1718. Nor has anyone gifted with some judgment any reason to be surprised at this fact, for without senses there is no life, neither bodily, nor spiritual. Every sense, even on the very inward and innermost plane, relates to touch, as anyone may know even from the sense of sight and hearing. Therefore, since there cannot be life without senses, it follows that those who think they have bodies, or are in their imagination bodied, so long as they are in those fantasies, as are the souls of many recently departed from the life of the body, do have the feeling or sensation like those having bodies. For they fully believe they are in their own body, and that fantasy cannot be taken from them except by actual proofs, spoken of here and there.
1718. (Nor, supposing one to be possessed of any degree of sound judgment, has he reason to wonder at the fact now stated; for life, whether corporeal or spiritual, is not given without sense, and all sense refers itself to touch, even the intimate and inmost senses, as may be known to anyone from the sense of seeing and hearing. Since, therefore, there can no life be given without sense, it follows that those who think themselves to be corporeal, or who are in corporeal phantasies, and as long as they are in them, as is the case with many recently departed souls [carry those phantasies with them]; hence the effect above mentioned, or a kind of sense of corporeal things, for they imagine themselves to be living altogether in their bodies, nor can they be dispossessed of that phantasy, unless by living demonstrations, of which see in abundance elsewhere.
1718. Nec quisquam id mirari poterit, qui aliquo judicio pollet, nam absque sensu non datur vita, neque corporea, neque spiritualis, omnis sensus se refert ad tactum, etiam sensus intimiores ac intimi, sicut cuivis notum esse potest, etiam ex sensu visus et auditus; cum itaque non dari potest vita absque sensu, sequitur, quod iis 1
qui se corporeos putant, seu in phantasiis corporeis sunt, et quamdiu in iis sunt, sicut animae multorum recens post vitam 2
corporis, inde effectus seu sensus quoque [sit] qualis corporeorum, nam putant se prorsus in corpore suo vivere, nec ea phantasia iis auferri potuit, nisi per demonstrationes vivas, de quibus passim.
Footnotes:
1. The Manuscript has ii
2. In the Manuscript supra vitam deletum, mortem similiter deletum et vitam leviter restitutum