Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/129

 Rh I am tired of copying the wild chimeras of this worst of all dreamers, and forbear continuing them to his descriptions of the state after death. I have still other scruples. For, although a collector of objects of natural history puts up in his press among the prepared objects of animal procreation not only such as are formed naturally but also abortions, he nevertheless has to be careful not to show them too plainly and not to everybody. For among the curious there might easily be some pregnant persons who might receive an injurious impression. And as among my readers some might be just as likely in an interesting condition in regard to spiritual conceptions, I should be sorry if they had received a detrimental shock by anything I have told. However, as I have warned them right at the start, I am responsible for nothing, and hope not to be burdened with the moon-calves which their fruitful imagination might bring forth on this occasion.

As it is, I have not substituted my own fancies for those of our author, but have offered his views in a faithful extract to the comfortable and economic reader who docs not care to sacrifice seven pounds for a little curiosity. It is true, I have mostly avoided quoting the visions themselves, as such wild chimeras only disturb the sleep of the reader, and the confused meaning of his revelations has been brought now and then into somewhat intelligible language; but the main traits of the sketch have thereby not suffered in accuracy. Nevertheless, it is only in vain that one would hide the fact