SPIRIT-KNOCKING. 67 



provision for old age. Illusions of the senses, to which 

 he was subject, strengthened his belief in supernatural 

 appearances, and his own nervous, dreamy nature caused 

 him to convert at times the memory of common events 

 into some hazy impression of the wonderful. I have 

 not thought it Avorth while to collect together all the 

 stories of this kind related by Cardan ; but two may serve 

 here as examples. At Pavia, one morning while in bed, 

 and again while dressing, Jerome heard a distinct rap as 

 of a hammer on a wall of his room, by which he knew 

 that he was parted from a chamber in an empty house. 

 At that time died his and his father's friend, Galeazzo 

 Rosso 1 . The disciples of certain impostors who in our 

 own day have revived a belief in spirit-knockings in 

 New York, may be referred to the works of Cardan for 

 a few enunciations of distinct faith in such manifestations. 

 A more curious example will occur hereafter. In the 

 present instance, Cardan, who is never destitute of philo- 

 sophic candour, owns that he was unable to prove any 

 strict correspondence of time between the death of Eosso 

 and the knockings in his room. It is enough for us 



1 De Vit. Propr. cap. xliii. p. 222. I quote the passage for the 

 benefit of Rappists: " Quod mihi accidit dum studerem Papise, ut mane 

 quodam, antequam expergiscerer ictum in muro senserim; vacuum 

 erat habitaculum quod loco illi erat contiguum: et dum expergiscerer, 

 et postea alium, quasi mallei, et quod eadem hora resperi intellexerim 

 obiisse Galeazium de Rubeis amicum singularem, et de quo tarn multa, 

 non id referam in miracula," 



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