course about Witches and Apparitions, and address my self to obtain their assent to Truths infinitely more sacred.
And yet, 2dly, Tho' it should be granted them, that a substance immaterial, is as much a contradiction as they can fancy; yet why should they not believe that the Air and all the Regions above us, may have their invisible intellectual Agents of Nature like unto our Souls, be that what it will, and some of them at least as much degenerate as the vilest and most mischievous among Men? This Hypothesis will be enough to secure the possibility of Witches and Apparitions. And that all the upper Stories of the Universe are furnished with Inhabitants, 'tis infinitely reasonable to conclude from the analogy of Nature; since we see there is nothing so contemptible and vile in the World we reside in, but hath its living Creatures that dwell upon it; the Earth, the Water, the inferiour Air, the Bodies of Animals, the Flesh, the Skin, the Entrails, the Leaves, the Roots, the Stalks of Vegetables; yea, and all kind of Minerals in the subterraneous Regions. I say, all these have their proper Inhabitants; yea, I suppose this Rule may hold in all distinct kinds of Bodies in the World, That they have their peculiar Animals. The certainty of which, I believe the improvement of Microscopical Observations will discover. From whence I infer, That since this little Spot is so thickly Peopled in every Atome of it, 'tis weakness to think, that all the vast spaces above, and hollows under Ground, are desert and uninhabited. And if both the superiour and lower Continents of the Universe have their Inhabitants also, 'tis exceedingly improbable, arguing from the same Analogy, that they are all of the meer sensible Nature, but that they are at least some of the Rational and Intellectual Orders. Which supposed, there is good Foundation for the belief of Witches and Apparitions, tho' the Notion of a Spirit should prove as absurd, and unphilosophical, as I judge the denial of it. And so this first Objection comes to nothing. I descend then to the second Prejudice, which may be thus formed in behalf of the Objectors.
