ON THE TRANSMIGRATION OP SOULS. 263 



The belief in thefe manes was not introduced among 

 the antients by a poet ; it was adopted by the poets 

 from the oldeft popular ideas during the raw uncul- 

 tivated ftate of the nation. It would undoubtedly be 

 doing the poets too much honour to attribute to them 

 the invention and introduction of the whole religious 

 fyftem of the antients ; they did but felect, from the 

 great Itore of generally received opinions, fuch as were 

 molt, mited to the machinery of their poems ; and by 

 embodying and cloathing them, gave them a more 

 captivating afpect. Homer defcribes his manes ac- 

 cording to the notion that then prevailed ; he makes 

 the heroes bring them offerings, not merely becaufe it 

 pleafed him, but becaufe it was a practice followed 

 by the nation in general. That thefe manes truely 

 reprefent the idea of the antients concerning the*foul, 

 their functions, rewards and punifhments in the in 

 fernal world, their recollections of what they had done 

 on earth, their belief of a return to the regions above, 

 and that they could be evoked by fpells and incanta- 

 tions, will not leave us the fmalleft doubt. 



The belief of a life after death is to be found amongfi 

 almoft all the favage nations, ancj under the very 

 fame afpect. The Grcenlander is firmly convinced, 

 that, after his death, he fhajl go to a place with per- 

 petual fummer, bright funlliine, quantities of fea-dogs 

 and where abundance of frefh water is to be met with *. 

 The Ackanfea in Louiliana believes that his foul, after 

 death, will go to a place, where every fpecies of plea- 

 fure, where the charms of the chace and of the fifhery 



* Crantz, hiftory of Groenland, vol. i. p. 258. 



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will 



