CHAP. XVI. TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SOUL. 441 



the souls of men, which still survive their bodies, 

 returned into life again in animals ; " and that 

 *' they considered it right to prefer for sacrifice 

 those in whose bodies the souls of wicked men 

 were confined during the course of their trans- 

 migration ;" while the precept in the golden verses 

 of Pythagoras — 



. . . eipyou S)pcorcov wv eittoixsu, su re xaBap^oig 



commands men to abstain from food connected 

 with the purifications and solution of the soul. 



The reason of this piu'ification of the soul I have 

 already noticed*, as well as the greater or less 

 time required, according to the degree of sin by 

 which it had been contaminated during its sojourn 

 in the world.t Herodotus fixes the period at 3000 

 years, when the soul returned to the human form t ; 

 and Plato says §, " If any one's life has been vir- 

 tuous, he shall obtain a better fate hereafter ; if 

 wicked, a worse. But no soul will return to its pris- 

 tine condition till the expiration of 10,000 years. 



* Vide supra, \ oh I. (2tl Series) p. 316. 



■f The same occurs in these lines of Milton's Conuis : — 



" But when lust. 



By lavish act of sin, 



Lets in defilement to the inward parts. 

 The soul grows clotted by contagion, 

 Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose 

 The divine property of her first being." 



J This seems to disagree with the custom of giving all good men the 

 name of Osiris immediatehi after their burial, as if their soul had already 

 returned to the Deity, whence it emanated. 



^ Plato, in Phaedro, p. 325., transl. Taylor. 



