O the intent, that those men which occupie themselues in reading of this my Booke, and especially in perusing of other auncient writers, may the better vnderstand euery thing, I will at the first enteraunce briefly expounde those things which shall séeme to concern the proprietie of words and termes vsed in this my Treatise of Spirits.
Spectrum
Spectrum, amongst the Latines doth signifie a shape or forme of some thing presenting it selfe vnto our sight.
Scaliger affirmeth, that Spectrum is a thing which offereth it selfe to be séene, either truly, or by vaine imagination. The Diuines take it to be a substance without a bodie, which being heard or séene, maketh men afraide.
Visum.
Visum, signifieth an imagination or a certaine shewe, which men being in sléepe, yea and waking also, séeme in their iudgement to behold: as we read of Brutus, who saw his owne angell. Cicero in his first booke Acadæm, quest. writeth, that Visum, amongst the Grecians is called φαντασία, a fantasie, or vaine imagination.
Visio.
Also the Latines call those things Visiones, which the Grecians name φαντασίας.