338 



ON THE NATLilE AND 



the immortality and separate existence of the soul are never once brought for- 

 ward; every ray of hope being, as I have already observed, derived from the 

 doctrine of a future resurrection of the body. 



In many parts of the world, though not in all, this common tradition of the 

 people was carried much farther, and, under different modifications, made to 

 develope a very important and correct doctrine ; for it was believed, in most 

 countries, that this hell, hades, or invisible world, is divided into two very dis- 

 tinct and opposite regions by abroad and impassable gulf; that the one is a 

 seat of happiness, a paradise, or Elysium, and the other a seat of misery, a 

 Gehenna, or Tartarus ; and that there is a supreme magistrate and an impar- 

 tial tribunal belonging to the infernal shades, before which the ghost must ap- 

 pear, and by which he is sentenced to the one or the other, according to the 

 deeds done in the body. 



Egypt is generally said to have been the inventress of this important and 

 valuable part of the common tradition ; and, undoubtedly, it is to be found in 

 the earliest records of Egyptian history : but from the wonderful conformity of 

 its outlines to the parallel doctrine of the Scriptures, it is probable that it has a still 

 higher origin, and that it constituted a part of the patriarchal or antediluvian 

 creed, retained in a few channels, though forgotten or obliterated in others ; 

 and consequently, that it was a divine communication in a very early age. 



Putting by all traditionary information, however, there were many philo- 

 sophers of Greece who attempted to reason upon the subject, and seemed 

 desirous of abiding by the result of their own argument. Of these the prin- 

 cipal are, Socrates, Plato, and Epicurus. The first is by far the most entitled 

 to our attention for the simplicity and clearness of his conception, and the 

 strength of his belief. Unfortunately, we have no satisfactory relic of the 

 great chain of induction by which he was led to so correct and happy a con- 

 clusion ; for we must not confound his ideas with those of Plato, who has too 

 frequently intermixed his own with them. From the lucid and invaluable 

 MEMORABILIA of his disciple Xenophon, however, we have historical grounds 

 for affirming that whatever may have been the train of his reasoning, it led 

 him to a general assurance that the human soul is allied to the Divine Being, 

 yet not by a participation of essence, but by a similarity of nature ; and hence 

 that the existence of good men will be continued after death in a state in 

 which they will be rewarded for their virtue. Upon the future condition of 

 the wicked, Socrates appears to have said but little ; he chiefly speaks of it 

 as being less happy than that of the virtuous : and it has hence been con- 

 ceived that, as he thought the sole hope of immortality to the good man was 

 founded upon his becoming assimilated to the divine nature, he may have 

 imagined that the unassimilated soul of the wicked would perish with its body ; 

 and the more so, as he allowed the same common principle or faculty of rea- 

 son, though in a subordinate degree, to all other animals as to man ; and 

 hence, again, gave sufficient proof that he did not regard this principle as 

 necessarily incorruptible. To me, however, his opinion seems rather to have 

 been of a contrary kind, importing future existence and punishment. 



Upon this sublime subject, indeed, he appears at times to have been not 

 altogether free from anxiety : but it is infinitely to his credit, and evinces a 

 testimony in favour of the doctrine itself far more powerful than the force of 

 argument, and even breathing of divine inspiration, that, in his last moments, 

 he triumphed in the persuasion of its truth, and had scarcely a doubt upon his 

 mind. When the venerable sage, at this time in his seventieth year, took the 

 poisoned cup, to which he had been condemned by an ungrateful country, he 

 alone stood unmoved while his friends were weeping around him: he 

 upbraided their cowardice, and entreated them to exercise a manliness worthy 

 of the patrons of virtue : " It would, indeed," said he, " be inexcusable in me 

 to despise death if I were not persuaded that it will conduct me into the pre- 

 sence of the gods, the righteous governors of the universe, and into the 

 society of just and good men : but I draw confidence from the hope that 

 something of man remains after death, and that the state of the good will be 

 much better than that of the bad." He drank the deadly cup, and shortly 



