_, vol. iii. p. 474; Pausanius, in _Cliac. Poster._; that immortal orator, Cicero, lib. i. _de Divinatione_; lib. ii. _de Natura Deorum_; the _Histoire Prodigieuse_, written by Pere Arnault; and a book entituled _Lux e Tenebris_, which is a collection of modern visions and prophecies in Germany by several persons, translated into Latin, by Jo. Amos. Comenius, printed at Amsterdam, 1655. And if they will be at the pains of having due recourse to these quotations, they will find that all these men, whose learning is unquestionable, and most of whom have been in a firm and undisputed possession of fame for many centuries, have all unanimously agreed in this opinion, how foolish soever they may think it, that there ever was and ever would be a communication held between some select men and genii, or familiar spirits. I must therefore desire their pardon, if I rejoice to see them remain wise by themselves, and that I continue to be esteemed by them a fool among so much good company. Others out of a mere contempt of religion, or cowardly, for fear of being thought pusillanimous by men, turn bravos to Heaven, and laugh at every notion of spirits as imbibed from the nurse or imposed upon us by priests, and may top these lines upon us with an elegant and a convincing magisterial sneer, though the divine Socrates was of our opinion, and even experienced it to be true, having a genius himself:-- The priests but finish what the nurse began, And thus the child imposes on the man. These bring into my mind a saying of Sir Roger L'Estrange on Seneca, which I must apply to Socrates; I join in opinion with a Christian heathen, while they remain heathen Christians.