f speech to make
ourselves heard, which does not agree with the spirits, who naturally
cannot be subject to our senses."

This is no more impossible than what he said beforehand of the
apparitions of angels, since our souls, after the death of the body,
are "like unto the angels," according to the Gospel. He acknowledges
himself, with St. Jerome against Vigilantius, that the saints who are
in heaven appear sometimes visibly to men. "Whence comes it that
animals have, as well as ourselves, the faculty of memory, but not the
reflection which accompanies it, which proceeds only from the soul,
which they have not?"

Is not memory itself the reflection of what we have seen, done, or
heard; and in animals is not memory followed by reflection,[660] since
they avenge themselves on those who hurt them, avoid that which has
incommoded them, foreseeing what might happen to themselves from it if
they fell again into the same mistake?

After having spoken of natural palingenesis, he concludes--"And thus
we see how little cause there is to attribute these appearances to the
return of souls to earth, or to demons, as do some ignorant persons."

If those who work the wonders of natural palingenesis, and admit the
natural return of phantoms in the cemeteries, and fields of battle,
which I do not think happens naturally, could show that these phantoms
speak, act, move, foretell the future, and do what is related of
returned souls or other apparitions, whether good angels or bad ones,
we might conclude that there is no reason to attribute them to souls,
angels, and demons; but, 1, they have never been able to cause the
appearance of the phantom of a dead man, by any secret of art. 2. If
it had been possible to raise his shade, they could never have
inspired it with thought or reasoning powers, as we see in the angels
and demons, who appear, reason, and act, as intelligent beings, and
gifted with the knowledge of the past, the present, and sometimes of
the future.

He denies that the souls in purgatory return to earth; for if they
could come back, "everybody would receive similar visits from their
relations and friends, since all the souls would feel disposed to do
the same. Apparently," says he, "God would grant them this permission,
and if they had this permission, every person of good sense would be
at a loss to comprehend why they should accompany all their
appearances with all the follies so circumstantially related."

We may