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Death and Mourning
26. Ghosts
"Sir, I make a distinction between what a man may experience by
the mere strength of his imagination, and what imagination cannot
possibly produce. Thus, suppose I should think I saw a form, and
heard a voice cry, "Johnson, you are a very wicked fellow, and
unless you repent you will certainly be punished;" my own
unworthiness is so deeply impressed upon my mind, that I might
imagine I thus saw and heard, and therefore I should not believe
that an external communication had been made to me. But if a
form should appear, and a voice tell me that a particular man had
died at a particular place, and a particular hour, a fact which I
had no apprehension of, nor any means of knowing, and this fact,
with all its circumstances, should afterwards be unquestionably
proved, I should, in that case, be persuaded that I had
supernatural intelligence imparted to me."
Boswell: Life
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252. Ghosts
"It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since
the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or
not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person
appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all
belief is for it."
Boswell: Life
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478. Ghosts
"That the dead are seen no more ... I will not undertake to
maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all
ages and all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among
whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This
opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is
diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that
never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which
nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by
single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence;
and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their
fears."
Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
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