a 



96 ON THE ORIGIN OF CREMATION, 



doctrine *. Heraclitus, who is said to have flourished in the 

 time of Darius Hystaspes, held fire to be the first principle. 

 Hence he, with those of his sect, preferred cremation f . Ma- 

 crobius mentions two of this name, whose doctrine was mate- 

 rially the same. Heraclitus of Pontus, he says, affirmed that 

 the soul was light ; and Heraclitus the natural philosopher, 

 that it was the scintillation of a stellar essence J. " The old 

 " heroes in Homer," says Sir Thomas 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 Ajax Oileus ||." Hence Servius, in reference 

 to the horror expressed by ^Eneas 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 



* Tertullian. de Anima, c. 4. 



\ Vide Alex, ab Alexandro Genial. Dies, lib. iii. c. 2. Potter's Archseol. 

 ii. p. 207. 



J Heraclitus Ponticus lucem ; Heraclitus physicus, scintillam stellaris es- 

 sentia?. In Somn. Scipion. lib. i. 



I) Hydrotaphia, p. 4. 



§ Commenting on these words in the first book of the JEneid, 



Extemplo Mnvx. solvuntur frigore membra, 

 Ingemit, &c he says, 



Non propter mortem, sequitur enim, O terque quaterque beati, 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. 



