Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • Beaumont, John, -1731.
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    175/226 (page 161)
    what they feel with their Hands, or fee with their Eyes. Yet not only the Vulgar of the Gentiles, but the Flower of the People among them, held there were Spirits : nor were thefe Men ignorant, that Im- poftors fometimes feign Spe&res, or melancholy mad Perfons fometimes fay they fee them. And the fame happens, thro5 too much Fear, to many Perfons, whence Women and Children, and the like, fee them : And the like Reafon holds in purblind, deafilli, and drunken Perfons, who, having a weak Senfe, fometimes ferioufly affirm they have feen or heard things, which no Man of a found Senfe believes,, Whence Plutarch, fpeaking of the Spectre of Dion% in his Life, writes, Thofe who deny fuch things, fay no Damon or Spe&re has appear’d to any found Man ; but that Children, Women, and Perfons delirous, through a Weaknefs of Body, when they are fallen into fome Error of Mind, or bodily Diftemper, have ftrange and abfurd Opinions, that they fuperftitiouf- ly believe forne evil Damon has poffefs’d them. But Plutarch tells us in the fame place. That the Genii of Dion and Brutus, fignified their Death to them. Thefe were not Perfons of mean Spirits, but great and grave Men, both knowing in Philofophy ; who, neverthelefs, were fo moved by the Spectres, that they Follicitoufly told their Friends the things they had feen. It would be too long to relate all things which have been teftify’d, by grave Men, of the Gen- tiles: You may read various Authors who have treated this Argument. Thefe relate fo many Facts teftify’d by Men of a found Senfe, that to deny Faith to all of them, would be only for a Man who, being felf-confcious of his own Folly, meafures other Men by his Foot, and thinks there are no honed Men worthy of Credit to be found. We know the Opi¬ nion of Spedtres held among the Jews > for Matthew $4. and Mark 6. we have the Relation of Chr ft’s Y walking