multitude of heads that do deny traduction, having no other argument to confirm their belief than that rhetorical sentence and antimetathesis 5* of Augustine, creando infunditur, infundendo creatur. Either opinion will consist well enough with religion: yet I should rather incline to this, did not one objection haunt me, not wrung from speculations and subtleties, but from common sense and observation; not pick'd from the leaves of any author, but bred amongst the weeds and tares of my own brain. And this is a conclusion from the equivocal and monstrous productions in the copulation of a man with a beast:7 for if the soul of man be not transmitted and transfused in the seed of the parents, why are not those productions merely beasts, but have also an impression and tincture of reason in as high a measure, as it can evidence itself in those improper organs? Nor, truly, can I peremptorily deny that the soul, in this her sublunary estate, is wholly, and in all acceptions, inorganical: but that, for the performance of her ordinary actions, is required not only a symmetry and proper disposition of organs, but a crasis and temper correspondent to its operations; yet is not this mass of flesh and visible structure the instrument and

8

proper

* Antanaclasis.-A figure in rhetoric, where one word is inserted upon another.-MS. W.

that they are only pretty little dogs to play with.' Were these akin to the fairies of Paracelsus?"-D'Israeli's Second Series of Curiosities of Literature, vol. iii. p. 14, 15.-Ed.

5 antimetathesis.] All the MSS. and Edts. 1642 read, "antanaclasis."*-Ed.

6 author.] Edts. 1642 read, other.-Ed.

7 from the equivocal, &c.] The French translator not only refers to several authorities for the existence of such things, but asserts that he had seen one himself. "Touchant cette affaire, Jean Baptiste, Mag. Nat. lib. ii. cap. 12, raconte ou rapporte quelques exemples, qu'il a prises, ou tirées de Plinius, Plutarchus, Ælianus, et autres. Les écrivains ou auteurs témoignent, que cela arrive encore aux Indes en plusieurs endroits; et moimême en ai vu un à Leyden."

Blumenbach however rejects such stories, as fabulous tales which do not need contradiction.-Ed.

8

peremptorily.] So in MSS. R. & W. 2; MS. W. and Edts. 1642 read, reasonably.-Ed.

9 and in all acceptions.]

1642.-Ed.

Omitted in all the MSS. and Edts.

corpse of the soul, but rather of sense, and that the hand1 of reason. In our study of anatomy there is a mass of mysterious philosophy, and such as reduced the very heathens to divinity; yet, amongst all those rare discoveries and curious pieces I find in the fabrick of man, I do not so much content myself, as in that I find not, that is, no organ or instrument for the rational soul; for in the brain, which we term the seat of reason, there is not anything of moment more than I can discover in the crany of a beast: and this is a sensible and no inconsiderable argument of the inorganity of the soul, at least in that sense we usually so receive it.2 Thus we are men, and we know not how; there is something in us that can be without us, and will be after us, though it is strange that it hath no history what it was before us, nor cannot tell how it entered in us.3

SECT. XXXVII.—Now, for these walls of flesh, wherein the

the hand.] All the MSS. and Edts. 1642 read, "the nearer ubi."-Ed.

2 and this is a sensible, &c.] This concluding part of the sentence is omitted in all the MSS. and Edts. 1642.-Ed.

3 In our study of anatomy, &c.] "What a contrast," says Dr. Drake, after quoting this and several other similar passages, "do these admirable quotations form, when opposed to the scepticism of the present day, to the doctrines of the physiological materialists of the school of Bichat! A system of philosophy, if so it may be called, which, should it ever unhappily prevail in the medical world, would render the often-repeated, though hitherto ill-founded, sarcasm against the profession, ubi tres medici, duo Athei, no longer a matter of calumny.

"It is, however, with pride and pleasure that, at a period when scepticism has been obtruded upon us as a topic of distinction and triumph, and even taught in our public schools, we can point to a roll of illustrious names, the most consummate for their talent among those who have made the study of life, and health and disease their peculiar profession, who have publicly borne testimony to their firm belief in the existence of their God, and in the immortality of the human soul. When Galen, meditating on the structure and functions of the body, broke forth into that celebrated declaration, Compono hic profecto Canticum in Creatoris nostri laudem, he but led the way to similar but still more important avowals from the mighty names of Boerhaave and of Haller, of Sydenham and of Browne, and of Mead: men unrivalled for their professional sagacity, and alike impressed with the deepest conviction of one great first cause of future being and of eternity, 'that ancient source as well as universal sepulchre of worlds and ages, in which the duration of this globe is lost as that of a day, and the life of man as a moment."" Drake's Evenings in Autumn, vol. ii. p. 71-73.-Ed.

soul doth seem to be immured before the resurrection, it is nothing but an elemental composition, and a fabrick that must4 fall to ashes. "All flesh is grass,' ," is not only metaphorically, but literally, true; for all those creatures we behold are but the herbs of the field, digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified in ourselves. Nay, further, we are what we all abhor, anthropophagi, and cannibals, devourers not only of men, but of ourselves; and that not in an allegory but a positive truth: for all this mass of flesh which we behold, came in at our mouths: this frame we look upon, hath been upon our trenchers; in brief, we have devoured ourselves.5 I cannot believe the wisdom of Pythagoras did ever positively, and in a literal sense, affirm his metempsychosis, or impossible transmigration of the souls of men into beasts. Of all metamorphoses or trans

4 must.] Edts. 1642 read, may.-Ed.

5 Nay, further, &c.] The Latin annotator is not content to receive this singular passage literally, as the author clearly intended it. He gives the following notes:

66

Ipsi anthropophagi sumus.] Ut embryones in utero matris; nam mater ex proprio corpore nutrimentum illis præbet: nutriuntur etiam postea ex utero matris egressi lacte fœminino.

"Sed et nos ipsos devorare soliti.] Nam mosti et invidi proprium cor comedere dicuntur."-Ed.

• I cannot believe, &c.] The metempsychosis may perhaps be supposed to have arisen out of the belief which the early philosophers adopted of the immortality of the soul. It has been said that Pythagoras not only believed in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls literally; but even went so far as to assert his recollection of the various bodies which his own soul had inhabited; attributing his remembrance to the special grace of Mercury.

"The opinion of the metempsychosis spread in almost every region of the earth; and it continues even to the present time, in all its force amongst those nations who have not yet embraced Christianity. The people of Arracan, Peru, Siam, Camboya, Tonquin, Cochin-China, Japan, Java, and Ceylon, still entertain that fancy, which also forms the chief article of the Chinese religion. The Druids believed in transmigration. The bardic triads of the Welsh are full of this belief; and a Welsh antiquary insists that by an emigration which formerly took place, it was conveyed to the Bramins of India from Wales! It is on this system of transmigration that Taliessin the Welsh bard, who wrote in the sixth century, gives a recital of his pretended transmigrations. He tells how he had been a serpent, a wild ass, a buck, or a crane, &c.; and this kind of reminiscence of his former state, this recovery of memory, was a proof of the mortal's advances to the happier circle. For

migrations, I believe only one, that is of Lot's wife; for that of Nabuchodonosor proceeded not so far. In all others I conceive there is no further verity than is contained in their implicit sense and morality. I believe that the whole frame of a beast doth perish, and is left in the same state after death as before it was materialed unto life: that the souls of men know neither contrary nor corruption; that they subsist beyond the body, and outlive death by the privilege of their proper natures, and without a miracle: that the souls of the faithful, as they leave earth, take possession of heaven; that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting and suggesting us unto mischief, blood, and villany; instilling and stealing into our hearts that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander, solicitous of the affairs of the world. But that those phantasms appear often, and do frequent cemeteries, charnel-houses, and churches, it is because those are the dormitories of the dead, where the devil, like an insolent champion, beholds with pride the spoils and trophies of his victory in Adam.8

to forget what we have been, was one of the curses of the circle of evil. According to the authentic Clavigero, in his history of Mexico, we find the Pythagorean transmigration carried on in the west, and not less fancifully than in the countries of the east. The people of Tlascala believe that the souls of persons of rank went after their death to inhabit the bodies of beautiful and sweet singing birds, and those of the nobler quadrupeds; while the souls of inferior persons were supposed to pass into weasels, beetles, and such other meaner animals." D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, vol. ii. p. 49-52.-Ed.

With respect to the real opinions of Pythagoras, on this subject, see Bulstrode's Essay on Transmigration; Dr. Stackhouse's preface to the Chinese Tales; and Taylor's translation of Jamblichus's Life of Pythagoras. On the Jewish notions respecting the doctrine of transmigration, see Stehelin's Rabbinical Literature, vol. i. p. 277— 338.-E. H. B.

7 beholds.] So all the MSS.; Edts. 1642 read, holds.—Ed.

8 that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons, &c.] Vide Chrysostomum, in Homil. 29 in Matthæum; Augustin. De Cura pro mortuis, c. 10, 16, et seqq.-M.

See Sir K. Digby's criticism on this passage.

Modern philosophers of the school of Schott, Gaffarel, &c. have a ready solution, in their Palingenesis, for the apparitions of animals as well as plants. "Thus the dead naturally revive and a corpse may

SECT. XXXVIII.-This is that dismal conquest we all deplore, that makes us so often cry, O Adam, quid fecisti? I thank God I have not those strait ligaments, or narrow obligations to the world, as to dote on life, or be convulsed and tremble at the name of death. Not that I am insensible of the dread and horror thereof; or, by raking into the bowels of the deceased, continual sight of anatomies, skeletons, or cadaverous relicks, like vespilloes, or gravemakers, I am become stupid, or have forgot the apprehension of mortality; but that, marshalling all the horrors, and contemplating the extremities thereof, I find not anything therein able to daunt the courage of a man, much less a well-resolved Christian; and therefore am not angry at the error of our first parents, or unwilling to bear a part of this common fate, and, like the best of them, to die; that is, to cease to breathe, to take a farewell of the elements; to be a kind of nothing for a moment; to be within one instant of a spirit. When I take a full view and circle of myself without this reasonable moderator, and equal piece of justice, death, I do conceive myself the miserablest person extant. Were there not another life that I hope for, all the vanities of this world should not entreat a moment's breath

from me. Could the devil work my belief to imagine I could never die, I would not outlive that very thought. I have so abject a conceit2 of this common way of existence, this retaining to the sun and elements, I cannot think this

give out its shadowy reanimation, when not too deeply buried in the earth. Bodies corrupted in their graves have risen, particularly the murdered; for murderers are apt to bury their victims in a slight and hasty manner. Their salts, exhaled in vapour by means of their fermentation, have arranged themselves on the surface of the earth, and formed those phantoms, which at night have often terrified the passing spectator, as authentic history witnesses. They have opened the graves of the phantom, and discovered the bleeding corpse beneath: hence it is astonishing how many ghosts may be seen at night, after a recent battle, standing over their corpses!" D'Israeli's Second Series of Curiosities of Literature, vol. iii. p. 17.-Ed.

9 one instant of a spirit.] So in MSS. R. & W. 2; Edts. 1642 and MS. W. read, "in one instant a spirit."-Ed.

1 without.] So in MS. R.; MS. W. and Edts. 1642 read, but with. MS. W. 2 reads, with but.-Ed.

2 conceit.] So in MSS. R. & W. 2; Edts. 1642 and MS. W. read, thought.-Ed.