( '55 ) 
have had no exiftence, and Vice was as ne- 
cefTarily the confequence of the exiftence of 
Virtue, as vallies are produced by the ele- 
vation of mountains, or darknefs by the ab- 
fence of light. 
On this philofophy is founded the Chrit- 
tian doctrine of rewards and punifhments : 
a doctrine fo rational and fo juft, that it 
burft prophetically on the imagination of 
the almoft infpired Cicero. Scipio, relating 
his dream, tells his auditors, that, meeting 
his father, Paulus Emelius, in the cceleftial 
regions, he faid, among other things, juf- 
titiam cole et pietatem, qua cum magna Jit in 
parentibus et propinquis, turn in f atria maxima 
eft : ea vita via eft in ccelum, et in hum catum 
eorum, qui jam vixerunt, et corpore laxatt, 
ilium incolunt locum quern vides. 
As to the fouls of thofe qui fe corporis vo- 
luptatibus dediderunt y he excludes them hea- 
ven, until, as a punifhment for their crimes, 
they have fpent ages in fluttering round the 
Earth, circum *ferram ipfam volutantur. 
Horace too, you remember, in his charm- 
ing Ode to Mercury, afcribes to him the 
grateful office of conducting pious fouls to 
heaven. 
