Cliap. 57.] THE INVEKTOES OF YAEIOTJS THINGS. 219 
see, or hear, or how to touch ? And then, of what use is it, 
or what can it avail, if it has not these faculties ? Where, 
too, is its residence, and what vast multitudes of these souls 
and spirits*^ must there be after the lapse of so many ages? 
Eut all these are the mere figments of childish ravings, and of 
that mortality which is so anxious never to cease to exist. It 
is a similar piece of vanity, too, to preserve the dead bodies of 
men ; just like the promise that he shall come to life again, 
which was made by Democritus;^^ who, however, never has come 
to life again himself. Out upon it ! What downright mad- 
ness is it to suppose that life is to recommence after death ! or 
indeed, what repose are we ever to enjoy when we have been 
once born, if the soul is to retain its consciousness in heaven, 
and the shades of the dead in the infernal regions? This 
pleasing delusion, and this credulity, quite cancel that chief 
good of human nature, death, and, as it were, double the 
misery of him who is about to die, by anxiety as to what is 
to happen to him after it. And, indeed, if life really is a 
good, to whom can it be so to have once lived ? 
How much more easy, then, and how much more devoid of 
all doubts, is it for each of us to put his trust in himself, and 
guided by our knowledge of what our state has been before 
birth, to assume that that after death will be the same. 
CHAP. 57. (56.) — THE Il^VENTOKS OF VAEIOTJS THII^GS. 
Eefore we quit the consideration of the nature of man, it 
appears only proper to point out those persons who have been 
the authors of different inventions. Father Liber^^ was the first 
to establish the practice of buying and selling ; he also invented 
Hardouin remarks, that the ancients made a distinction between the 
souls of the dead, and their spirits or shades, " umbrae." The former were 
supposed to remain on the earth, while the latter were removed either to 
Elysium or to Tartarus, according to the character or actions of the de- 
ceased. — B. 
^2 According to Yarro, Democritus directs, that the body shall not be 
burnt after death, but preserved in honey ; on which Yarro remarks, how 
greatly such a practice would tend to raise the price of that article. — B. 
^3 It has been conjectured, that Bacchus derived his name from the 
Greek word Bdtrjcw, on account of his numerous journies into different 
parts of the world ; it was during these that he conveyed to the various 
nations which he visited the arts of civilized life. — B. 
