“Then a spirit could occupy no room in the whole material world?”
“Would you perhaps assign to spirits a place in the immaterial world? How could you imagine, without contradiction, that space or place can exist in such a world? If one spirit does not occupy a room, then all spirits together can occupy none, how could therefore any proportion exist among them with relation to space or place?”
“I comprehend and do not comprehend you. You want to convince me of the possibility of apparitions of spirits, and deny the existence of spirits; for if they do occupy no place either in the visible or invisible world, where else can they exist?”
“How sensitive and confused your ideas are! Don’t you perceive that your question is equal to this: in which place do spirits exist? and that, of course, you premise in your question what I have just clearly proved to be absurd. Do you not comprehend that room and place are nothing else but external qualities, only relations of material things? and do you believe that the existence of any being depends merely on external qualities and material relations?”
“Have patience with me!”
“I have; for I am well aware how difficult it is to abstract from material ideas; however, since they cannot be applicable to spirits we must renounce them, else we cannot pass over the bounds of the material world.”
“I intreat you, Hiermanfor, to go on!”
“From our investigation we have learnt, as yet, nothing farther than what a spirit is not, and what attributes cannot be ascribed to it. We now must endeavour to state what real qualities constitute the nature of spirits. One of them we have already touched upon; I mean, independence of the laws of physical nature, or arbitrary choice. A second quality presses upon us, namely the faculty of perception, which our soul is endowed with like all other spirits. And now we are enabled to form a notion of spirits, which, however imperfect it be, yet is determined: a spirit is a simple being, endowed with arbitrary choice, and the faculty of perception. Don’t you think that this definition answers the common manner of speaking.”
“An additional proof of its fitness.”
“In the same manner in which the body evinces its existence, by the material effect it produces in the room, the spirit likewise proves its existence by the manifestation of its faculty of perception and of free will. However evident and generally received this proposition is, yet it is misapplied very frequently; for it is, according to my premises, absolutely false, and nothing else but a kind of optic illusion, if we imagine our soul to be inclosed in the human body, nay even in some particular place of it. This illusion may be opposed by another: there are diversions of thought, in which the thinking principle leaves our body so entirely, that only the animal powers are active in the latter, and on the return of our awakening self-consciousness, the soul seems to return from far distant regions. However, this too is mere illusion. We can say nothing farther of the union which subsists between our soul and body, than that our soul is sensible of the existence of a corporeal organ, the mutations of which harmonise exactly with her ideas and resolutions; however, as you never will suppose that your spirit is inclosed by the walls of Amelia’s distant habitation, where your whole soul, with all her sentiments and ideas, is, as it were, translated to; so your spirit can also not be supposed to be inclosed in your body, which seems to be its common residence. No, no, my Lord, that cannot be! the bonds of space can never fetter an immaterial being to a material one.”