anced in this
passage, he retracted, and owned that he had spoken too affirmatively
upon a subject but little known, and that the manner in which the evil
angels penetrate our thoughts is a very hidden thing, and very
difficult for men to discover and explain; thus he preferred
suspending his judgment upon it, and remaining in doubt.

Footnotes:

[439] Matt. ii. 13,14.

[440] S. Aug. lib. ii. retract. c. 30.

CHAPTER LII.

THE DIFFICULTY OF EXPLAINING THE MANNER IN WHICH APPARITIONS MAKE
THEIR APPEARANCE, WHATEVER SYSTEM MAY BE PROPOSED ON THE SUBJECT.

The difficulty is much greater, if we suppose that these spirits are
absolutely disengaged from any kind of matter; for how can they
assemble about them a certain quantity of matter, clothe themselves
with it, give it a human form, which can be discerned; is capable of
acting, speaking, conversing, eating and drinking, as did the angels
who appeared to Abraham,[441] and the one who appeared to the young
Tobias,[442] and conducted him to Rages! Is all that accomplished by
the natural power of these spirits? Has God bestowed on them this
power in creating them, and has he engaged himself by virtue of his
natural laws, and by a consequence of his acting intimately and
essentially on the creature, in his quality of Creator, to impress on
occasion at the will of these spirits certain motions in the air, and
in the bodies which they would move, condense, and cause to act, in
the same manner proportionally that he has willed by virtue of the
union of the soul with a living body, that that soul should impress on
that body motions proportioned to its own will, although, naturally,
there is no natural proportion between matter and spirit, and,
according to the laws of physics, the one cannot act upon the other,
unless the first cause, the Creator, has chosen to subject himself to
create this movement, and to produce these effects at the will of man,
movements which without that would pass for superhuman (supernatural).

Or shall we say, with some new philosophers,[443] that although we may
have ideas of matter and thought, perhaps we shall never be capable of
knowing whether a being purely material thinks or not, because it is
impossible for us to discover by the contemplative powers of our own
minds without revelation, if God has not given to some collections of
matter, disposed as he thinks proper, the power to perceive and to
think, or whether he has joined a