But the events foreseen are not always unimportant, nor is the mode of the communication always of the same nature. I have mentioned above some instances wherein danger was avoided, and there are many of the same kind recorded in various works; and it is the number of instances of this description, corroborated by the universal agreement of all somnambulists of a higher order, which has induced a considerable section of the German psychologists to adopt the doctrine of guardian spirits—a doctrine which has prevailed, more or less, in all ages, and has been considered by many theologians to be supported by the Bible. There is in this country, and I believe in France, also, though with more exceptions, such an extreme aversion to admit the possibility of anything like what is called supernatural agency, that the mere avowal of such a persuasion is enough to discredit one’s understanding with a considerable part of the world, not excepting those who profess to believe in the Scriptures. Yet, even apart from this latter authority, I can not see anything repugnant to reason in such a belief. As far as we see of nature, there is a continued series from the lowest to the highest; and what right have we to conclude that we are the last link of the chain? Why may there not be a gamut of beings? That such should be the case, is certainly in accordance with all that we see; and that we do not see them, affords, as I have said above, not a shadow of argument against their existence; man, immersed in business and pleasure, living only his sensuous life, is too apt to forget how limited those senses are, how merely designed for a temporary purpose, and how much may exist of which they can take no cognizance. The _possibility_ admitted, the chief arguments against the _probability_ of such a guardianship, are the interference it implies with the free-will of man, on the one hand, and the rarity of this interference, on the other. With respect to the first matter of free-will, it is a subject of acknowledged difficulty, and beyond the scope of my work. Nobody can honestly look back upon his past life without feeling perplexed by the question, of how far he was, or was not, able at the moment to resist certain impulsions, which caused him to commit wrong or imprudent actions; and it must, I fear, ever remain a _quæstio vexata_, how far our virtues and vices depend upon our organization—an organization whose constitution is beyond our own power, in the first instance, although we may certainly improve or deteriorate it; but which we must admit, at the same time, to be, in its present deteriorated form, the ill result of the world’s corruption, and the inherited penalty of the vices of our predecessors, whereby the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.