ON THE TRANSMIGRATION OP SOULS. l6t 



the human mind follows nearly the fame law in its ad- 

 vancings from one branch or degree of knowledge to 

 another, and we may, with the higher! probability, 

 admit that the ideas and knowledges of nations in their 

 infancy have a iimilarity that borders upon identity. 

 In religious tenets, in the belief of a future ftate, in 

 offerings to the dead, in auguries and numberlefs 

 other opinions, the modern barbarians of America, 

 Alia, and Africa, bear an aftonifhing likenefs with 

 the Greeks, the ^Egyptians, and other celebrated na- 

 tions of old : and at bottom the fame limited ideas 

 and knowledge of nature are to be found with them 

 all. 



The queftion, then, How did Pythagoras come by 

 the doctrine of tranfmigration of fouls ? muft now b® 

 altered into this, How did the nations, fo widely 

 afunder, in Alia, Africa, and America, come to 

 adopt this tenet ? For, as it is not the fentiment of 

 one individual man, or of one Angle tribe ; but is 

 common to various nations : fo, I think we do no 

 wrong either to Pythagoras or to the ./Egyptians, by 

 regarding it as a thought peculiar to a not fufficiently 

 cultivated period of the human race, and merely lea- 

 ving to Pythagoras the honour of having tranfplanted a 

 rude popular notion into his philofophical fyftem. 

 Thus alfo we fhall gain this important advantage, that 

 we may fettle its origin on more general and more 

 politive obfervation, than by conlidering it limply in 

 regard to fabulous ./Egypt and the myfterious Pytha- 

 goras. Concerning the modern rude nations we have 

 far more poiitive accounts \ and, by a lingular accident, 

 frequently more detailed, than of the antient iEgyp- 



s 3 tiaiu 



