Letters on demonology and witchcraft. Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq / by Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
- Walter Scott
- Date:
- 1831
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Letters on demonology and witchcraft. Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq / by Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![abode, shall seek its own place, as a sentinel dis- rnissed from his post. Unaided by revelation, it cannot l)e hoped that mere earthly reason should be able to form any rational or precise conjecture concerning' the destination of the soul when parted from the body ; but the conviction that such an indestiTictible essence exists, the behef expressed by the ])oet in a different sense. Non omnis moriar, must infer the existence of many millions of spirits, who have not been annihilated, though they have become invisible to mortals, who stiff see, hear, and perceive, only by means of the imperfect organs of humanity. Probability may lead some of the most reflecting to anticipate a state of future rewards and punishments; as those experienced in the education of the deaf and dumb, find that their pupils, even while cut off from all instruction by ordinarv means, have been al)le to form, out of their own unassisted conjectures, some ideas of the existence of a Deity, and of the distinction between the soul and body—a circumstance which proves how naturally these truths arise in the human mind. The principle that they do so arise, being taught or communicated, leads to farther conclusions. These spirits, in a state of separate existence, being admitted to exist, are not, it may be sup- posed, indifferent to the affairs of mortality, per- haps not incapable of influencing them. It is true, that, in a more advanced state of society, the philosopher may challenge the. possibility of a separate appearance of a disembodied spirit, unless in the case of a direct miracle, to which, being a susj)ension of the laws of natiire, directly wrought by the Maker of these laws, for some express](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22029667_0032.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
