DURATION OF THE SOUL. 



381 



a state of perpetual anxiety and agitation. But this was not all : perplex- 

 ed, even where they admitted the doctrine, about the will of the Deity, and 

 the mode of securing his favour after death, with their own abstruse specu- 

 lations they intermixed the religion of the multitude. They acknow- 

 ledged the existence of the popular divinities : clothed them with the attri- 

 butes of the Eternal ; and, anxious to obtain their benediction, were punc- 

 tilious in attending at their temples, and united in the sacrifices that were 

 presented. Even Socrates, amidst the last words he uttered, desired 

 Crito not to forget to offer for him the cock which he had vowed to Escu- 

 Japius. * 



In effect, the whole of the actual knowledge possessed at any time, 

 appears to have been traditionary : for we may well doubt whether, with- 

 out such a basis to have built upon, philosophy would ever have started 

 any well-grounded opinion in favour of a future state. And this tradition- 

 ary knowledge seems to have been of two kmds, and both kinds to have 

 been delivered at a very early age of the world — the immortality of the 

 soul, and the final resurrection of the body. From the preceding sketch 

 it seems reasonable to suppose that both these doctrines (unquestionably 

 beyond the reach of mere human discovery) were divinely communicated 

 to the patriarchs ; and amidst the growing wickedness of succeeding 

 times, gradually forgotten and lost sight of : in some quarters one of them 

 being slightly preserved, in some quarters the other, and in one or two 

 regions, both. 



In this last division it is highly probable we are to class the Hebrews 

 at the epoch of Moses : and hence, perhaps, the reason why neither of 

 these doctrines is specially promulgated in any part of his institutes. But 

 in subsequent times both appear to have lost much of their force even 

 among tiiis people. The Pharisees and Caraites, indeed, whose opinions 

 (whatever might be their practice) were certainly the most orthodox, 

 supported them ; but they are well known to have been both relinquished 

 by the Sadducees, and one of them (the resurrection,) by the Essenes. 

 Solomon, whose frequent use of Arabisms evidently betrays the elegant 

 school in which he had chiefly studied, appears with the language to have 

 imbibed the philosophy of the Arabian peninsula, and hence, to have ad- 

 mitted (in direct opposition to the Essenes, who drew their creed from 

 India,) the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and a state of retri- 

 bution, while^ he disbelieved the doctrine of the separate immortality of 

 the soul : and the distinction ought to be constantly kept in view while 

 perusing his writings, since otherwise they may appear in different places 

 to contradict themselves. Thus, in order to confound the pomp and pa- 

 geantry of the proud and the powerful, and to show them the vanity and 

 nothingness of life, he adverts to the last of these doctrines and confines 

 himself to it, Eccl. iii. 19, 20. " That which befalleth the sons of men 

 befalleth beasts, even the same thii».g befalleth them : as the one dieth sq 

 dieth the other ; yea, they have all one breath (or spirit), so that a man 

 hath no pre-eminence above a beast, for all is vanity : ail go unto one 

 place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." But when ad- 

 dressing himself to the young and giddy pursuer of pleasure, in order to 

 alarm him in the midst of his gay and licentious career, he as distinctly 

 alludes and as carefully confines himself to the first of these doctrines. 

 His language then is, ch. xi. 9. " Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth," 



* Xenoph. Mem. 1. iv. Plat. Apol. Laert. ii. 



