DURATION OF THE SOUL. 



S79 



persuaded that it will conduct me into the presence of the gods, the right- 

 eous governors of the universe, .and into the society of just and good 

 men : but I draw confidence from the hope that something of man re- 

 mains 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 afterwards 

 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 that 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 Phsedo, Plato distinctly teaches, and endeavours to prove, that 

 this compound structure 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 man- 

 ner after death. There are various 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 meridian of the schools. 



In the writmgs 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 

 origin ; 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.t 



The grand opponent of the soul's immortality, 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 at- 

 mosphere, as caloric, pure air, and vapour,| introduced into the system in 

 the act of respiration, peculiarly elaborated by pecuhar 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 Lucretius, who has so accurately and elegantly described 

 the whole of the Epicurean system : 



Penitns prorsum latet haec natura, subestque ; 

 Nec magis hac infra quidquam est in corpora nostro ; 

 Atque anima est animse proporro tutius ipsa.§ 



Far from all vision this profoundly lurks, 

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

 And lives as soul of e'en 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, and 



♦ Mem. Xen. 1. i. Nat. Deor. iii. 33. Calix venenatus qui Socratem transtulit e carfeere 

 in ccelam. Senec. Ep. 67. 



t De Gen. An. ii. 3. iii. 11. Cie. Tusc. Q. i. 10. Enfield's Brucker, i* 285, 

 ; X In the language of Lucretius, iii. 284. 



Ventus et aer 

 Et calpr— — — 

 § Lib. iii. 274. 



