therefore they commonly began with proving its pre-existence, proceeding from thence to prove its permanency after death. And Cicero fays that it was a principle universally acknowledged, that whatever is born, and has a beginning, must also have an end.

Dicæarchus, fays Cicero (Tufc. Que, p. 64, Ed. Glafg.) wrote three books to prove that the minds of men are mortal; but in another place he fays, that he maintained that there was no foul. Ariftoxenus faid that the foul was harmony, and Xenocrates that it was number. ib. p. 26, 27. And according to him, ib. p. 38, Pherecydes Syrius was the firft that taught that the minds of men are fempiternos, eternal, in which he was followed by his difciple Pythagoras. Pherecydes had that opinion from the Eaft.

Thales (fays Cicero, in his Book of Confolation) fays that Apollo himself declared that the foul is a part of a divine substance, and that it returns to heaven as foon as it is dif engaged from this mortal body. All the philofophers of the Italic fchool were of this fentiment. It was their conftant doctrine, that fouls defcend from heaven, and that they are not only the works of the Divinity, but a participation of his effence. Ramfay, p. 271. According to Diogenes Laertius, Thales maintained that the foul is immortal, becaufe that from which it is taken [TooTadla] is immortal. Gali's Philofophia Generalis, p. 178. Euripides alfo, (according to Cicero, Tufc. Quest. 0 2

P. 56)

p. 56) held that the mind was God, and that if God be either anima, or fire, the fame muft be the mind of man; or if it be a fifth fubftance, of which Ariftotle speaks, it must be the fame both with refpect to God and the foul.

It is the doctrine of Plato concerning the foul that makes the greateft figure of those of the Greek philofophers, and that which the christians have made the most use of. I shall, therefore, give a fuller detail concerning it. He diftinguished three forts of fouls, differing in purity and perfection, the univerfal foul, thofe of the ftars, and thofe of men. Beaufobre, vol. ii, p. 362. Of those he distinguished two parts, the fuperior, which was an emanation from the Deity himself, and the inferior, which derived its origin from the more fpiritual part of matter. Ib. vol. i, p. 379, 559. But according to Cicero, (Tufc. Quest. p. 27) Plato fuppofed the foul to be threefold, and placed reafon in the head, anger in the breaft, and defire fubter præcordia.

Plato's account of the cause of the descent of the foul has fomething peculiar in it, but which was not unknown in fome of the Oriental systems. Others fuppofed that they were condemned to a confinement in these bodies for offences committed in a pre-existent state; whereas he represents their defire of thefe mortal bodies to have been their original fin. He fuppofed, says Beaufobre, vol. ii, p. 332, that fouls were touched with a fecret defire to unite themselves to bodies, and that this terreftrial thought was a weight

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weight which dragged them to this lower world. The Effenes, he fays, had the fame opinion. The following is his poetical account of it from Ramfay, p. 288. "Plato

" fays that every foul that follows faithfully "the fublime law remains pure, and without "fpot; but if it content itself with nectar "and ambrofia, without following the cha"riot of Jupiter, to go and contemplate truth, "it grows heavy, its wings are broken, it "falls upon the earth, and enters into a hu"man body, more or lefs base according as it "has been more or lefs elevated; and that it "is only after ten thousand years that these "fouls are re-united to their principle, their "wings not growing, and being renewed in "lefs time."

According to the Platonic philofophy, there must be something very corporeal in the compofition of the fouls of the wicked. Socrates, in the Phædo, fays that the fouls of those who minded the body, and its appetites and pleafures, having fomething in them ponderous and earthy, muft, after their departure out of the body, be drawn down to the earth, and hover about the fepulchres, till they enter again into bodies fuited to their former nature. But that they who live holy and excellent lives, being freed from thofe earthly places, as from prisons, afcend to a pure region above the earth, where they dwell; and those of them who were fufficiently purged by philofophy live all their time without the O 3

body,

1

body, and afcend to fill more beautiful habitations. Leland, vol. ii, p. 307. In his tenth book of Laws, he fays, that those who have been guilty of fmaller fins, do not fink fo deep as others, but wander about near the furface of the region; whereas they that have finned more frequently, and more heinously, fall into the depth, and into thofe lower places. which are called Hades. ib. p. 313.

It is generally acknowledged that there is great uncertainty with refpect to the opinion of Ariftotle on this fubject. It is probable that he was fometimes inclined to the opinion of man having no foul diftinct from the body; as when he fays, according to Plutarch, that fleep is common to the foul as well as the body. But when he fpeaks of the foul as a fubftance diftinct from the four elements, and inakes it to be a fifth kind of substance, it should feem that he meant to declare himfelf to be of the opinion of those who held the foul to be of divine origin, and to be eternal. Cudworth fays that it must needs be left doubtful whether he acknowledged any thing immortal in us or not. p. 55.

Cicero, when he speaks as a philosopher, feems to adopt the fentiments of Plato with respect to the foul. He fays, Humanus animus, decerptus ex mente divina, cum nullo alio nifi cum deo ipfo (fi hoc fas fit dictu) comparari poteft. Leland, vol. ii, p. 326.

દ

"In all the first book of Tufculan Quefti

ons," fays Mr. Locke (Efay, vol. ii, p.

160) "where he lays out fo much of his read

ing and reason, there is not one syllable "fhewing the least thought that the foul was "an immaterial fubftance, but many things directly to the contrary-That which he feems moft to incline to was, that the foul was not at all elementary, but was of the "fame fubftance with the heavens, which "Ariftotle, to diftinguish it from the four "elements, and the changeable bodies here. "below, which he fuppofes made up of them, "called Quinta Effentia. In all which there is nothing of immateriality, but quite the

contrary.

He adds farther, that "the expreffions "which drop from him, in several parts of “the book, evidently fhew that his thoughts "went not at all beyond matter. For ex

ample, that the fouls of excellent men and "women afcended into heaven, of others "that they remained here on earth: that the "foul is hot, and warms the body: that, as "it leaves the body, it penetrates, and divides, ❝ and breaks through our thick cloudy moist "air: that it ftops in the region of fire, and "afcends no farther, the equality of warmth.

and weight making that its proper place, " where it is nourished, and fuftained with the fame things wherewith the ftars are. "nourished and fuftained; and that by the. "conveniency of its neighbourhood it fhall "there have a clearer view, and fuller know"ledge, of the heavenly bodies that the

04

"foul