Page:Omniana 2.djvu/97

 ; and not the souls of those men, or any such like apparition, caused by evill spirits, as the common opinion is. The ancients thought, that these ghosts were the good and evill genii which attended alwaies upon armies: but they are to be excused; seeing they knew not how to give any other reason of these apparitions: it being most certain, that in armies, where, by reason of their great numbers, many die, you shall see some such ghosts very often, (especially after a battle); which are, as we have said, only the figures of the bodies excited and raised up, partly by an internall heat, either of the body, or of the earth: or else by some externall one; as that of the sun, or of the multitudes of the living, or by the violent noise, or heat of great guns, which puts the aire into a heat.

"I have elsewhere handled the curious history of spirits; wherein I have propounded these following questions, touching these ghosts: namely, whether or