7^ EXCURSION TO THE REALMS BELOW. 



choice, into what place I would be tranfported, and that 

 there was a coherency and an arrangement in my ideas 

 which never occur in what are called dreams". Allowance 

 being made for this twofold very effential difference, 

 every thing, in both cafes, is very nearly alike. In 

 thefe expeditions without the bcdy, my foul, exactly 

 as in a dream, has need of but one moment for making 

 a way of feveral hundred or thoufand miles ; nothing 

 can exceed the levity of the quafi-body, with which 

 flie commonly imagines fhc is cloathed ; all her fenfes 

 are unufually acute ; fhe is immediately acquainted 

 with the ftrangelt objects ; fhe is furprlfed at nothing; 

 thinks fhe comprehends all things more quickly and 

 more eafily than in her ordinary Hate, is immediately 

 on the footing of an old friend with every perfon that 

 appears, and converfes with them as if they had only- 

 been feparated for a length of time, &c. For fear of 

 entangling myfelf in a frefh digreffion, I leave it to my 

 candid reader, to think what he will, or what he can, 

 upon the whole of this fubject, according to his greater 

 or lefs proportion of pfychological wifdom * lince, in 

 thefe obfervations, I would merely prevent themiftake, 

 which the obvious fimilarity between the wanderings of 

 the foul and dreams, might elfe have occasioned. 



Lucian's dialogues of the dead, in the tranflation of 

 which I am diligently employed, naturally excited in 

 me a pallionate defire of invefligating as far as poffible 

 with my own eyes, what is going forwards in the re- 

 gions below. Improbable as the accomplimment of fo 

 extraordinary a deli re may appear to the unbelievers 

 and the Epicureans, yet I was convinced by the abov® 

 cited maxim of Hamlet, that it might not be impoffi- 



ble. 



