1st. That angels and demons have often appeared unto men, that souls separated from the body have often returned, and that both the one and the other may do the same thing again. 2d. That the manner of these apparitions, and of these returns to earth, is perfectly unknown, and given up by God to the discussions and researches of mankind. 3d. That there is some likelihood that these kinds of apparitions are not absolutely miraculous on the part of the good and evil angels, but that God allows them sometimes to take place, for reasons the knowledge of which is reserved to himself alone. 4th. That no certain rule on this point can be given, nor any demonstrative argument formed, for want of knowing perfectly the nature and extent of the power of the spiritual beings in question. 5th. That we should reason upon those apparitions which appear in dreams otherwise than upon those which appear when we are awake; differently also upon apparitions wearing solid bodies, speaking, walking, eating and drinking, and those which seem like a shade, or a nebulous and aerial body. 6th. Thus it would be rash to lay down principles, and raise uniform arguments, and all these things in common, every species of apparition demanding its own particular explanation. CHAPTER LI. WAY OF EXPLAINING APPARITIONS. Apparitions in dreams, for instance, that of the angel[439] who told St. Joseph to carry the infant Jesus into Egypt because King Herod wished to put him to death; there are two things appertaining to this apparition--the first is, the impression made on the mind of St. Joseph that an angel appeared to him; the second is, the prediction or revelation of the ill-will of Herod. Both these are above the ordinary powers of our nature, but we know not if they be above the power of angels; it is certain that it could not have been done except by the will and command of God. The apparitions of a spirit, or of an angel and a demon, which show themselves clothed in an apparent body, and only as a shadow or a phantom, as that of the angel who showed himself to Manoah the father of Samson, and vanished with the smoke of the sacrifice, and of him who extricated St. Peter from prison, and disappeared in the same way after having conducted him the length of a street; the bodies which these angels assumed, and which we suppose to have been only apparent and aerial, present great difficulties; for either those bodies were their own, or they were assumed or borrowed.