e night with a lamp burning, when
suddenly he heard a loud noise to the right of the chamber, as if a cart
laden with planks was being unloaded. He looked up, and, the door being
open at the time, he perceived a peasant entering the room. Just as he
was on the threshold the intruder uttered the words, "_Te sin casa_," and
straightway vanished. This apparition puzzled him greatly, and he alludes
to it again in chapter xlvii. of the _De Vita Propria_. Ultimately he
dismisses it with the remark that the explanation of such phenomena is
rather the duty of theologians than of philosophers.

With regard to matters of religious belief he seems to have taken as a
rule of conduct the remark above written, and left them to the care of
professional experts, for very few of his recorded opinions throw any
light upon his views of the dogmas and doctrines of the Church. Whatever
the tenor of these opinions may have been, he never proclaimed them
definitely. Probably they interested him little, for he was not the man to
keep silent over a subject which he had greatly at heart. He gave a
general assent to the teaching of the Church, taking up the mental
attitude of the vast majority of the learned men of his time, and expected
that the Church would do all that was necessary for him in its own
particular province. If he regarded Erasmus and Luther as disturbers of
the faith and heretics, he did not say so, nor did he censure their
activity. (Erasmus he praises highly in the opening words of the horoscope
which he drew for him.--_Gen. Ex.,_ p. 496.) But he had certainly no
desire to emulate them or give them his support. The world of letters and
science was wide enough even for his active spirit; the world lying behind
the veil he left to the exploration of those inquirers who might have a
taste for such a venture. Still every page of his life's record shows how
strong was his bent towards the supernatural; but the phase of the
supernatural which he chose for study was one which Churchmen, as a rule,
had let alone. Spirits wandering about this world were of greater moment
to him than spirits fixed in beatitude or bane in the next; and
accordingly, whenever he finds an opportunity, he discourses of
apparitions, lamiae, incubi, succubi, malignant and beneficent genii, and
the methods of invoking them. Now that old age was pressing heavily upon
him and he began to yearn for support, he sought consolation not in the
ecstatic vision of the fer