animate them. To tell what tricks Pythagoras used, to impofe on men the belief of this no lefs abfurd than impious doctrine, would make this digreffion too tedious; therefore, I will only add, that Cicero i. Tufcul. obferves, that Plato too, who taught that the universal ideas of things are from all eternity, and eternal, held, if not a perfect remembrance, a reminifcency at leaft of the actions that paffed in the life that preceded the infufion of the foul into the body. And againf thefe doctrines of these two philofophers, Lucre. tius chiefly directs this argument, and fome of the following. Ver. 649. The feventeenth argument, in thefe fixteen verfes, is to this purpofe: If the foul were infufed into a perfect body, it ought to have been done in fuch a manner, that it might be in that body like a bird in a cage; not as it now is, when it fecms to grow, and be so much of a piece with it, that it cannot be Lafe and while out of it, and thus betrays ittelf to have had a in its way thither, the privilege not to tafte of If this argument be brought only against the Pythagoreans, we need not concern ourselves about it; but if it be levelled against us, who af fert, that immortal fouls are infufed into our be dies the moment they are created, it is already anfwered in our note upon the fecond argument, ver. 428; to which we add befiues, that the foul is infuled into the body, not as an aflifting form, as they call it, fuch as is the pilot in a fhip, and the coachman in a chariot; but as an informing form, and as the principle of vital motion. But its departure from the body, to which it is fo closely and inly joined, without any divifion of its parts, but whole and free from all ftain and blemish of corruption, is a privilege due to its spirituality; for whatever is spiritual cannot be disjoined or divided. Ver. 665 Thefe fifteen verfes include the eighteenth argument. Let us grant, fays the poet, that the foul is, as they will have it, first formed, and infufed afterwards; yet it muft of neceffity fuffer change, as it is diffused into all the different mazes and pores of the body, its fite and order is changed, and the whole fubftance divided into parts. For let any thing flow inte fo many pipes, fo many paffages and holes as are in the body, it muft of neceffity be turned and twisted about in many manners. For example, the food we eat, while it is conveyed through the veins and other conduits of the body to every member of it, lofes its firft form, and takes up one that is quite different. And we ought to believe, that the foul too undergoes a like change, and confequently is mortal. This argument is answered by what we have feveral times afferted; for fince the foul is incorporeal and fpiritual, why may it not be infufed whole and without any divifion of its parts, into the body, and all its members? And if, for inftance, the whiteness of the milk fpreads itfelf through the whole fubftance of the milk, without any divifion of itfelf, how much rather may the foul diffufe itself through the body? Befides, ne ther does the meat that is diftributed into the members of animals, die and perish; but after it is concocted by the natural heat, it is converted into the nature of the body it feeds. Ver. 630. These twenty-nine verses includes the nineteenth argument. If the foul, fays he, when it goes out of the body, leaves fome particles behind, they being thus feparated, argue the foul to be fubject to diffolution; if it leaves none, no caufe can be alleged why fo many worms take life in the carcafe; for to pretend that fo great a number of fouls flow together from without to the place from whence one departed, would be very abfurd indeed; and yet it would be more abfurd to say that each foul chooses for itself what feeds are moft proper to make itself a body, that the may fuffer all thofe ills from which he is exempted when out of a body; or that she enters into a body already made, fince it is impoffible that she can fit and fashion herself to inform each part of it. It is fcandalous to waste time in confuting these trifles; however, to folve all these arguments in a word, I fay, that the human foul being incorporeal, it leaves not any remains of itfelf in the body, nor is the generation of worms in a dead carcafe made of the corruption of the foul that animated that body, but of the corruption of that carcafe only, as it likewife happens in cheese, in rotten earth, &c. Nor, laftly, are the fouls of the worms infufed from without, but, to use the words of Lucretius, are generated, as often as there happens to be in thofe carcafes, or in any other putrified bodies, any feeds or atoms that are fit and proper to generate thofe infects. affirm, that a thing fo often changed is immortal. This whole argument is bent only against the Pythagoreans, who held that souls pafs from body to body, as well as of man as of beast. But what he advances, that fouls change according to the paffions, difpofitions, and manners of the different bodies, and grow with them, is already an fwered in the note on ver. 429. Ver. 717. Lucretius calls it "Canis Hyrcano de femine," a dog of the Hyrcanian breed. Hyrcania is a country of Alia, which has the Caspian sea on the eaft, Iberia on the weft, Armenia on the fouth, and Albania on the north. Now, in this country there are a great quantity of panthers, leopards, and tygers, the males of which animals, they fay, fometimes couple with bitches, who bring forth a very fagacious fort of dog, and these are they of which our poet here speaks. Ver. 730. For as Cicero fays in Cato, " Teme. ritas eft florentis ætatis, prudentia fenectutis:" Rashness is the effect of youth, and prudence of old age. And Ariftotle teaches the fame thing in Ethic vi. where he says, that though prudence be requifite in every thing, yet nothing is learned without experience and practice, therefore a child cannot be prudent, fince age alone can make him fo. Ver. 735. What Lucretius means is this: They cannot deny but that the mind is tender in a tender body; for example, that the mind of a child of two or three years old is weak and infirm; but if it be true that a mind, which was ftrong before, becomes weak in a weak body, it follows from thence, that the mind is mortal. But the dif ference of the organs in the bodies answers this part of the argument. in purfuit of the fugitives, and, in the first place, defires to know why a foul is so paffionately fond of an adult body? And why it lothes the members that are grown feeble with age, and haftens to get out of them? For, if it were immortal, it would not dread the imbecillity of infancy, nog the ruins of old age. Ver. 709. The twentieth argument is in thefe thirty verfes, and attacks the doctrine of Pythagoras and of Plato. If thefe inmortal fouls, fays Ver. 739. In thefe nine verfes, is contained the he, had fo often been shifted out of the body of twenty-firft argument. Lucretius having hitherone animal to the body of another, the natural to fought this battle with his utmost strength, difpofitions of the animals would by little and with all his kill and application of mind, and little have been changed and altered. Thus the having befides, as he fancies, routed his adverfalion would not now be fierce, the deer not fear-ries, he now detaches fome light-armed arguments ful, the fox not crafty; the dog would run from the ftag, and the dove would pursue the hawk; beafts would be wife, and men void of reafon; for the foul of the dove would often be in the hawk, and the foul of a beaft inform the body of a man, and in like manner on the contrary: but if it be pretended that the nature of the foul changes according to the different natures of the bodies, and that of whatever kinds the fouls are, they put on the manners that agree with the bodies into which they enter, I afk no more. for whatever can be changed is mortal, fince in every change there must be a tranfpofition, and confe quently a diffolution of the parts. But if it be pretended, for example, that human fouls go only into human bodies, why does that foul, which, but behaved itself wifely in the body of a man grown up to the years of maturity, play the fool at the rate it does when it is infufed into the body of a child? Does the mind grow weak and tender in a weak and tender body? If it does, it is changed; and no man in his fenfes will dare now, This argument is of fo little weight, that it fcarce deferves an answer. For who can believe that the foul retires from the body in apprehenfion of being crushed to pieces, or in dread of any danger that can happen to her from the fall of her tenement of clay; the leaves it because its organs are fo impaired and weakened that she can no longer perform in them the functions of life. Ver. 748. The twenty-fecond argument is in thefe feven verfes, where the poet urges, that it is ridiculous to believe that a multitude of fouls are waiting at the coitions and births of animals, and contending who fhall get first into the body, unlefs, perhaps, it is agreed among them that the firft comer fhall be firft ferved. This argument, abfurd as it is, nevertheless, preffes hard upon the Pythagoreans, though it do not in the leaft affect us, who teach and believe, that God creates the foul the very moment it is infufed into a new-formed body. Ver 755 The twenty-third argument is contained in these fifteen verfes, in which he observe, that as all other things have a fixed and certain region or place allotted them, to be born, to grow, and to live in. fo has the foul likewife, and thereforc can no more exift out of the body than fish can out of the water, than a tree in the air, or than a cloud in the fea: Nor can it be doubted in the leaf, but that the foul is born, grows, lives, and exifts in and with the whole body; for otherwife we should feel it formed, fometimes in the head, fometimes in the fhoulders, nay, in the heels, and perceive it diffufing itfelf by little and little through the whole body. This argument is to the fame purpose as the thirteenth, and is anfwered in the note on ver 593. The first thirteen verses of it are repeated, Book v. ver. 140. Ver. 762. Here our tranflator has followed the emendation of Faber, which, nevertheless, in his Latin edition of Lucretius, he condemns, as not agreeing in the leaft with the lection of any of the ancient copies; and therefore he is rather of opinion to reject entirely this verfe of his author, Tandem in eodem homine, atque in eodem vase maneret, than to admit it, as corrected by Faber, who makes it run thus: Tandem in toto homine, aqua ut in toto vase ma neret. He owns, however, the correction to be ingenious, and that he is not better pleafed with the conjectures of others concerning this paffage. Ver 770. In thefe fix verfes, which contain the twenty-fourth argument, he fays, that it is downright folly to believe that things, fo different as mortal and immortal beings, can be joined together, and, that a mortal thing (the body) which, when feparated from that immortal thing (the foul), is fubject to no harms nor inconvenicncies, fhould, when it is united to that immortal thing, be liable to thofe pains and afflictions with which men are daily oppreffed. If Lucretius could not comprehend how a mortal body could be joined to an immortal foul, how came he to find out that the void, which is incorporeal and eternal, is intermixed with created things that are corporeal and mortal? But others, and great philofophers too, could comprehend it very well; as Ariftotle, who afferted immortal fouls in mortal bodies; and Plato, who taught that the Eternal Mind is infufed through all the parts of this tranfitory and corruptible world And Hermes, who, as Lactantius, lib. xii. de Divin. Peam, witneffe-, com; ofed the nature of man of fomething mortal, and fomething immortal, from whence is become, as it were, the hori5 zon that joins the higheft to the lowest, and the earthly to the heavenly. Thus these men, and others too, acknowledged fome things partly mor tal, partly immortal: and indeed the extremes would otherwife have been without a middle, and therefore they were in the right to make fome things mixed of mortal and immortal. Ver. 776. The twenty-fifth argument is contained in thefe twenty-one verles, and is to this effect: Nothing is eternal and immortal, except either by reason of its folidity, as an atom, or be caufe it is free from ftroke, as the void, or lattly, because there is no place out of which, or from whence any bodies can come to dafh it to pieces, or into which its diffolved or broken parts can retire, as the rò Пav, univerfe. But the foul is nothing like any of those three things, for it is compofed of feeds, and therefore not perfectly folid It is not a void, because it affects the body, and in its turn is affected by it: And no man will pretend that the foul is the rò Пas, univerfe; therefore it is mortal. Thefe twenty-one verles are repeated, Book v ver. 395. To all the objections he brings in this argument against the immortality of the foul, we anfwer, I. That the foul, indeed, is not an atom, but that not an atom only is eternal. 11. That the foul is not the void, but that not the void alone is eternal. III. That indeed the foul is not the universe, but that not the univerfe only is eternal for God is eternal and immortal, and the fouls of men are eternal and immortal: thus, befides the three that Lucretius mentions, there is a fourth fort of immortal things. And Plutarch, de Nat. Deor. reafening according to the doctrine of Epicurus, tells us, that even he allowed four kinds of things to be free from corruption, and that under the fourth kind was included the foul of man. Ver. 797. The twenty-fixth, and laft argument against the immortality of the foul, is contained in these twelve verfes. If any one pretend that the mind is either fenced from things that are contrary and deftructive to it, or that if any fuch things fhould advance againft it, they cannot reach it, or if they do reach it, they cannot hurt it, but are repelled before. This opinion is overthrown by the difeafes of the body, of which the mind too bears a part: to which may be added, the reftlefs cares and anxieties of life, and the dread of punishments after death: but what is yet more, and worfe than all thefe, add con. science, that inward hell: and, laftly, add madnefs and lethargy and thus you will be forced to confefs, that the mind is not protected from pernicious things, but that, on the contrary, it is miferably oppreffed by them. This argument is, as we faid before, not a proof of any defect in the foul, or in the mind, but argues only the weakness and imperfections of the body and its organs. Thus Lucretius concludes his difputation concerning the mortality of the foul: and to evince the infufficiency of his arguments, and how much they fall fhort of reaching his defign to prove the foul mortal, it will not be amiss to take a short view of them from the beginning of this book. First, then, he grants the foul to be a fubftance, diftinct from thefe viûble members, and divides it into two parts, the foul, properly fo called, and the mind, which is the governing and ruling part, and takes the heart for its proper feat, whilst the foul is diffused over the whole body; but thefe two are but one nature, and united, because the mind can act on the foul, and the foul on the mind, and therefore both are material, Tangere enim et tangi fine corpore nulla poteft res. For nought but body can be touch'd or touch. This fubftance of the foul is a congeries of round fmooth atoms, and confifts of four parts, wind, heat, air, and a fourth nameless thing, which is the principle of fenfe. This foul is not equal to the body, as Democritus imagined, but its parts are fet at diftance, and when preffed by any external objects, meet, and jumble against one another, and fo perceive. This is the defcription of the Epicurean foul, and the manner of its acting; and all the arguments they propofe against its immortality, endeavour likewife to evince it material, and that too from the mutual acting of the foul and body on one another. To examine each particular, I fhall firft grant it material, and then confider the validity of that confequence; fecondly, prove it immaterial, and fhow that an immaterial being can act on a material, and then difcourfe on the validity of that confequence, which infers it to be immortal, becaufe it is immaterial. And here I fhall admit the diftinction between foul and mind, taking one to be the principle of life, and the other of fenfe, but cannot allow them to be one nature, becaufe of their mutual ating, unless the body too, on the fame account, be but one nature with the foul, which Lucretius bimfelf denies. This mind is feated in the brain, a thousand experiments affuring us, that when there happens any obftruction in the nerves, the animal feels not though you cut the part that lies below the ftoppage, and yet the leaft prick above it raifes the ufual pains and convulfions. Now, fuppofe this mind material, and confider, that it has been already proved, that matter is not felf-exiftent, and therefore depends on another fubftance for its being; now I fuppofe any man will grant that it is as eafy to preferve as to make a thing, for prefervation is only a continuing that being which is already given; and therefore though the foul were material, yet the confequence is weak. And thus the Stoics, though they acknowledge nothing but body, Tà dì xà γιανήν τε καὶ φθαρτὴν λέγεσιν, ἐκ ἰὐθὺς δὲ τὸ σώμα. τις ἀπαλλγεῖσαν φθείρεσθαι, ἀλλ ̓ ἐπιμένειν τινὰς χρόνος καθ' αυτόν, τὴν μὲν τῶν σπουδαίον μέχρι της ῆς τῆς ἀναλύσεως τῶν πάντων, τὴν δὲ τῶν ἀφρόνων TIK TOCÈS TIVÈS xoves. And affirm the foul to be generated and corruptible; yet it is not deArayed as foon as divided from the limbs, but re mains fome time in that state; yet the fouls of the vifcious and ignorant fome few years, but those of the wife and good till the general conflagration of the world. Secondly, That the foul is immaterial, is evident from its operations; for when any external object preffes on the organ, it can only move it; now, let this motion be inward, arifing from the preffure of the external object, or let it be an endeavour outward, proceeding from the refiftance of the heart, as Mr. Hobbes imagines, or elfe a little trembling of the minute parts, as the Epicureans deliver, yet what is either of these motions to fenfe? For, ftrike any piece of matter, there arifes presently that preffure inward, and the endeavour outward; and yet I believe no man accounts a workman cruel for breaking a ftone, or ftriking a piece of timber, though, according to this opinion, he may raife as quick a fenfe of pain in thefe as in a man: Nor mut any one object the different figures and contrivances of ftones and nerves, for those only make the motion more or lefs eafy, but cannot alter the nature of the preffure; befides, let us take several round little balls, and fhake them in a bag that they may meet, ftrike, and reflet, who can ima gine that here is any perception? That these balls feel the motion, and know that they do fo? And indeed the Epicureans grant what we contend for, fince they flee to a fourth nameless thing, i. e. they cannot imagine any matter under any particular schematifm fit to think and perceive. But grant that fimple apprehenfion could belong to matter, yet how could it unite two things in a propofition, and pronounce them agreeable? How, after this conjunction, confider them again, and collect, and form a fyllogifin? For there is no caufe of either of those two motions, and therefore they cannot be in matter. For, fuppofe two things propofed to confideration, and let their fimple preffure on the organs raife a phantafm, this is the only motion that can be caused by the objects; now, let thefe be removed, and any man will find himself able to confider the nature of thefe objects, compare their properties, and view their agreement, which must be a distinct motion from the former, and this too can be done feveral hours, months, or years, after the first preffure of the objects, and after the organs have been difturbed with other motions, and confequently the first quite loft; and, after all this, he can join thefe two objects thus compared, with a third, and compare them again, and, after that, bring the two extremes into a conclufion, and all this by the ftrength of his own judgment, without the help, the preffure, or direction of any external impulfe. Befides, the Epicureans grant they have a conception of atoms, void, and infinite, of which they could never receive any image, and confequently no caufe of their conception, matter being not to be moved but by material images, and thole too of equal Vignets with the corpufeles that frame the foul. Other reafons may be produced from the difproportion of the image of the object to the organ, it being impulfible that any the power of him that framed it; therefore immor tality is a gift of the Creator, and might likewise have been bestowed on matter; and thus beafts may be allowed fubftances capable of perception, which may direct, and govern them, and die, and be buried in the fame grave with their bodies. But we have fuch great evidence for the immor fations of Providence, and infallible promifes, that I could not give a firmer affent, nor have a ftronger ground for my opinion, if the proofs could be reduced to figures, and propofed in fquares, and triangles. thing should appear bigger than the organ, if fenfe were only the motion of it, or of fome parts contained in it, because it would be able to receive no more motion than what came from fome part of the object of equal dimensions to it But Ihaften to thow, that an immaterial being can act on a material. And here we muft mind again, that the fublunary matter is not felf-ex-tality of the mind of man, both from the dispen. iftent, and therefore depends on fomething that is fo; now, this being cannot be matter, for all matter is divifible, and therefore inconfiftent with neceffary existence; now, this fubftance, as he created, fo he must move matter, for motion is not a neceffary mode of it, as every man's fenfes will evince; and it is the fame thing to create and preferve a being, with fuch and fuch a mode or accident, as it is barely to create it. And this infers, that he can act on matter as much as the foul now does; and this action is not any thing diftinct from his will; the fame power that created moves it; and, that this may be easily conceived, every man has a fecret witness in himfelf, and may be convinced from his own actions. But let us confider a little farther, and we shall find motion as difficult to be conceived as this mode of action; for those that define motion to be only a fucceffive mode of being in refpect to place, only tell us the effect of it, when we inquire after its nature; I fhall therefore take it for a phyfical being, and distinct from matter as its tranfitions out of one body into another fufficiently evince; and any man may easily obferve how full of contradictions Cartes is when he treats of this subject, having determined motion to be only a mode of matter. Now, all the definitions of the philofophers prove, that we have no idea of this but from its effects, and therefore its manner of acting, of tranfition, &c. is as hard to be conceived, as the mode of action in an immaterial fubftance, and yet no man doubts it. Thirdly, There is a great contest about brutes, fome allowing them perception, others afferting them to be nothing but machines, and as void of all fenfe as an engine. This latter opinion is irreconcileable to their actions, and to that experience we have of their docility, and the relations of their cunning, even from thofe mens mouths, which are great fticklers for this fancy : and this arifes from a common opinion, that if they grant brutes immaterial fouls, as they must do if they allow them perception, the confequence will be unavoidable, therefore they are immortal. But to fpeak freely, I could never perceive any ftrength in this argument; and if I had no ftronger convictions, I could fubfcribe to Seneca's opinion, in his epiftle 102. "Juvabat de animæ æternitate quærere, imo meherculè credere; credebam enim facilè opinionibus magnorum virorum rem graviffimum promittentium, magis quàm probantium." It was delightful to inquire into the eternity of the foul, nay even to believe it: For 1 eafily gave credit to the opinions of great men, who promised a thing of the highest importance, rather than proved it. For immateriality does not infer neceffity of cxiftence, or put the thing above Befides the general, he produces many particular arguments, from the different operations of the foul in the feveral stages of our life. He had obferved (and who can be ignorant of it) that though both in childhood, youth, and old age, the notices of external objects are extremely clear and perfect, yet at firft our apprehenfions and our memories are weak, our judgment and reafon little, and very different from the accurate perception of riper years: and that decays again, and extreme old age flowly leads back to our fwadling clothes and our cradles: To these he adds the various distempers that are incident to man; how fometimes the mind is lulled into a lethargy, and then waked again into a frantic fit; and how at laft death fteals in upon our life, and wins inch by inch, till it becomes mafter of the whole: And hence he infers the increase and decay of the mind, and that it is born, and dies: Now thele arguments cannot ftartle any one that confiders the immortality of the foul is not to be inferred from any attribute of its own fubftance; but the will and pleasure of the Author of its being: and therefore did it really fuffer all thofe disturbances he imagines, yet who doubts but a tormented thing may be kept in being, fince the torment itself is not death: But natural philofophy will account for these distractions, if we confider what life is, and how the foul must depend on the body, as to its operations: If we diffinguish life from fente it is nothing elfe but a due motion and digeftion of the humours; and this agrees to plants as well as fenfibles; they are nourished, grow, and live alike, and an animal dies, becaufe fome of thefe are either loft, or depraved; for were her habita tion good and convenient, the foul would never leave it, he has no fuch relu&ancy to matter, nor is fo afraid of its pollutions, as the Platonitis fancy, that fhe fhould be eager to be gone; ba when the body fails, and is unfit for thofe animal motions, over which it was her office to prefide, the muft retire from the lump of clay, and go to her appointed place: So that the foul fuffers nothing when the limbs grow ufelefs, as even conmon obfervation teftifies; for a pally in the arm or leg does not impair the judgment; and often when the limbs are feeble, and the body funk to an extremity of weakness, the mind is vigorous and active, and very unequal company for the decaying matter. And as for the pain and tor ture that accompany death, and make the tragedy more folemn, it is evident, that fuppofe the fol |