totally passed by as not worth noticing by a writer who is treating on human happiness; and we are left to conclude, it seems, that though the departed care but a very little about what befalls their surviving friends, they care not at all about any thing else: the good or ill fortune of their friends has a small and insignificant influence on their enjoyment or discomfort, but yet is the source of all they have!

No doubt eminent philosophers have been guilty of great absurdities; but there is a limit to all conceivable extravagance and if any one can believe that Aristotle could be the author of such a tissue of unsupported and self-contradictory absurdities, he can hardly regard him as a philosopher worth studying.

But in fact, there is no such passage in existence : the whole of this notion has originated in a misinterpretation of the author's words,-the result of that oscitancy to which all are more or less subject.

Those who have an opportunity of consulting the original, I am content to refer to that; and if an attentive perusal does not convince them that, whatever his meaning was, at least it cannot be that which I have been speaking of as attributed to him, they are beyond the reach of any argument I can devise.

For the benefit of the mere English reader, or of such as have not the treatise at hand, I will attempt a brief explanation of the author's meaning. He is speaking of the notion of Solon, who would not allow that a man should be pronounced happy during his life-time, because there is no saying what reverses of

fortune he may undergo. "Are we then," says Aristotle, "to suppose that a man is then happy when he is dead? No, this would be too absurd; especially since we have decided that happiness consists in an energy or exercise of his mental powers." (Why should a man's being happy after death be inconsistent with that doctrine, except on the supposition of the dead having no perception?) "But this," he continues, "is not even Solon's meaning; but that one may then safely decide as to a man's happiness, (i. e. that he has been happy) when he is out of the reach of fortune. But then, is he," continues Aristotle, "completely out of the reach of fortune? since it appears that good or evil may befal the dead, as well as the living who have no perception of it; such as credit or disgrace, and good or ill success of friends." Now it is from this sentence chiefly, this very sentence in which Aristotle draws a parallel between the dead, and those of the living who have no perception of the credit or discredit accruing to them, that it is inferred that the deceased have a perception of what passes after their death!

For, it is said, if they know nothing of it, how can it contribute to or impair their happiness? How it really can, it would be hard to say; but Aristotle only says that it appears so: and nothing can be more notorious than that many things are regarded as good or evil— as things to be desired or deprecated, both prospectively by men while alive, and afterwards by their survivors, without any notion that the party can at the time know, or at least care, any thing about it. Is the

desire of posthumous fame, which is so common, and the dread of posthumous infamy, which is nearly universal, to be traced to a supposed perception by the deceased of what is said of him? Does the dread so many entertain of being dissected, or torn by dogs, arise from a supposition that the dead carcases feel, or that their souls at least will at the time be annoyed at the indignity? Did Buonaparte, Oliver Cromwell, and a multitude of others, who have been anxious to make their high station hereditary, suppose that they themselves should, at the time, be viewing and enjoying the greatness of their posterity? The desire of posthumous fame, and of the greatness and prosperity of one's descendants, seems always to have been even the stronger in those who have believed least, or thought least, of a future life. It is difficult for one who has been habituated from infancy to this belief, to imagine himself a person to whom it had never occurred; but is there any one who will say that if he disbelieved either a future state altogether, or the consciousness of the deceased of what happens on earth, he should be now perfectly indifferent as to what should befal his dearest friends, his kindred, and his country, subsequently to his own death, and should exclaim, "When I am dead, let earth and fire be mingled ?"

And lastly, would not any one, if Solon's happiness had been spoken of, in having finally succeeded in his great and glorious work of giving Athens a good constitution and laws,-would not any one, I say, have been apt to reply, "Ah, but a few years after his death,

Pericles made destructive inroads on the constitution; the whole State fell soon under the control of a lawless democracy; and, by their mismanagement, the city was captured, and subjected to the thirty tyrants?" This would not impair Solon's happiness, supposing him insensible; but it would impair the speaker's idea of his happiness.*

These delusions of the imagination are productive of real effects on human thoughts and conduct. Aristotle seems to think, it would be too shocking to popular feelings (λίαν ἄφιλον, καὶ ταῖς δόξαις ἐναντίον) to say that it is nothing to a man's happiness what becomes of his surviving friends: but (proceeding all along on the supposition that he knows nothing of it) decides that it cannot have any weight worth noticing.

The circumstance that he has used some expressions which, to a learner, familiar himself with the notion of a future state, would seem to convey that idea, as when he speaks of events which, in some degree, concern the dead, or "have something to do with their happiness

The imperfect and confused sympathy we have with others, in respect of their feelings towards us, and indeed universally, can be likened to nothing so well as to the mixture of transparency and reflection in plate-glass. We sympathise, as A. Smith observes, with an idiot or madman; forming an indistinct idea of being in his situation, and at the same time retaining (which is a contradictory supposition) our present view of his actions. Just as one looks through the window at a tree, e. g., and sees, by an imperfect reflection, his own face as if placed in the midst of the tree; which, if it were, he could not have that view of the tree. And even so, we cannot imagine people talking of us after our death, without the idea presenting itself of our hearing what they say.

(meaning with our notion of their happiness)—this is to me an additional proof of the total and general disbelief prevailing in his age and country. His carelessness of expression (his opinion being such as it clearly was) shows that he never apprehended the slightest danger of any one's supposing him to be speaking of a life after death. None of his readers was likely to suspect him of designing to teach a doctrine so strange and unphilosophical as, in their eyes, this would have appeared.

Note (B) page 44.

Cicero, in his epistles to his friends, in which, if any where, he may be supposed to speak his real sentiments, frankly avows his utter disbelief in a future state, in one sense of the word, i. e. a future state of distinct personal existence percipient of pleasure or pain: "ut mortem, quam etiam beati contemnere debeamus, propterea quod nullum sensum esset habitura," &c. [Epist. to L. Mescinus Fam. Ep. lib. v. ep. 21.] And in an epistle to Toranius [lib. vi. ep. 3.] he says, nec enim dum ero, angar ulla re, cum omni vacem culpa; et si non ero, sensu omnino carebo." This passage will indeed bear another meaning, viz. that he is speaking, not of life or death on earth, but of the state after death; in which it may be said, he declares his conviction, that if he continues to exist, his innocence will secure him from suffering, and if he has no being at all, he will have no sensation. The former of

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