ON" THE TRANSMIGRATION" OP SOULS. 



fions, return diredtly to God ; that confequently they 

 muft do penance for all their fins, in animal bodies ; 

 that, finally, they afcend, from one gradation to ano- 

 ther, till they regain their original perfection. This is 

 ftill at prefent the religious and philofophical fyftem in 

 the Eaft Indies * ; this was perhaps too the fyftem of all 

 or of fome of the aegyptian priefts ; this was alfo partly 

 the foundation of the grecian religion ; for the general 

 belief that people after their death were taken up into 

 the number of their gods was built on fome fuch per- 

 fectionating of human fouls. No wonder, then, that 

 Pythagoras appropriated it ; and, by cloathing it in a 

 mathematical and philofophical drefs, gave it a new 

 form , and imprefTed it with a greater authority. 



PROGRESS OF MONACHISM, 

 BY DR. ZIMMERMANN. 



PaCHOMIUS, a difbanded foldier, but, in 

 my opinion, an incomparably more fenfible, and q, 

 far greater man than Antonius the aegyptian boor, 

 had, notwithstanding his thebaic defcent, nothing of 

 the melancholy frenzy of his tutor Antonius, however 

 crazy he might otherwife be. He likewife had a greater 

 flock of acquired knowledge than Antonius, and under- 



* Lettres edifiantes, rec. xiii. p. 148, 8c feq. 



T 4 flood* 



