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fore capable of being collected again. As, therefore, a candle, though extinguished, is capable of being lighted again, fo, though a man may be faid, figuratively fpeaking, to become extinct at death, and his capacity for thinking ceafe, it may only be for a time: for no particle of that which ever conftituted the man is loft. And, as I obferved before, whatever is decompofed may certainly be recompofed, by the fare almighty power that firft compofed it, with whatever change in its conftitution, advantageous or difadvantageous, he fhall think proper; and then the powers of thinking, and whatever depended upon them, will return of courfe, and the man will be, in the moft proper sense, the fame being that he was before.

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This is precifely the apostle Paul's idea of the refurrection of the dead, as the only foundation for a future life; and it is to this to which I mean to adhere, exclufive of all the additional vain fupports which either the Oriental, or Platonic philofophy has been thought to afford to this great doctrine of pure revelation. I have, however, been reprefented as having, by this view of the subject, furnished a ftronger argument against revelation than any that infidelity has hitherto difcovered, and the atheifts of the age have been defcribed as triumphing in my conceffions; when, whatever triumph atheists may derive from my conceffions, and my writings, the very

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very fame they may derive from the writings of St. Paul himself, which is certainly much more to their purpose.

Farther, though I have been charged with being an abbettor of atheism, it has been by perfons who have urged against my opinion the hackneyed objection that all unbelievers of ancient and modern times have made against the doctrine of any refurrection, viz. from the confideration of the matter that once compofed the human body entering, afterwards, into the compofition of plants, animals, &c. not confidering that this objection equally affects the doctrine of St. Paul, and that of all chriftians, who maintain what may, by any poffible conftruction of the words, be called a refurrection of the dead; which certainly requires that it is fomething that dies, and is put into the grave (and an immaterial foul is never fuppofed to die at all) that must revive, and rife again out of it.

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Of the Origin of the popular Opinions concerning the Soul.

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HOUGH truth be a thing altogether independent of the opinions of men, yet when any erroneous doctrine has prevailed long in the world, and has had a very general

fpread,

fpread, we are apt to fufpect that it must have come from some fufficient authority, unless we be able to trace the rife and progrefs of it, and can affign fome plausible reason for its general reception. On this account I fhall enter into a pretty large hiftorical detail concerning the fyftem that I have, in this treatise, called in queftion; and I hope to be able to fhew, that it can by no means boaft fo refpectable an origin as many are willing to afcribe to it. On the contrary, I hope to make it'appear that it has arifen from nothing but mere fuperftition, and the vain imaginations of men, flattering themselves with a higher origin than they had any proper claim to, though the precife date of the fyftem may be of too remote antiquity to be afcertained with abfolute certainty at this day.

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The notion of the foul of man being a substance diftinct from the body, has been shown, and I hope to fatisfaction, not to have been known to the writers of the fcriptures, and especially those of the Old Teftament. According to the uniform fyftem of revelation, all our hopes of a future life are built upon another, and I may say an opposite foundation, viz. that of the refurrection of fomething belonging to us that dies, and is buried, that is the body which is always confidered as the man. This doctrine is manifeftly fuperfluous on the idea of the foul being a fubftance fo diftinct from the body as to be unaffected by its death, and able to fubfift, and even to be

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more free and happy, without the body. This opinion, therefore, not having been known to the Jews, and being repugnant to the scheme of revelation, muft have had its fource in heathenifm; but with respect to the date of its appearance, and the manner of its introduction, there is room for conjecture and Speculation.

As far as we are able to collect any thing concerning the hiftory of this opinion, it is evidently not the growth of Greece or Rome, but was received by the philofophers of those countries either from Egypt, or the countries more to the east. The Greeks in general refer it to the Egyptians, but Paufanias gives it to the Chaldeans, or the Indians. I own, however (though every thing relating to fo very obfcure a fubject must be in a great meafure conjectural) that I am inclined to afcribe it to the Egyptians; thinking, with Mr. Toland, that it might poffibly have been fuggefted by fome of their known cuftoms refpecting the dead, whom they preferved with great care, and difpofed of with a folemnity unknown to other nations; though it might have arisen among them from other causes, without the help of thofe peculiar cuftoms."

The authority of Herodotus, the oldest Greek hiftorian, and who had himself travelled into Egypt, is very exprefs to this purpose. He fays (Ed. Steph. p. 137,) that “the Egyptians were the first who maintained that the "foul of man is immortal, that when the

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body dies it enters into that of fome other “animal, and when it has tranfmigrated through all terreftrial, marine and flying animals, it returns to the body of a man ❝again. This revolution is completed in "three thousand years." He adds, that "fe"veral Greeks, whofe names he would not " mention, had published that doctrine as their own?""c

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Mr. Toland's hypothefis is as follows, and I think I fhould do wrong to omit the men tion of it. My reader may judge of the probability of it for himself. The funeral rites "of the Egyptians," he fays (Letters to Se rena, p. 45)" and their historical method of "preferving the memory of deferving per "fons, feems to have been the occafion of "this belief. Their way of burying was by "embalming the dead bodies, which they de"posited in a fubterranean grotto, where they " continued intire for thousands of years; fo "that before any notion of feparate or in"mortal Houls, the common language was

that fuche one was under ground, that be + was carried over the river Acherufia by

Charon (the title of the public ferryman før "that purpose) and laid happily to rest in the 1" Elyfian fields, which was the common bu"rying place near Memphis," mâ

This hypothefis is rendered more probable by an obfervation of Cicero's. He fays (Tufculan Questions, Ed. Glafg. p. 37,) "the bodies falling to the ground, and being buried there,

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