being, as I have already observed, derived from the doctrine of a future resurrection of the body.

In many parts of the world, though not in all, this common tradition of the people was carried much farther, and, under different modifications, made to develope a very important and correct doctrine; for it was believed, in most countries, that this hell, hades, or invisible world, is divided into two very distinct and opposite regions by a broad and impassable gulf; that the one is a seat of happiness, a paradise, or elysium, and the other a seat of misery, a Gehenna, or Tartarus; and that there is a supreme magistrate and an impartial tribunal belonging to the infernal shades, before which the ghost must appear, and by which he is sentenced to the one or the other, according to the deeds done in the body.

Egypt is generally said to have been the inventress of this important and valuable part of the common tradition; and, undoubtedly, it is to be found in the earliest records of Egyptian history but from the wonderful conformity of its outlines to the parallel doctrine of the Scriptures, it is probable that it has a still higher origin, and that it constituted a part of the patriarchal or antediluvian creed, retained in a few channels, though forgotten or obliterated in others; and, consequently, that it was a divine communication in a very early age.

Putting by all traditionary information, however, there were many philosophers of Greece, who attempted to reason upon the subject, and

seemed desirous of abiding by the result of their own argument. Of these the principal are, Socrates, Plato, and Epicurus. The first is by far the most entitled to our attention for the simplicity and clearness of his conception, and the strength of his belief. Unfortunately we have no satisfactory relic of the great chain of induction by which he was led to so correct and happy a conclusion; for we must not confound his ideas with those of Plato, who has too frequently intermixed his own with them. From the lucid and invaluable MEMORABILIA of his disciple Xenophon, however, we have historical grounds for affirming that whatever may have been the train of his reasoning, it led him to a general assurance that the human soul is allied to the Divine Being, yet not by a participation of essence, but by a similarity of nature; and hence that the existence of good men will be continued after death in a state in which they will be rewarded for their virtue. Upon the future condition of the wicked, Socrates appears to have said but little; he chiefly speaks of it as being less happy than that of the virtuous: and it has hence been conceived that, as he thought the sole hope of immortality to the good man was founded upon his becoming assimilated to the divine nature, he may have imagined that the unassimilated soul of the wicked would perish with its body; and the more so, as he allowed the same common principle or faculty of reason, though

in a subordinate degree, to all other animals as to man; and hence again, gave sufficient proof that he did not regard this principle as necessarily incorruptible. To me, however, his opinion seems rather to have been of a contrary kind, importing future existence and punishment.

Upon this sublime subject, indeed, he appears at times to have been not altogether free from anxiety but it is infinitely to his credit, and evinces a testimony in favour of the doctrine itself far more powerful than the force of argument, and even breathing of divine inspiration that, in his last moments, he triumphed in the persuasion of its truth, and had scarcely a doubt upon his mind. When the venerable sage, at this time in his seventieth year, took the poisoned cup, to which he had been condemned by an ungrateful country, he alone stood unmoved while his friends were weeping around him he upbraided their cowardice, and entreated them to exercise a manliness worthy of the patrons of virtue: "It would, indeed," said he "be inexcusable in me to despise death if I were not persuaded that it will conduct me into the presence of the gods, the righteous governors of the universe, and into the society of just and good men: but I draw confidence from the hope that something of man remains after death, and that the state of the good will be much better than that of the bad." He drank the deadly cup, and shortly afterwards expired. Such was the end of the virtuous

Socrates! "A story," says Cicero, "which Inever read without tears." *

The soul of the Platonic system is a much more scholastic compound than that of the Socratic; it is in truth a motley triad produced by an emanation from the Deity or Eternal Intelligence, uniting itself with some portion of the soul of the world, and some portion of matter. In his celebrated Phædo, Plato distinctly teaches, and endeavours to prove, that this compound structure had a pre-existent being, and is immortal in its own nature; and that as its did exist in a separate state antecedently to its union with the body, it will probably continue to exist in the same manner after death. There are various other arguments in favour of its immortality introduced into the same dialogue, and, like the present, derived from the different tenets of his own fanciful theory; in no respect more cogent, and only calculated for the meridian of the schools.

In the writings of Aristotle there is nothing which decisively determines whether he thought the human soul mortal or immortal; but the former is most probable from the notion he entertained concerning its nature and origin; conceiving it to be an intellectual power, externally transmitted into the human body from the eternal intelligence, the common source of ra

* Mem. Xen. 1. i. Nat. Deor. iii. 33. Calix venenatus qui Socratem transtulit è carcere in cœlum. Senec. Ep. 67.

tionality to human beings. Aristotle does not inform his readers what he conceived the principle, thus universally communicated, to consist of; but there is no proof that he supposed it would continue after the death of the body.

The grand opponent of the soul's immortality, however, among the Greeks was Epicurus. He conceived it to be a fine, elastic, sublimated, spiritualized gass or aura, composed of the most subtle parts of the atmosphere, as caloric, pure air, and vapour †, introduced into the system in the act of respiration, peculiarly elaborated by peculiar organs, and united with a something still lighter, still rarer, and more active than all the rest; at that time destitute of name, and incapable of sensible detection, offering a wonderful resemblance to the electric or galvanic gass of modern times. In the words of Lucretius, who has so accurately and elegantly described the whole of the Epicurean system:

Penitus prorsum latet hæc natura, subestque;

Nec magis hac infra quidquam est in corpore nostro ;
Atque anima est animæ proporro totius ipsa. ‡
Far from all vision this profoundly lurks,

Through the whole system's utmost depth diffus'd,
And lives as soul of e'en the soul itself.

* De Gen. An. ii. 3. iii. 11. Cic. Tusc. Q. i. 10. Enfield's Brucker, i. 285.

In the language of Lucretius, iii. 284.

Et calor

Lib. iii. 274.

Ventus et aer