96 ON THE ORIGIN OF CREMATION, 
doctrine *. Heracuirus, who is said to have flourished in the 
time of Darius Hysraspes, held fire to be the first principle. 
Hence he, with those of his sect, preferred cremation ¢. Ma- 
cRoRIUS mentions two of this name, whose doctrine was mate- 
rially the same. Heracurrus of Pontus, he says, affirmed that 
the soul was light ; and Heracrirus the natural philosopher, 
that it was the scintillation of a stellar essence {. “ The old 
“ heroes in Homer,” says Sir Tuomas Brown, “ dreaded no- 
“ thing more than water or drowning; probably upon the old 
“ opinion of the fiery substance of the soul, onely extinguish- 
“ able by that element ; and therefore the poet emphatically 
“ implieth the total destruction in this kinde of death, which 
“ happened to Asax Ortzus |.” Hence Servius, in reference 
to the horror expressed by AZNEas in prospect of being ship- 
wrecked, remarks, that this was not from the fear of death, but 
from the apprehension that his soul might perish, if his body 
should have no other than a watery grave §. 
Several ancient writers held fire in such estimation, that 
they considered it as animated, and therefore as not to be ex- 
tinguished 
* Terruxuian. de Anima, c. 4. 
4+ Vide Avex. ab Aurxanpro Genial. Dies, lib. iii. c. 2. Porrer’s Archeol. 
ii. p. 207. 
+ Heracuitus Ponticus lucem; Heracritus physicus, scintillam stellaris es- 
sentiz. In Somn. Scipion. lib. i. 
|| Hydvotaphia, p. 4. 
§ Commenting on these words in the first book of the Bneid, 
Extemplo Atnex solvuntur frigore membra, 
Ingemit, &c.——he says, 
Non propter mortem, sequitur enim, O terque quaterque beat, sed propter mortis 
genus. Grave est enim secundum Homerum, perire naufragio, quia anima ig- 
nea est: et extingui videtur in mari, id est, elemento contrario. 
