attending circumstances, that the most credulous would not yield to
such arguments. It is surprising that these gentlemen, who pique
themselves on strength of mind, and so haughtily reject everything
that appears supernatural, can so easily admit philosophical systems
much more incredible than even the facts they oppose. They raise
doubts which are often very ill-founded, and attack them upon
principles still more uncertain. That may be called refuting one
difficulty by another, and resolving a doubt by principles still more
doubtful.

But, it will be said, whence comes it that so many other persons who
had engaged themselves to come and bring news of the immortality of
the soul, after their death, have not come back. Seneca speaks of a
Stoic philosopher named Julius Canus, who, having been condemned to
death by Julius Caesar, said aloud that he was about to learn the truth
of that question on which they were divided; to wit, whether the soul
was immortal or not. And we do not read that he revisited this world.
La Motte de Vayer had agreed with his friend Baranzan Barnabite that
the first of the two who died should warn the other of the state in
which he found himself. Baranzan died, and returned not.

Because the dead sometimes return to earth, it would be imprudent to
conclude that they always do so. And it would be equally wrong
reasoning to say that they never do return, because having promised to
revisit this world they have not done so. For that, we should imagine
that it is in the power of spirits to return and make their appearance
when they will, and if they will; but it seems indubitable, that on
the contrary, it is not in their power, and that it is only by the
express permission of God that disembodied spirits sometimes appear to
the living.

We see, in the history of the bad rich man, that God would not grant
him the favor which he asked, to send to earth some of those who were
with him in hell. Similar reasons, derived from the hardness of heart
or the incredulity of mortals, may have prevented, in the same manner,
the return of Julius Canus or of Baranzan. The return of spirits and
their apparition is neither a natural thing nor dependent on the
choice of those who are dead. It is a supernatural effect, and allied
to the miraculous.

St. Augustine says on this subject[557] that if the dead interest
themselves in what concerns the living, St. Monica, his mother, who
loved him so tenderly, and went wit