ABSTRACT
The innate and seemingly instinctive aptitude of the human mind to conceive of the supernatural is so universal, and so intimately interwoven with that other conception of a spiritual life, the successor of this present corporeal existence,—which, far more than any supposed belief in a Supreme Being, seems the universal attribute of man,—that Shakespeare’s whole conception of the supernatural may fitly come under review as a sequel to the more limited subject specially occupying our consideration. But it is sufficient for the present to bear in mind the originality and prolific powers revealed in his supernatural imaginings, in order the more clearly to appreciate the one portraiture of a being which, though in no sense spiritual, is so far as all experience goes, thoroughly supra-natural.
