point in his system. Purification from the contagions of animal life, by the principles of divine wisdom, he regarded as already a beginning of the immortal life of the gods; and this inward unity with celestial natures, he thought ought to be manifested in outward beauty. Therefore, he loved to be surrounded by majestic and graceful statues, to hear harmonious sounds, to wear clothing made of soft and fine materials, and to observe a becoming propriety in his words and actions.

A short time before his death, he is said to have dreamed that he was changed into a swan. He fell gently asleep among his friends at a wedding banquet, a healthy old man, on his eighty-first birth-day. Some of the Eastern Magi, who happened to be at Athens, are reported to have thought it very significant that his mortal life should have exactly completed the most perfect number: nine times nine. Long after other Grecian sects had fallen into ob livion, his doctrines kept their hold upon the minds of men, and they remain interwoven with much of the philosophy and theology of the present day.

Proclus, one of his followers, several centuries after his death, expresses the opinion that all theology among the Greeks originated in the mystical doctrines of Orpheus. He says: "What Orpheus delivered in hidden allegories, Pythagoras learned when he was initiated into the Orphic Mysteries; and Plato next received a perfect knowledge of them from Orphic and Pythagorean writings."

All three of these men had been in Egypt to obtain instruction concerning spiritual theories. All their systems have the same outline, and harmonize with what can be gathered from Egyptian monuments, and the scanty records that remain concerning the ancient faith of that remarkable people. Plato, therefore, may be taken as a sublimated specimen of Egyptian theology as it existed in their highest and purest minds. The resemblance to Hindoo doctrines must strike every observing reader who compares Plato's theories with the extracts from the Vedas. Strabo, who had good opportunities to become acquainted with the

most prominent ideas prevalent in India, notices the similarity between them and the veiled teaching of Plato. This adds one more to the many proofs already adduced to show that the religions of Hindostan and Egypt were substantially the same.

Aristotle, contemporary with Plato, was more prone to look outward for the evidence of things; being more logical than poetic. But he also accepted the conclusions at which contemplative Hindoos had arrived concerning God and the soul. He describes Deity as "The Eternal Living Being, most noble of all beings; distinct from Matter, without extension, without division, without parts, and without succession; who understands everything, and continuing himself immoveable, gives motion to all things, and enjoys in himself a perfect happiness, knowing and contemplating himself with infinite pleasure." "There are many inferior deities, but only One Mover. All that is said about the human shape of those deities is mere fiction, invented to instruct the common people, and secure their observance of good laws. The First Principle is neither fire, nor earth, nor water, nor anything that is the object of sense. A Spiritual Substance is the cause of the universe, and the source of all order, all beauty, all the motions, and all the forms, which we so much admire in it. All must be reduced to this One Primitive Substance, which governs in subordination to the First." "There is One Supreme Intelligence, who acts with order, proportion, and design; the source of all that is good and just.”

"This is the genuine doctrine of the ancients, which has happily escaped the wreck of truth, amid the rocks of vulgar errors and poetic fables."

"After death, the soul continueth in the aerial body till it is entirely purged from all angry and voluptuous passion; then doth it put off, by a second death, the aerial body as it did the terrestrial. Wherefore the ancients say there is another heavenly body always joined with the soul, which is immortal, luminous, and star-like.”

This "aerial body" mentioned by Aristotle, is the same

as the " sensuous soul" described by Plato. It was this which seems to have been the "shade" of Hercules in the Elysian Fields, while his soul was on Olympus with the gods. The "sensuous soul" was the seat of the passions and sensations. The ancients supposed that this subtile vehicle of the "rational soul" exercised all the functions of sense, in every part of it; that it was "all eye, all ear, all taste."

Cicero, the Roman orator, who died forty-three years before Christ, was so great an admirer of Plato, that he was accustomed to call him "a god among philosophers." Like his Grecian model, he conformed to the religious institutions of the country, and sincerely believed in the divine origin of prophecy; but he attacked several of the popular opinions of his time with so much boldness, that many thought his works ought to be suppressed. He believed in One Supreme God, who controls the universe, as the human soul controls the body. He rejected the idea of anything vindictive in the future punishment of the wicked, considering it a blasphemy against Deity to suppose him capable of anger, or any other passion. He regarded the numerous tutelary deities as subordinate agents of the Supreme Being, and ridiculed the stories told of them by poets. He thought all knowledge was a reminiscence of experience obtained in former states of being. The eternal nature of the soul seemed to him fully demonstrated by its longing for immortality, its comprehensive faculties, its recollections, and its foresight. His writings were very extensively known, and greatly contributed to raise the previous standard of morality.

He says: "No man was ever truly great without divine inspiration."

"Whatever name custom hath given to the gods, we ought to reverence and adore them. The best, the purest, the most religious worship, of the gods, is to reverence them always with a sincere, unpolluted, and perfect mind."

"The true primeval law is the Supreme Reason of the great Jupiter. It is eternal, immutable, universal. It does VOL. I.-31*

not vary according to time and place. It is not different now from what it was formerly. The same law sways all nations, because it proceeds from the King and common Father of all. A crime is none the less criminal because there is no human law against it. The law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves. Love of order is the sovereign justice, and this justice is excellent for its own sake. Whoever loves it for its utility, is politic, but not good. The highest injustice is to love justice only for the sake of recompense. The eternal, unchangeable, universal law of all beings is to seek the good of one another, like children of the same Father."

Cicero informs us that philosophers of all schools agreed in believing the Supreme Deity incapable of inflicting punishment, or feeling resentment; that anger toward one, and favour toward another, were equally inconsistent with an immortal, wise, and happy nature. Therefore, they all agreed that fear could have no place in the mind of man with regard to God.

Like Plato, he was very conservative with regard to established forms, regarding them as necessary for the preservation of good order. He says: "When religion is in question, I do not consider what is the doctrine thereon of Zeno, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, but I am guided by what the Chief Priests say of it. From you, who are a philosopher, I am not unwilling to receive reasons for my faith; but to our ancestors I trust implicitly, without receiving any reason at all.”

He thought those who disturbed popular belief in the auguries ought to be punished. For that reason he entered a complaint against two men who sailed contrary to the auspices; because, according to his views, the established "religion is to be obeyed, and the customs of our forefathers are not to be discarded."

The Stoics, founded by Zeno, about three hundred years before Christ, had numerous adherents, especially among the Romans, to whose stern and lofty character their doc

trines were well adapted. They explained virtue as the true harmony of man with himself, and with the laws of nature, without regard to reward or punishment. This state was to be attained by mastery over the passions and affections, and complete indifference to external things. Self-denial and resolute endurance were prominent points in their moral teaching. They were characterized by abstemiousness, plainness of dress, and strict regard to decorum. They held that a man was at liberty to lay down his life whenever he deemed it no longer useful. Zeno, and others of their teachers, committed suicide in old age. They believed the universe was pervaded by a Divine Intelligence, as by a soul. The elements and the heavenly orbs partook of this divine essence, and were therefore suitable objects of worship. They did not adopt the common doctrine of successive transmigrations of the human soul, but held that it returned to the Supreme Soul, after death. Epictetus says: "There is no Tartarus. You do not go to a place of pain. You return to the source from which you came, to a delightful reunion with your primitive elements." They were taught not to deprecate impending calamities, but to pray for resignation and fortitude to endure them. Marcus Antoninus says: "Either the gods have power, or no power. If they have no power, why do you pray? If they have power, why do you not rather pray that you may be without anxiety about an event, than that the event may not take place?"

In common with many of the Grecian sects, they believed in the old Hindoo, Chaldean, and Egyptian calculations concerning the destruction of the world by water and by fire. This universal devastation was to take place at stated intervals, with vast astronomical intervals between. All was to be restored to a state of order, innocence, and beauty; the old tendency to degeneracy would end in similar destruction, to be again renovated; and so on alternately forever. Seneca says: "A time will come when the world, ripe for renovation, will be wrapped in flames; when the opposite powers in conflict will mutually destroy