APPARITIONS.

It has been said that Hobbes was afraid of apparitions and spectres, but his friends call this a fable. “ He was as falsely accused by some of being unwilling to be alone, because he was afraid of spectres and apparitions, vain bugbears of fools, which he had chased away by the light of his philosophy †.” They do not however deny that he durst not be alone, but insinuate that it was in consequence of a fear of assassination. If his philosophy freed him from the former fear and not from the latter, it did not hinder him from being miserable; and a thought of Horace might be applied to him:

Somnes terrores magicos, miracula sagas
Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides?
* * * * *
Quid te exempta jurat spinis de pluribus orna?

Say, can you laugh, indignant at the schemes
Of magic terrors, visionary dreams,

Porteptous wonders, witching imps of hell,
The nightly goblin, and enchanting spell?
* * * *
Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain,
What boots it, while so many more remain?—Francis.

In fact his principles of philosophy were not proper to rid him from the fear of apparitions; for to reason consequently, there are no philosophers who have less right to reject magic and diabolism, than those who deny the existence of a God. But you will say that Hobbes denied the existence of spirits; say rather, that he believed there are no substances distinct from matter. Now, as that did not hinder him from believing, that there are many substances which design and do good or ill to others, he might believe that there are beings in the air or elsewhere, as capable of mischief as the corpuscles, which in his opinion formed all our thoughts in our brain. But how come these corpuscles to be better acquainted with the means of doing mischief than other beings? And what reason is there to prove, that other beings are ignorant of the manner of acting upon our brain to give us the sight of an apparition?

Let us consider the matter another way. We should not only be very rash, but also very extravagant, to maintain that there never was a man that imagined he saw a spectre; and I do not think that the most opinionated unbelievers have maintained this. All that they say amounts to this, that the persons who have thought themselves witnesses of the apparition of spirits have had disturbed imagination. They confess then, that there are certain places in our brain, that being affected in such or such a manner, excite the image of an object which has no real existence out of ourselves, and make the man, whose brain is thus modified, believe he sees at two paces distance a frightful spectre, hobgoblin, or menacing phantom.

The like things happen to the most incredulous, either in their sleep, or in the paroxysms of a violent fever. Will they maintain after this, that it is impossible for a man awake, and nut in a delirium, to receive in certain places of his brain an impression almost like that which by the laws of nature is connected with the appearance of an apparition? If they are forced to acknowledge this possibility, they cannot be able to promise that a spectre will never appear before them; that they shall never, when awake, believe they see either a man or a beast when they are alone in a chamber. Hobbes then might believe, that a certain combination of atoms agitated in his brain might expose him to such a vision, though he was persuaded that neither an angel, nor the soul of a dead man would occasion it. He was timorous to the last degree, and consequently he had reason to mistrust his imagination when he was alone in his chamber in the night. The memory of what he had read and heard concerning apparitions would involuntarily revive, though he was not persuaded of their reality. These images joined with the timidity of his temper might play him false; and it is certain, that a man as incredulous as he was, but of greater courage, would be astonished to think he saw one whom he knew to be dead enter into his chamber. Apparitions in dreams are very frequent, whether a man believes the immortality of the soul or not. Supposing they should once happen to an incredulous man awake, as they do in his sleep, we should find him afraid, though he had ever so much courage; and therefore we ought the more to believe that Hobbes might have been terribly affrighted It will be seen, that the philosophical reasoning of Bayle in regard to apparitions, in substance agrees with the physiological essays of Dr Ferriar, and others, in reference to these joint delusions of the senses and the imagination.—Ed. ³⁹.—Art,Hobbes,Note N.