"To see a Fool, a Fop, believe himself inspir'd, a Fellow that washes his Hands fifty times a-day, but if he would be truly cleanly, should have his Brains taken out and wash'd, his Scull Trapan'd, and plac'd with the hind-side before, that his Understanding, which Nature plac'd by Mistake, with the Bottom upward, may be set right, and his Memory plac'd in a right Position; To this unscrew'd Engine talk of Spirits, and of the invisible World, and of his conversing with unembodied Soul, when he has hardly Brains to converse with any thing but a Pack of Hounds, and owes it only to his being a Fool, that he does not converse with the Devil!"
An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions
2 entries in ESTC (1727, 1728). For a publication history, see Rodney Baine's 1962 essay, "Daniel Defoe and 'The History and Reality of Apparitions.'" First edition, published by J. Roberts, appeared anonymously on March 18, 1727. Second issues were sold the same year by A. Millar. The 1735 edition, reissued in 1738 and 1740.<br>
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Text from <u>An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions: Being an Account of What They are, and What They are Not; Whence They Come, and Whence They Come Not.</u> (London: Printed: and sold by J. Roberts, 1727). &lt;<a href="http://name.umdl.umich.edu/004843878.0001.000">Link to ECCO-TCP</a>&gt;