cious influence, derived from the corrup tions of the doctrine, society must have been on the whole improved by it; for unless the belief had acted powerfully as a check upon the unruly desires, we cannot conceive why legislators should have taken so much pains to preserve it. When philosophy, at a comparatively late period, arose, it made no claim to the invention of the notion, or to have derived it from the deductions of natural reason. Not only

Plato makes continual and direct allusions

purity; yet the ordinary homage paid to the divinities in Greece and Rome at the sacred festivals, was far more pernicious in its effect upon public morals than the singular institution above alluded to. Vid. Augustin. Civ. Dei, lib. ii. cap. 4, 5. Herodot. lib. i. cap. 200.

f Thales, the founder of the Ionic school, flourished about six hundred years before Christ, and no regular course of reasoning was brought forward for the soul's immortality, till the time of Plato, two centuries after: Thales taught that water was the first principle, which Aristotle seems to consider as the most ancient philosophical notion, Metaph. lib. i. c. 3. and that God, or Mind, made all things out of water. As he was a native of Phoenicia, Cudworth supposes that he received his two principles from thence, "water, and the Divine Spirit "moving on the face of it." Cudworth, Intellect. Syst. book i. cap. i. sect. 22.

to tradition as the origin of his knowledge, but earlier writers were avowedly indebted to the same source; all that philosophy did pretend to was, to demonstrate that belief by arguments which was before grounded, we know not how, in the common fears and hopes of mankind. And let those who form an exalted estimate of the intellectual powers, in deciding upon such mysterious subjects, judge with what success the attempt was made, by the jarring and contradictory opinions of the different schools of antiquity. Let those who imagine that the immortality of the soul (I speak not of the resurrection of the body) is discoverable by human sagacity", examine the strong reasons of that unrivalled genius, who has the merit of having taught succeeding disputers to set their arguments in order on the subject. Almost all the disquisitions of Plato are grounded upon the hypothesis of the soul's preexistence. Be

8 Vide Appendix, note Ạ.

h Phædo passim.

i The two principal arguments in the Phædo, the one derived from the notions of the ancients respecting yéveris,

sides confusing himself and his readers with the mazes of verbal sophistry, in which, notwithstanding all its excellencies, Greek philosophy so much abounds, he derives his fancied demonstrations from abstruse theories on the properties of generation and corruption, and the essential and eternal archetypes of things; and even the most plausible and specious are so obscured by

the other from his own philosophical belief concerning the archetypes of things, rest entirely upon such a supposition. As the term generation was relative, and implied its contrary corruption, he infers that the act of being born involves the destruction of a previous existence, from which this present coming to life is a transition. 'Quoroγεῖται ἄρα ἡμῖν καὶ ταύτῃ τοὺς ζῶντας ἐκ τῶν τεθνεώτων γεγοvéval. Phædo, Bekker, p. 30-34. 2dly. His theory of eternal essences, or ideas, suggests the argument that the notions which the soul has of perfect equality, perfect good, &c. which are never found in sensible objects, prove that it must have existed in a previous state, its present knowledge being nothing more than reminiscence. The discussion derives an incidental value, from shewing that Plato had a considerable acquaintance with the law of association. Plato, Bekker, pars ii. vol. iii. pp. 35—44.

Not one of the ancient philosophers before Christianity held the soul's immortality, without holding the preexistence of souls. They believed also the immortality and preexistence of brutes. Cudworth, Intellect. Syst. book i. cap. 1. sect. 31, 32.

the subtlety of his language, as to be absolutely unintelligible, except to a mind long versed in the refinements of metaphysics. Such theories as those in the Phædo could never have convinced any one of the soul's immortality, unless he had been previously prepared to believe it; nor coming, as they are supposed to have done, from the lips of Socrates in his dying hour, could they have

k As a specimen of unmeaning subtlety, it may be sufficient to point out that exquisite verbal trifling towards the end of the treatise, respecting the archetype of even and odd, and its application to the question of the soul's immortality, σxóñei dè megì tñs tpiádos, p. 99. The reader is absolutely bewildered for some time, till at length he is conducted to the conclusion-that as the essence of even does not partake of the contrary essence odd, so the soul which brings life cannot partake of the contrary essence death, and must consequently be immortal. If we had not known the treatise to be a serious inquiry upon a serious occasion, we might have been tempted to think, from the winding up of the dialogue, that the writer intended to ridicule such absurdities ; Τί οὖν ; τὸ μὴ δεχόμενον τὴν τοῦ · ἀρτίου ἰδέαν τί νῦν δὴ ὠνομάζομεν ; ̓Ανάρτιον, ἔφη. Τὸ δὲ δίκαιον μὴ δεχόμενον καὶ ὃ ἂν μουσικὸν μὴ δέχηται; Αμουσον, ἔφη, τὸ δὲ ἄδικον. Εἶεν· ὃ δ ̓ ἂν θάνατον μὴ δέχηται, τί καλοῦ μεν ; ̓Αθάνατον, ἔφη. Οὐκοῦν ἡ ψυχὴ οὐ δέχεται θάνατον ; Οὔ. Αθάνατον ἄρα ἡ ψυχή. ̓Αθάνατον. Εἶεν, ἔφη· τοῦτο μὲν δὴ ΑΠΟΔΕΔΕΙΧΘΑΙ φῶμεν ; p. 103. Vide the whole argument, from p. 90-105.

been his only consolation. If the argument, grounded upon the compound nature of man', and the immateriality of the soul, be brought forward in opposition to such a view of the subject, it may be asked, was the philosopher so well acquainted, or are we ourselves, with all our additional knowledge, so well acquainted with the laws and properties of matter, as to be able to pronounce that the Being who ( even according to Plato's creed) made the universe out of nothing, is limited in power, and that he could not, if he would, impart thought and intelligence to a material substance? Or have we so clear a notion of spirit, or so perfect an insight into the essential qualities of spirit, as to be satisfied, that leaving the revealed will of the Deity out of the consideration, it is in itself incapable of annihilation?

Yet, however unsatisfactory such arguments may be, (as arguments of natural rea

1 The soul is divine, immortal, intelligent, uncompounded, indissoluble: the body human, mortal, without intelligence, concrete, dissoluble. Plato, Phædo, p. 50. m Appendix, note B.