DURATION OF THE SOUL. 



339 



afterward expired. Such was the end of the virtuous Socrates ! '* A story," 

 says Cicero, " which I never read without tears."* 



The soul of the Platonic system is a much more scholastic compound than 

 "•hat of the Socratic; it is in truth a motley triad produced by an emanation 

 from the Deity or Eternal Intelligence, uniting itself with some portion of the 

 soul of the world, and some portion of matter, in his celebrated Phaido, 

 Plato distinctly teaches, and endeavours to prove, that this compound struc- 

 ture had a pre-existent being, and is immortal in its own nature ; and that as 

 it did exist in a separate state antecedently to its union with the body, it will 

 probably continue to exist in the same manner after death. There are vari- 

 ous other arguments in favour of its immortality introduced into the same 

 dialogue, and, like the present, derived from the different tenets of his own 

 fanciful theory ; in no respect more cogent, and only calculated for the me- 

 ridian of the schools. 



In the writings of Aristotle there is nothing which decisively determines 

 whether he thought the human soul mortal or immortal ; but the former is 

 most probable from the notion he entertained concerning its nature and ori- 

 gin ; conceiving it to be an intellectual power, externally transmitted into the 

 human body from the eternal intelligence, the common source of rationality 

 to human beings. Aristotle does not inform his readers what he conceived 

 the principle, thus universally communicated, to consist of; but there is no 

 proof that he supposed it would continue after the death of the body.f 



The grand opponent of the soul's immortahty, however, among the Greeks, 

 was Epicurus. He conceived it to be a fine, elastic, sublimated, spiritualized 

 gas or aura, composed of the most subtle parts of the atmosphere, as caloric, 

 pure air, and vapour,^ introduced into the system in the act of respiration, 

 peculiarly elaborated by peculiar organs, and united with a something still 

 lighter, still rarer, and more active than all the rest ; at that time destitute of 

 name, and incapable of sensible detection, offering a wonderful resemblance 

 to the electric or Galvanic gas of modern times. In the words of Lucre- 

 tius, who has so accurately and elegantly described the whole of the Epicu- 

 rean system : 



Penitus prorsum latet haec natura, subestque ; 

 Nec magis hac infra quidquam est in corpore nostra ; 

 Atqire anima est animse proporro totius ipsa.$ 

 Far from all vision tliis profoundly lurks, 

 Through the whole system's utmost depth diffus'd, 

 And lives as soul of e'eu the soul itself. 



The soul thus produced, Epicurus affirmed, must be material, because we 

 can trace it issuing from a material source ; because it exists, a«d exists 

 alone in a material system ; is nourished by material food ; grows with 

 the growth of the body ; becomes matured with its maturity ^ declines 

 with its decay ; and hence, whether belonging to man or brutes, must die 

 with its death. 



But this is to suppose that every combination of matter, and every princi- 

 ple and quality connected with matter, are equally submitted to our senses, 

 and equally comprehended by them. It has already appeared that we cannot 

 determine for certain whether one ox two of the principles which enter into 

 the composition of the soul, upon this philosopher's own system, are matter, 

 or something superior to matter, and, consequently, a distinct essence blended 

 with it, out of the animal fabric as well as in it. Yet if they be matter, and 

 the soul thus consists of matter, of a matter far lighter, more subtilized and 

 active than that of the body, it does not follow that it must necessarily 



* Mem. Xen. 1. i. Nat. Deor. iil. 33. Calix venenatus qui Socralem transtulit d carcere in ccelum, 

 genec. Ep. 67. 



t De Gen. An. ii. 3, lit. 11. Cic. Tusc. Q. i. Enfield's Brucker, i. 285 

 jla the language of Lucretius, iii. 284, 



Ventus et aer 

 Et calor 



$Lib.iii.274. 



Y2 



