2392. CONCERNING MANIFEST OPERATIONS OF SPIRITS. It has been observed here and there, as to which (see, elsewhere, that spirits have produced on my body effects entirely perceptible to sense [sensibilem prorsus], as regards every sense, just as external objects [do]: for instance, they have scattered disagreeable and sweet odors often enough and I have spoken of these things [namely] that they have maltreated my body [so as to cause] very grievous pain, and this on several occasions; have most manifestly induced cold and heat, and cold more frequently have, as it were, driven along blasts of wind: I have felt the wind plainly, yea, so as to cause the flame of the candle to flicker. Wherefore, it should not be doubted that they are organic substances, and not merely thought, as some [are wont] to conceive them abstractly from subject substances, and almost persuade others to conceive, by descriptions of spirits, from whom they abstract everything that can yet be predicated: these abstractions being made, man can no longer have any idea of them. Wherefore, they doubt and hesitate, and are ignorant that spirits in the body, or spirits separated from the body, are real substances, and such substances in man as are conjoined to the material [parts] of his body; for from these, whilst man lives, he cannot be separated. But of what sort is the conjunction, can also be related. - 1748, June 23.