OPINIONS OF GREA T A UTHORS 87 



Christ is broad enough to include and does include 

 the dumb creation." 



But one could continue to mention hundreds of 

 noted divines, authors, and scientists, of modern 

 times, as well as ancient writers, who have ex- 

 pressed themselves as believing in the immortality 

 of animals. The doctrine was maintained by a 

 large majority of ancient philosophers, though like 

 the immortality of man, it was of a very uncertain 

 and crude nature. 



The old school of Platonists claimed that the 

 souls of all living creatures were a part of the uni- 

 versal soul of the world, and that they were de- 

 pressed or immerged in the animal body, and when 

 the body died the soul would go to some other liv- 

 ing being, sometimes to a man and sometimes to a 

 lower animal. 



This doctrine of the transmigration of souls, 

 crude as it was, shows a noble and humane device 

 of the ancients to deter men from indulging in sor- 

 did and mean passions. To teach that the souls of 

 men after their separation from the body should 

 pass into the form of such animals as they most re- 

 sembled in their dispositions, then to endure the 

 horrors and suffering which they were guilty of 



