I own that the instance of that boy of Dalhem is perplexing. Whether it was the spirit of the child that returned into his body to animate it anew, or the demon who replaced his soul, the puzzle appears to me the same; in all this circumstance we behold only the work of the evil spirit. God does not seem to have had any share in it. Now, if the demon can take the place of a spirit in a body newly dead, or if he can make the soul by which it was animated before death return into it, we can no longer dispute his power to restore a kind of life to a dead person; which would be a terrible temptation for us, who might be led to believe that the demon has a power which religion does not permit us to think that God shares with any created being. I would then say, supposing the truth of the fact, of which I see no room to doubt, that God, to punish the abominable crime of the father, and to give an example of his just vengeance to mankind, permitted the demon to do on this occasion what he perhaps had never done, nor ever will again--to possess a body, and serve it in some sort as a soul, and give it action and motion whilst he could retain the body without its being too much corrupted. And this example applies admirably to the ghosts of Hungary and Moravia, whom the demon will move and animate--will cause to appear and disturb the living, so far as to occasion their death. I say all this under the supposition that what is said of the vampires is true; for if it all be false and fabulous, it is losing time to seek the means of explaining it. For the rest, several of the ancients, as Tertullian[535] and Lactantius, believed that the demons were the only authors of all the magicians do when they evoke the souls of the dead. They cause borrowed bodies or phantoms to appear, say they, and fascinate the eyes of those present, to make them believe that to be real which is only seeming. Footnotes: [521] Exod. iv. 24, 25. [522] Exod. xii. 12. [523] 1 Cor. x. 10; Judith viii. 25. [524] Numb. xxii. [525] Tob. iii. 7. [526] Psa. xxxiv. 7. [527] 1 Cor. xi. 30. [528] 1 Tim. i. 20. [529] John xiii. [530] 1 Sam. ii. 6. [531] Matt. xxiv. 24. [532] Clem. Alex. Itinerario; Hegesippus de Excidio Jerusalem, c. 2. [533] Apulei Flondo. lib. ii. [534] AElian, de Animalib. lib. ix. c. 77. [535] Tertull. de Anim. c. 22. CHAPTER XXXV. INSTANCES OF PHANTOMS WHICH HAVE APPEARED TO BE ALIVE, AND HAVE GIVE MANY SIGNS OF LIFE. Le Loyer, in his book upon spectres, maintains[536] that the demon can cause the possessed to make extraordinary and involuntary movements. He can then, if allowed by God, give motion to a dead and insensible man.