2«4 S. No 49., Dko. G. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



45S 



Europe ; whilst the male slaves exceed the female 5 per 

 cent." 



The Mormons, in their strenuous efforts to sup- 

 port polygamy, have been driven to all sorts of 

 expedients. They hav^ cited the " patriarchal 

 dispensation" of the Old Testament, and have 

 even quoted the New Testament in support of 

 their practices. For instance,', from the promise 

 given in Mark, x. 29., the sagacious " Chancellor 

 of the University of Deseret " deduces the follow- 

 ing question and answer : 



" Q. What reward have men who have faith to forsake 

 their rebellious and unbelieving wives in order to obey 

 the commandments of God ? " 



" A. An Hundred fold of Wives in this world, and 

 eternal life in the next." 



Not satisfied with thus wresting Scripture to 

 suit their licentious purposes, they have appealed 

 to the oriental system, then to the wide- spread 

 prevalence of prostitution in civilised ("ountries, 

 and latterly to the " great excess of females over 

 males." (See the article " Mormonism," Edin- 

 burgh Review^ April, 1854.) 



It appears from the census of 1851 that the 

 number of the male population of Great Britain, 

 excluding those absent in foreign countries, was 

 10,223,558, and the female population 10,735,919. 

 The proportion between the sexes was thus about 

 100 males to 105 females. But the births during 

 the last thirteen years give a reversed proportion, 

 viz. 105 boys to 100 girls. The subject of the 

 proportion of the sexes is, however, one full of 

 interest ; and the many curious discrepancies ex- 

 isting among various classes, and in different 

 countries, seem to call for physiological and sta- 

 tistical investigation. Vox. 



PRE-EXISTENCE. 



(2"'^ S. ii. 329.) 



Your correspondent, Mr. Riley, inquires for 

 the name of a work or works on, what he calls, 

 the " fanciful," but which I trust he will forgive 

 me for designating the ancient and very probable 

 opinion, of the pre-existence of souls. 



That the Deity, at the beginning of the world 

 (when we are taught that He " rested from all 

 His works which He had made"), created the 

 souls of all men, which, however, are not united 

 to the body till the individuals for which they are 

 destined are born into the world, was (to omit any 

 reference to Plato and his followers) a very ge- 

 neral belief among the Jewish Kabbalists, a com- 

 mon opinion in our Saviour's time, and holden 

 and taught by many fathers of the Christian 

 Church, as Justin Martyr, Origen, and others. 

 It was, however, opposed by Tertullian. (See 

 Bp. Kaye's Ecc. Hist, illustrated from the Writings 

 of Tertullian, p. 204., &c.) 



Mede, in chap. iii. of his Mystery of Godliness 

 (Works: fol. 1708., p. 15.), combats the vulgar 

 opinion of a " daily creation of souls " at the time 

 the bodies are produced which they are to inform. 

 He calls " the reasonable doctrine " of pre-exist- 

 ence " a key for some of the main mysteries of 

 Providence which no other can so handsomely 

 unlock." Sir Harry Vane is said by Burnet {Own 

 Times, fol. 1724, i. 164.) to have maintained this 

 doctrine. Joseph Glanvill, rector of Bath (the 

 friend of Meric Casaubon and of Baxter, and a 

 metaphysician of singular vigour and acuteness)*, 

 published, in 1662, but without his name, a trea- 

 tise to prove the reasoiiableness of the doctrine. 

 It was afterwards republished, with annotations, 

 by Dr. Henry More. The title of the book is : 



"Lux Orientalis; or an Inquiry into the Opinion of the 

 Eastern sages concerning the Praeexistence of Souls, being 

 a Key to unlock the grand Mysteries of Providence in re- 

 lation to Man's Sin and Misery." London : 1662. 12mo, 



In 1762, the Rev. Capel Berrow, rector of Ros- 

 sington, published a work entitled A Pre-existent 

 Lapse of human Souls demonstrated; and in the 

 European Magazine for Sept. 1801, may be 

 found a letter from Bp. Warburton to the author, 

 in which he says, " The idea of a pre-existence has 

 been espoused by many learned and ingenious 

 men in every age, as bidding fair to resolve many 

 difficulties." Allusions to this doctrine will be 

 found pervading the beautiful verses of Henry 

 Vaughan, the Silurist, in his Silex Scintillans 

 (Lond. 1650), and traces of it occur in Words- 

 worth's " Ode on the Intimations of Immortality 

 in Childhood." Southey, in his published Letters 

 (by Warter, vol. ii. p. 160.) says : 



" I have a strong and lively faith in a state of con- 

 tinued consciousness from this stage of existence, and 

 that we shall recover the consciousness of some lower stages 

 through which we may previously have passed seems to mo 

 not improbable." 



And again : 



" The system of progressive existence seems, of all others, 

 the most benevolent ; and all that we do understand is so 

 wise and so good, and all we do, or do not, so perfectly 

 and overwhelmingly wonderful, that the most benevolent 

 system is the most probable." — Ibid., vol. i. p. 294. 



W. Ii. N. 



Bath. 



Mr. Henry T. Riley should read Wordsworth's 

 great Ode — " Intimations of Immortality from 

 Recollections of Early Childhood ; " after perusal 

 of which, his " fanciful " will perhaps seem to him 

 i-ather a flippantly-applied adjective. That "all 

 knowledge is recollection " is a doctrine Platonic, 



* Among the Baxter MSS., in the Red Cross Street 

 Library, is a long letter, full of curious learning, from 

 Glanvill to Baxter, in defence of the doctrine of the soul's 

 pre-existence. 



