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THE
BELIEF OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
AND OF THE MOST EMINENT
GENTILE PHILOSOPHERS,
MORE ESPECIALLY OF
PLATO AND ARISTOTLE,
IN
A FUTURE STATE,
BRIEFLY CONSIDERED.
THE
BELIEF OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
AND OF THE MOST EMINENT
GENTILE PHILOSOPHERS,
MORE ESPECIALLY OF
PLATO AND ARISTOTLE,
IN
A FUTURE STATE,
BRIEFLY CONSIDERED ;
INCLUDING AN EXAMINATION INTO SOME OP THE LEADING PRINCIPLES
CONTAINED IN BISHOP WARBURTON's DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES ;
IN
A DISCOURSE
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD AT ST. MARY'S,
March 30, 1828.
WITH NOTES AND AN APPENDIX.
BY
W. MILLS, B. D.
FELLOW OP MAGDALEN COLLEGE.
rvftvei(ftev rtis 4"'X^i '^ AN0PXiniNH SOOIA riXos Se 'H 0EIA.
Origenes.
OXFORD:
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR THE AUTHOR,
AND SOLD BY J. PARKER ; AND BY C AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON.
MDCCCXXVIII.
X^^ OF THE ^
UNIVERSITY
4^ 4^ J'^ y
TO
JOHN THOMAS HOPE, ESQ.
THE FOLLOWING
DISCOURSE
IS INSCRIBED
WITH THE SINCEREST FRIENDSHIP AND REGARD.
I'V
#
PREFACE.
XHE following Discourse, delivered up-
wards of six months since, was not origi-
nally intended for publication. It is com-
mitted to the press with the sanction of a
learned friend, whose opinion the author
considers of great value. It was thought
that a brief statement of an important
question might not be without advantage
to others engaged in the same inquiries.
The controversies that arose when the
Divine Legation of Warbu7'ton was first
published have long since died away, nor
is it necessary to awaken them again, ex-
cept as far as the chief subject of dispute
is connected with the acquisition of reli-
gious truth itself An examination into
the belief of Jew or Gentile in the soul's
immortality before the coming of our Sa-
viour, can never cease to be an interesting
question to the Christian philosopher. Nor
viii PREFACE.
will the investigation be without profit to
him who pursues it candidly, as a source of
moral improvement. He may learn to be
thankful on the ground of revelation for
the advantages which he enjoys over the
most favoured Israelite in the superior
blessings and prospects of the new, com-
pared with the old dispensation ; and on
the ground of his natural faculties, he will
be sensible of the benefits which reason
itself has derived from the word of Scrip-
ture, as well in directing as in limiting its
exercise. He has seen the day clearly
which the inspired patriarchs of old, with
the prophetic eye of faith, at a distance,
rejoiced to see; and he has received that
light of imparted knowledge from Heaven,
which the wisest of the heathens felt neces-
sary to clear up the doubts of the specu-
lative mind, and would have hailed with
gratitude and reverence.
IJKIVBBSITY
2 TIMOTHY 1. 10.
— who hath abolished death, and brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel,
xHESE words form part of an Epistle
written by the great apostle of the Gentiles,
at a time when he stood in need of all the
consolations to be derived from the doc-
trine which they convey ; when he was
suffering from imprisonment and persecu-
tion, and he perceived that the hour of his
martyrdom was approaching. Rejoicing in
the hopes which they inspired, he declared
that he was afflicted, and yet was not
ashamed ; and looking forward to his re-
ward, he exclaims in a subsequent part of
the Epistle, / have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the
faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the
inghteous judge, shall give me. Language
so full of confidence in his reward and in
the grounds of it, so full of trust in the
righteous Judge who was to confer it, as
plainly to prove that the power of death
B
9
was indeed abolished, and that life and im-
mortality were brought to light.
Yet these expressions of my text, ^coTia-ctv-
Tff ^i*)y}v Ku) (A(j)6ccp(rioLv, however strong they
may appear, are not to be considered as
implying that the expectation of a future
life had never been heard of till the coming
of the Messiah. In its literal acceptation
the word (pmZei signifies rather to make
clear what is obscure, than to bring to light
what is entirely unknown : thus ^oorZetv
A^t]6siciv, to make the truth manifest, and
not to shew forth a truth of which no glim-
mering had previously been perceived. The
heathen looked forward to a future state,
though he had no certain evidence for his
belief, neither comprehending clearly the
immortality of the soul, nor having any
notion of the resurrection of the body*.
And the Jew was instructed by revelation,
that the life forfeited by the transgression
of Adam w^as to be restored through the
mediation of some future deliverer, though
all the circumstances connected with the
a The word a^Qup(rlav, incorruption^ probably conveys
this meaning. Macknight and Benson.
8
mystery of redemption were not to be fully
revealed, till our Saviour's appearance and
ministry upon earth dispelled every doubt
and difficulty in which the doctrine was in-
volved, enlightening what was before ob-
scure, and completing what was before
imperfect.
It will be my object in the present dis-
course, to compare the knowledge both of
the Gentiles and the Jewish people, re-
specting a future life, with the clearer reve-
lations which Christians enjoy on this mo-
mentous subject.
That the idea of another state of exist-
ence after the termination of the present
universally prevailed among mankind, the
records of history unequivocally prove :
there is no nation, whether savage or civil-
ized, amongst whom some traces of it may
not be found. It made a part of the po-
pular belief in the early stages of society,
before mythology was formed into a sys-
tem ; it was strongly impressed upon the
mind before political codes gave a particu-
lar direction to it by ceremonies and modes
of worship, and before philosophy exhibited
B 2
alike the power and the weakness of hu-
man reason, by the subtlety of its specu-
lations on a subject of such overpowering
interest. This conviction cannot be ascribed
to the policy of the legislator, which was
itself the foundation on which his religious
enactments were erected, nor yet to the
wisdom of the philosopher, which prevailed
for ages before philosophy took its rise
among mankind. It was probably a rem-
nant of that early revelation given to our
first parents, and which, amid all the
changes and distractions of civil society,
and all the emigrations of tribes and na-
tions, had never been utterly obscured^.
But in process of time, when civilization
had advanced, men's ideas respecting both
the nature of the Deity and the doctrine of
a future state had been corrupted; gods
were multiplied without number "^j the li-
b The notion of a future existence must be either a
deduction of reason, or be derived from revelation, or an
impression of instinctive consciousness.
c The treatise, Tlepj xoV/xou, ascribed to Aristotle, speaks
of the Deity as one, and derives the different names of
God from the different parts of nature which he regu-
lates. Aristot. lUp\ }i6a-(XQv, cap. 7.
centious passions of the most licentious
men'were ascribed to them, and the belief
of a future existence was intermingled with
the wildest creations of the fancy. All
these notions were at length combined into
order by the poet, and sanctioned by the
legislator"^; vices of the most atrocious kind
were countenanced by the example of the
divinities, and the authority of the laws,
and the obligations of mistaken piety and
public duty, lent in some cases additional
stimulus to the depraved appetites of our
nature ^ Yet notwithstanding this perni-
Hesiod and Homer reduced to system the mythology
of the Grecian gods. Vid. Herod, lib. ii. c. 53. Brucker,
Hist. Crit. Phil, pars ii. lib. i. cap. 1. sect. 26. 31. pp.
407. 423.
In process of time, not only all the operations of exter-
nal nature were explored for deities, but the most trifling
acts of man himself were each under the superintendance
of a particular god. Vide a singular chapter, Augustin.
Civ. Dei, lib. iv. c. 11.
d It is because the weakness and licentiousness of Jove
and the other deities, as described by Homer, furnished
a bad example to mankind, that Plato wished to banish
poets from his republic. Plato de Repub. lib. iii. Bekker,
pars iii. vol. i. p. 107 — 117.
^ The worship of Mylitta, the Babylonian* goddess, is
frequently cited as a preeminent instance of pagan im-
B 3
6
cious influence, derived from the corrup-
tions of the doctrine, society must have
been on the whole improved by it; for un-
less the belief had acted powerfully as a
check upon the unruly desires, we cannot
conceive why legislators should have taken
so much pains to preserve it^. When
philosophy, at a comparatively late period,
arose, it made no claim to the invention of
the notion, or to have derived it from the
deductions of natural reason. Not only
Plato makes continual and direct allusions
purity ; yet the ordinary homage paid to the divinities in
Greece and Rome at the sacred festivals, was far more
pernicious in its effect upon public morals than the singu-
lar institution above alluded to. Vid. Augustin. Civ. Dei,
lib. ii. cap. 4, 5. Herodot. lib. i. cap. 200.
^ Thales, the founder of the Ionic school, flourished
about six hundred years before Christ, and no regular
course of reasoning was brought forward for the soul's
immortality, till the time of Plato, two centuries after :
Thales taught that water was the first principle, which
Aristotle seems to consider as the most ancient philoso-
phical notion, Metaph. lib. i. c. 3. and that God, or Mind,
made all things out of water. As he was a native of
Phoenicia, Cud worth supposes that he received his two
principles from thence, " water, and the Divine Spirit
" moving on the face of it."" Cudworth, Intellect, Syst,
book i. cap. i. sect. 22.
to tradition as the origin of his knowledge^,
but earlier writers were avowedly indebted
to the same source; all that philosophy
did pretend to was, to demonstrate that
belief by arguments which was before
grounded, we know not how, in the com-
mon fears and hopes of mankind. And let
those who form an exalted estimate of the
intellectual powers, in deciding upon such
mysterious subjects, judge with what suc-
cess the attempt was made, by the jarring
and contradictory opinions of the different
schools of antiquity. Let those who imagine
that the immortality of the soul (I speak
not of the resurrection of the body) is dis-
coverable by human sagacity ^ examine the
strong reasons of that unrivalled genius,
who has the merit of having taught suc-
ceeding disputers to set their arguments in
order on the subject. Almost all the dis-
quisitions of Plato are grounded upon the
hypothesis of the soul's preexistence K Be-
s Vide Appendix, note A.
h Phaedo passim.
i The two principal arguments in the Phaedo, the one
derived from the notions of the ancients respecting yevsa-tg,
B 4
8
sides confusing himself and his readers with
the mazes of verbal sophistry, in which,
notwithstanding all its excellencies, Greek
philosophy so much abounds, he derives his
fancied demonstrations from abstruse theo-
ries on the properties of generation and cor-
ruption, and the essential and eternal ar-
chetypes of things ; and even the most
plausible and specious are so obscured by
r
the other from his own philosophical belief concerning the
archetypes of things, rest entirely upon such a supposi-
tion. As the term generation was relative, and implied
its contrary corruption^ he infers that the act of being
born involves the destruction of a previous existence, from
which this present coming to life is a transition. '0^q\o-
ysiTui apex, r){uv tea) tuvty} Tovg ^oovras sk rcav tsQvscotwv ysyo-
vivai. Phaedo, Bekker, p. 30 — 34. 2dly. His theory of
eternal essences, or ideas, suggests the argument that the
notions which the soul has of perfect equality, perfect
good, &c. which are never found in sensible objects, prove
that it must have existed in a previous state, its present
knowledge being nothing more than remlmscence. The
discussion derives an incidental value, from shewing that
Plato had a considerable acquaintance with the law of as-
sociation. Plato, Bekker, pars ii. vol. iii. pp. 35 — 44.
Not one of the ancient philosophers before Christianity
held the soul's immortality, without holding the preexist-
ence of souls. They believed also the immortahty and
preexistence of brutes. Cudworth, Intellect. Syst. book i.
cap. 1. sect. 31, 32.
9
the subtlety of his language \ as to be ab-
solutely unintelligible, except to a mind long
versed in the refinements of metaphysics.
Such theories as those in the Phaedo could
never have convinced any one of the soul's
immortality, unless he had been previously
prepared to believe it ; nor coming, as they
are supposed to have done, from the lips of
Socrates in his dying hour, could they have
k As a specimen of unmeaning subtlety, it may be suj^
ficient to point out that exquisite verbal trifling towards
the end of the -treatise, respecting the archetype of even
and odd, and its application to tne question of the soul's
immortality, a-xoitsi l\ irsg) rr^^ Tf^nxdoc, p. 99. The reader is
absolutely bewildered for some time, till at length he is
conducted to the conclusion — that as the essence of even
does not partake of the contrary essence odd, so the soul
which brings life cannot partake of the contrary essence
death, and must consequently be immortal. If we had
not known the treatise to be a serious inquiry upon a se-
rious occasion, we might have been tempted to think, from
the winding up of the dialogue, that the writer intended
to ridicule such absurdities ; T/ ouv ; to ja^ h^of^^vov ty}v tou
'apTiQV iSeav t/ vvv drj oovo(/,ott^O[ji,sv ; 'Avapriov, e(pr). To 8g S/-
xotiov fjL^ Se^OjOtevov xa» av [LOUdDtov fjt,vj U^rjTcn ; "Afx.ovaoVy
g(p>), TO §£ aSjxov. Elev* o 8' av Qolvchtov (/,r) Ssp^ijra/, t/ xaXoO-
■ju^sv; 'AQuvuTOv, eipri. Oukoov y} ^v^yj ov he^sToti SotvctTOv ; Ou.
'Afiavarov apot ^ ^tJX^' *AdavaTOv. Klsv, e(p>)* touto [xh dt]
AnOAEAEIX0AI <pciJ/Asv ; p. 103. Vide the whole argu-
ment, from p. 90 — 105.
10
been his only consolation. If the argu-
ment, grounded upon the compound nature
of man ^, and the immateriality of the soul, be
brought forward in opposition to such a view
of the subject, it may be asked, was the phi-
losopher so well acquainted, or are we our-
selves, with all our additional knowledge, so
well acquainted with the laws and properties
of matter, as to be able to pronounce that
the Being who ("' even according to Plato's
creed) made the universe out of nothing, is
limited in power, and that he could not, if
he would, impart thought and intelligence
to a material substance? Or have we so
clear a notion of spirit^ or so perfect an in-
sight into the essential qualities of spirit^ as
to be satisfied, that leaving the revealed will
of the Deity out of the consideration, it is
in itself incapable of annihilation ?
Yet, however unsatisfactory such argu-
ments may be, (as arguments of natural rea-
^ The soul is divine, immortal, intelligent, uncom-
pounded, indissoluble : the body human, mortal, without
intelligence, concrete, dissoluble. Plato, Phaedo, p. 50.
^ Appendix, note B.
11
son on the subject ever must be ",) shall we
assent at once to the opinion of bishop War-
burton, that neither Plato nor any one of the
philosophers (Socrates alone excepted) who
inculcated the notion of a future state them-
selves believed in it? By what process are we
to separate his real belief from his constant
and positive assertions? Those declarations
of his on which so much stress has been
laid, that it was lawful to deceive for the
public good, were evidently intended to be
^ Warburton's Divine Legation, book iii. sect. 2. vol.
ii. edit. 1788. p. 11, 26. The observations of Warburton
respecting the doctrines of the ancient philosophers, vary-
ing with the subject matter which they embraced, whether
legislation or philosophy, are refined and ingenious ; but
they are neither universally true, nor are the conclusions
he would deduce from them to be trusted. " I have ob-
" served," says he, " that those sects which joined legis-
" lation to philosophy, as the Pythagoreans, Platonists,
"Peripatetics, and Stoics, always professed the belief of
" a future state of rewards and punishments ; while those
" who simply philosophized, as the Cyrenaic, the Cynic,
" &c, publicly professed the contrary." Aristotle was
full as much a legislative philosopher as Plato, and far
more practical ; and yet there is no one passage in the
whole of his works in which he directly proposes the re-
compense of a future state as the motive of morality; on
the contrary, among the voluminous writings of Plato,
there is scarcely a single treatise in which it is omitted.
12
understood in a limited sense only**, and
not as the basis of a philosophy, which
above all others professed to have truth for
its one and only object. It is not merely
in his more plain and practical works that
we find his recorded opinions respecting
the existence of a future state ; they are to
be found in all his writings, whether moral,
political, or physical p : they intermingle
with the most subtle discussions in works
which never could have been intended for
popular instruction : and it is difficult to
understand by what application of the well-
known division of ancient philosophy into
exoteric and esoteric % or by what theory of
^ Appendix, note C.
P Vide Plato, edit. Bekker.
Phaedo, pars ii. vol. iii. p. 106.
Apologia, pars i. vol. ii. p. 138.
Crito, pars i. vol. ii. p. 167.
Epist. 7. pars iii. vol. iii. p. 448.
Epist. 2. pars iii. vol. iii. p. 400.
Timaeus, pars iii. vol. ii. p. 45.
Republic, pars iii. vol. i. pp. 502 — 516.
Gorgias, pars ii. vol. i. pp. 163. 164. 165.
De Legibus, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 219.
Epinomis, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 374.
^ Appendix, note D.
IS
a double sense, devised after Plato's own
time, the same treatise, and the same por-
tion of a treatise, could be adapted at once
to instruct the philosopher and to delude
the vulgar. "^ If there were certain unwrit-
ten doctrines, which were a key to his real
sentiments, they have not come down to
us, and we have no means of estimating
their value ; and it is evident that we can-
not decide against the actual import of
what we know, on the supposed testimony
of what is altogether unknown. But it
will be said, the notion of a future state ' is
r Vid Brucker, vol.i. p. 660. Tennemann'*s Geschichte
der Philosophie von Wendt. art. Plato, p. 98.
Warburton, acute as he is acknowledged to be, seems
to write at times as if he confounded the three distinct
ideas of esoteric treatises, unwritten doctrines, and a
double sense to what is written.
s Warburton, book iii. sect. 3. Whately's Essays on
the Peculiarities of Christianity, p. 30. Lancaster's Har-
mony of the Law and Gospel, p. 126. 141.
The doctrine of the absorption of the human soul is
frequently imputed to Plato ; but it does not appear from
his own writings that he entertained the notion, nor in-
deed that of the Anima Mundi in the sense generally un-
derstood. He never confounds the soul of the universe
with the one first Cause, Creator, and Father of all things,
Plato's names for the supreme Deity are, 6 Arif^iovpyos, 6
14
inconsistent with his philosophical theory
of the reunion of the soul after death, to
the one divine and universal Mind, from
whence it originally emanated*. Now al-
lowing, for the sake of argument, this to be
Plato's opinion, which is found in the sys-
tems of other philosophers rather than in
his own, is it so very easy for the under-
standing to realize to itself this notion of
absorption into the universal spirit, in which
all idea of personal consciousness is to be
excluded, that we are at once to discard
0SO5, 6 IIoiviT^g, xu) TIuTvjp Tou 6\ou, 6 us) Osog. AYifj^iovgyov-
ffoL Air /a, ysviasoog xa) ova lug uhiu, ^povou [x^ fisTB^oua-u, ou8*
Iv %f'ova> TO 'KapUTtoLV ov(roi, 0gof uWiMTUTOg, 6 TrgooTog Qsog, 6
f/iiyio-Tog Qsog. The soul of the world, and other second
causes, are, OsoO ysw^f^uTu xai spyu, Avifji,ioupyov wryipsroit,
Seoi dscwv, who derive all their power from the first Creator.
Vid. Timasus, and his other philosophical works, pas-
sim. Plotinus, Numenius, and the Platonists of the Alex-
andrian school, give a very different account : with them
the supreme Deity is the father of the A>;jxioupyoj, the se-
cond Deity, and the Anima Mundi is the third. Eusebius,
Praep. Evang. lib. xi. c. 17, 18. edit. Vigeri, Paris, 1628.
In the wild and blasphemous speculations of Cerintlius
and other early heretics, the supreme Deity is also dis-
tinguished from the A>jju,ioy^yo^, or Creator. Irena?us adv.
Haereses, hb. i. cap. 1. 13. 16. 19. 25. 33. lib. v. cap. 4.
^ Vid. Appendix, note E.
15
every declaration of belief as insincere,
which is at variance with the inference de-
ducible from such a theory? Are all those
expressions, in which the feelings of the
man triumph over the abstractions of the
philosopher, to be set aside in favour of a
principle which none of those who held it
either comprehended or consistently ex-
plained ? The best evidences of a man's
real conviction are not his speculative views,
but those natural sentiments to which he
gives utterance more in unison with the or-
dinary tendencies of the human mind. On
the lofty heights of metaphysical specula-
tion ", clouds and darkness hover, which it
^ The speculatist may declare, if he will, that the law
of causation cannot be proved^ and that the free-agency
of man is disproved ; yet from the very next moment to
the last hour of his life, the natural course of his thoughts,
words, and actions, will be in direct contradiction to his
theories. If he argue that the immortality of the soul
cannot be demonstrated on the principles of pure reason,
the desire of the heart, the " longing after immortality,"
will still remain ; and this (omitting revelation) is of itself
the best evidence of its truth,
AI yap /SeATio-rat ^rjx^i MANTETONTAI rawra ootcoj
iX^iv. Plato, 2 Epist. ad Dionys. Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii.
p. 400.
Warburton
16
is not permitted to the limited powers of
the most exalted intellect to disperse. ""The
difficulties multiply in proportion as we
ascend, and if we imagine that we have ar-
rived at certainty, and venture to give defi-
nite form and shape to our abstractions, we
shall soon learn the mortifying lesson, how
little our system will influence the prac-
tical belief of others, or even our own, when
opposed to the more common motives and
instinctive impressions of our nature. Those
who have reflected most on such subjects
will perhaps assent to the opinion, that if
we would discover truth, we must pursue
it in some lower region, in which the light
of our moral feelings and faculties may be
allowed to cheer and direct our path.
These reflections, while they teach humi-
lity to ourselves, may assist us to form a
Warburton speaks with contempt of such inferences,
as proper only to poetical metaphysicians and metaphysi-
cal poets; yet Aristotle, at least as sober a reasoner as
himself, attributes to no argument more weight than to
one grounded on our natural desires. Divine Legation,
vol. iii. p. 6S2. Aristot. Ethic, book i. chap. 2. Rhet.
book ii. chap. 19.
X Appendix, note F.
17
right estimate as to the actual belief of the
ancient philosophers on the subject of a
future existence. - It is not because they
give way to doubts and misgivings; (on
such a subject how could it be otherwise ?)
it is not because we meet with unintelligible
theories ; this has been the history of meta-
physics in all ages and under all religions :
it is not because these theories might lead
to consequences inconsistent with their po-
sitive declarations, that we are to come at
once to the conclusion that they had no
belief in what they asserted, and that So-
crates and Plato ^ (for we have no certain
y If the misgivings of Socrates at one time are brought
forward, let us remember the strength and confidence of
his assertions at others. Vid. Phaedo, p. 120.
Sequitur ex liis nobile Socraticae scholse dogma ; ani-
mum esse immortalem et habere post mortem pryemia
virtutis: quod morte sua obsignavit et confirmavit So-
crates. Videtur non tam de animorum post banc vitam
felicitate dubitasse quam de ejus conditione et loco, quo
referenda sunt, si vere sunt Socratis quae apud Antonium
et Maximum ei tribuuntur, interrogatum quaenam in al-
tero mundo sint obvia, respondisse, se neque ipsum ibi
unquam fuisse neque cum ullo eorum qui inde rediissent
colloquutum esse. Hist. Crit. Phil. Brucker, vol. i.
pp. 563, 564i,
2 W^arburton and others attempt to separate the opin-
C
18
criterion by which we can separate the
opinions of the one from those of the other,)
made it the sole business of their lives to
deceive those whom they pretended to
teach. The general tone and temper per-
vading their discussions is at variance with
such an opinion. ""It is a striking feature
in the character of Socrates, and which
well entitles him to the admiration even of
Christians, that, surrounded with mysteries
which he could not explain, and in the
midst of darkness which he could not pene-
ions of Socrates from those of Plato- Whether the fact
be so or not, we have no means of distinguishing between
them. As far as Plato's own evidence is available, the
contrary is the case. Ata tuutu ov^h TTMnoT eyu) Trepi tou-
%(TTai, Tu di vvv Xcyo>5va l^UKPATOTS sari. Plat. 2 Epist.
ad Dionys. p. 406.
I do not wish to insist on the positive testimony of this
passage, on account of the obvious advantage it must
have been to the philosopher to convey his instructions
freely to his friend, through the medium of another's
name; I am speaking of course of their opinions on
moral subjects. It is well known that Plato discussed
physical questions, which Socrates did not ; Scoxparouj Ss
Treg) fLsv ru rjQixoi Trpayfi^uTsvoiJLSvou TTsp) Se t^j oXjjj <pua"£coj ovlsv.
Aristot. Metaphys. lib. i. cap. 6.
a Appendix, note G.
19
trate, he seems to have reposed implicit
confidence in the benevolence of the Deity
even unto death ^ and to have believed in
b Socrates is full of expressions indicating that implicit
confidence in the justice and benevolence of the Deity,
which is the root and foundation of all religious faith.
In the Theaetetus, 0eos ou8a/A>) ouSaftoJj oBixoc, oiW* cog
olov TS SixaioVarof, jca) oux. scttiv avTcu ofioioTspov ov^sv r} og ocv
Y}fjt,u)V ecu yevY^ron oti ^maiOTUTog. Kekker, pars ii. "vol. i.
p. 247. In the Gorgias, M^ yup tovto [j^h, to ^f,v 6^J^oa■ov^
Xpovov, Tov ys cog a\Y}^cog avlpct euxreov h(TTi kolI ov ^<Ao\J/y^»3-
T£ov, aXX' BTtiTpe^oivra irsp) toutoov too Qsco. Bekker, pars ii.
vol. i. p. 142. Again, in the same treatise, speaking of
the unjust and intemperate man, Our= yup oiv aWco uvQpaiTrco
'Kqo(T(^iKYig oiv siri 6 ToiouTog outs Seco. Bekker, pars ii. vol. i.
p. 133. In the Theages, a treatise ascribed to Plato, 'E«v
fJLSV too QsCti CplXOV ]5, TTOtVU TtOKu STTldaXTSig XU) TU^Vj el 8g jM,^, ou.
Bekker, pars ii. vol. iii. p. 280. In the Apologia, Ou8e
a[j(,£\slTcn VTTO 0ea)v tol toutov Trpayjxara. Bekker, pars i.
vol. ii. p. 139. Vide also Alcibiades I. if this dialogue
was really written by Plato, which admits of some doubt.
SOC. Ou xoiXcag Xeysig, '12 'AXxi|3<aS)j.
ALC. *AAAa TTcug ^pv) Ksysiv ;
SOC/'Ori Euv Qaog s^sXyi, p. 373.
SOC. 'O eTriTgoTTog 6 k[Aog ^sXrioov etTT* xu) (ro(pcjtiTspog jj
Tlepixkrig 6 crog,
ALC. Tig ouTog, CO "^wxpxTsg;
SOC. 0£ogy M 'AXx</3»aS)j, X. t. X. Bekker, pars ii. vol. iii.
p. 345.
It may be worth mentioning also, that SocrateS con-
sidered suicide a criminal act of disobedience to the Deity :
because we are here at our post assigned us by the gods,
C 2
20
him as a rewarder of them that diligently
seek him, in spite of all the doubts that
confounded his understanding, and the
wrongs and oppressions which he endured.
Whatever were his views on the abstract
question of the universal soul, he is uni-
form in teaching that no happiness in this
life was perfect, and that our happiness in
another would depend upon our conduct
during our present existence. He reasoned
as Hooker reasoned, that no sensible, no
moral and civil perfection, was sufficient to
satisfy the desires which nature had im-
planted "". ^ He exhorted men to aspire (to
and may not leave without their permission. ToSe ye [jt,oi
^OKsl, CO Ks(2ifjc, sv XsyecrQai, to 0sovg shon r}[ji,(ov Tovg sTrifjt^zXQ'
lji,evoug. Phaedo, p. 13.
c In the Convivium of Plato, Socrates is represented
as making celestial love the source of every duty towards
gods and men ; and admonishing his hearers, that all the
labours and desires of the soul ought to aim at that
supreme archetype of beauty and truth, which is perfect
in itself, uniform and unchangeable, and in the possession
of which alone complete happiness can be found. Convi-
vium, pars ii. vol. ii. Plato, Bekker, p. 444, &c.
Sentences like these remind us of bishop Butler's ser-
mon on the Love of God ; and some of the most beauti-
ful passages in the earlier parts of Hooker's Ecclesiastical
21
use the words of Hooker) to "something
" spiritual and divine ; that which exceed-
" eth the reach of sense, yea somewhat
" above the capacity of reason, which with
" hidden exaltation it rather surmiseth than
" conceiveth^" This divine felicity in a
future state was to consist in the contem-
plation of truth in its substantial beauty
and perfection, of which we only see the
shadow here below, through the dark me-
dium of the senses and imagination^ Hence
Polity, vid. p. 260. vol. i. 8vo. edit. Leigh ton's 4th and
5th Lectures are also written very much in the spirit of
Plato's exhortations ; Leighton's Works, vol. iv.
d Appendix, notes H and I.
e Cedant igitur hi oranes (says Augustin, speaking of
other sects) illis philosophis qui non dixerunt boatum esse
hominem, fruentem corpore, vel fruentem animo, sed
fruentem Deo. August. Civ. Dei, lib. viii. c. 8.
It is very true, that some of St. Augustin's observations
respecting the similarity of Plato's sentiments to the pre-
cepts of Christianity, are applicable only to the refine-
ments introduced by the later Platonists : yet Plato him-
self certainly inculcated the notion to which the words
above cited allude.
f Vide that beautiful passage in the Phaedo, unequalled
perhaps for the flowing harmony of its language in the
whole compass of Greek literature; in which he de-
scribes the effect of the passions in darkening the under-
c3
S2
his continual exhortations to die daily, (they
are almost the words of Plato ^ ;) to subdue,
even to their utter extinction, those cor-
rupt affections which alike darken the un-
derstanding, and are the cause of all moral
evil. He asserts, in the language of holy
writ, that the wars and fightings which
exist among mankind, proceed from the
unruly passions that tear in their members^y
and that it was only by overcoming these,
and practising virtue, which was an imita-
tion of the Deity, that we could hope to
enjoy the happiness of the Deity hereafter L
standing, and the power of philosophy in emancipating
the soul from their tyranny. Plato, Bekker, pars ii. vol.
iii. pp. K>^ — 58.
S True philosophers, ouSsv aXka atJroi 67r<T>j8suoy(riv \ olt^o-
^vy](Tx.siv Ts xai rs^vava/. Phasdo, Bekker, p. 16.
h Kal yoip TTOksixoug xa) aroKTsig xa) (J^oi.^ct§ ouSev a.X>^o 'TTotg-
^X^i Yi TO a-cofjia xci) al toutou sttiQuixIoii. Phaedo, page 21.
compare St. James iv. 1.
* Aio xu) TTBipoLd^cti ^pr) IvdevBg exsl<rs <ps6yuv on Tu^liTToc.
(Pvyrj ds 'OMOmSl^ 0E12I xcctu to dvvctTov. 'OMOmSlS
ts tixaiov xa.) ocriov (j^sto. (ppovYiasoog ysveVQa*. Theastetus, Bek-
ker, pars ii. vol. i. p. 347. It was the saying of the Py-
thagorean philosophers, from whom Plato probahly bor-
rowed the sentiment: tsKos avQpMTrov oiioicocris Qeoo, Eusebius
asserts that this idea, of its being the perfection of man to
imitate the Deity, was taken from the Hebrew scriptures.
2S
In the spirit of the precept, which teaches
that obedience is better than sacrifice, he
declares that God is not propitiated by of-
ferings and victims, but by the virtues of
the soul, by piety, justice, and truth ^. He
cautions his hearers against pride and high-
mindedness, by admonishing them that the
man who adhered to what was just, with a
humble and well-regulated temper, would
enjoy happiness and the favour of the Deity,
while he who indulged an insolent spirit,
swelling with pride and ambition, would be
left deserted by God. In listening to such
sentiments, who does not recollect the lan-
guage of inspiration, which declares that
God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to
the humble^? He teaches, that not only evil
ev Tco *AXx<|8<a5>j (fr)o-/v. x.. t. \. Eusebius, Prasp. Evangel,
lib. xi. cap. 27. Vigeri edit. Paris. 1628. Plato, Alcibiad.
Bekker, pars ii. vol. iii. p. S68.
^ Kot) yocp OLV tmov sir], s] nzpog roi ^topot xoci roi$ Qucrloii a-no^
/3Xs7rou<nv ^jxcov o\ figol, aWa fxv) Trpog tvjv ^v^yjv, ccv Tig o<rioc
noii S/xaiOf Mv Tuy^uvYi. Alcibiades II. Bekker, pars i. vol.
ii. p. 295.
^ Vid. Plato de Legibus, lib. iv. Bekker, pars iii. vol.
ii. p. 355. Eusebius, Praep. Evangel, lib. xi. cap. 13. St.
James, iv^^G.
c 4
24
actions are to be avoided, but that light and
idle words are to be shunned : for an aveng-
ing Nemesis was appointed to take account
of, and severely to punish, even these'".
That this vengeance of the gods, the wicked
man could by no efforts either elude or
escape ; if he could take wings and fly up
to heaven, or could penetrate into the very
depths of the earth, it would still pursue
and search him out, either here or here-
after ". Such maxims are certainly admir-
able, and inferior only to that perfect wisdom
which came from the lips of Him who spake
as never man spake ^ and who proposed to
the imitation of his followers no imaginary
pattern, removed alike from their sight and
their comprehension, but descended upon
m AioTi KOT<l>12N xai nTHNX2N AOFON /3a/5ur«T)j
^>3ju-/a* TraiXi yotp STrKrxowos rolg Trsp) tu toiuvto, eroLp^Qri Alxris
Ngjxecris ocyysXog, De Legibus, lib. iv. p. 357.
" Oux ovTM a-[Jiixpos MV dvasi xaru to t% y^j /3a5oj, ou8*
V^l/YlXO$ ySVOfJ^SVOS s\$ rOV OVpotVOV (XVUTTTYjO'Si, t'kTSIS 8g aVTMVf T^V
rfrpocTYiKOva-av TifJicopluv s'It IvOaSs ju-evcov she xoi) Iv "Aidov ^iutto-
psMg. De Legibus, lib. x. p. 219.
o Mirantur quidam nobis in gratia Christi sociati cum
audiunt vel legunt Platonem de Deo ista sensisse quae
multum congruere veritati religionis nostras agnoscunt.
Augustin, Civ. Dei, lib. viii, c. 11.
25
earth, and went about doing good, the visi-
ble and embodied model and archetype of
truth. Whether these precepts are called
morality or philosophical purification, which
necessarily included within it the idea of
morality, their natural tendency, unless
counteracted by other causes, must have
been beneficial p; for those only who trained
themselves by them were to be admitted to
the future happiness -^ those who did not,
were to be excluded from it ; whether the
participation or exclusion were derived from
some law of physical necessity inherent in
the soul, or depended on the decision of a
supreme Judge \ For allusions to a future
judgment, including as it does the idea of
retribution in its more strict and proper
sense, are by no means wanting. In the
same treatise, in which we find him declar-
ing before the tribunal of his country, that
there was a divine voice within him which
P Apologia Socratis, Plato, Bekker, pars i. vol. ii. p. 118.
Hist. Crit. Phil. Brucker, vol. i. p. 564.
q Phaedo, Bekker, pars ii. vol, iii. p. 107. Epist. 7.
Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 448. Gorgias, Bekker, pars ii.
vol. i. p. 167.
26
commanded him to obey God rather than
man \ he is represented as deriving consola-
tion from the reflection that there would be
a more just judgment hereafter. And after
his condemnation, when his friends had
made all things ready for his escape from
prison, and urged him to fly from his im-
pending fate, he refuses at once, alleging as
the grounds of his refusal the duty of sub-
mission to the laws : when they persist in
their solicitations, urging that the injustice
of the law, in condemning him though inno-
cent, would warrant his disobedience ; he
answers them with the Christian maxim,
that it is our duty to return good for evil^;
^ nElSOMAI AE MA AAON Till 0EX2T H 'TMIN. Apo-
logia, Bekker, pars i. vol. ii. p. 115. eOprjcrsi Toug cog 'AAH-
0f2^ AIKA^TA^, o'{ TTsg xa) XsyovroLi kxel Zixa^siv. Apo-
logia, p. 138. The practical effects of his belief in a fu-
ture judgment are stated also in the Gorgias : 'Ttto tovtoov
TMV \6yoov fri'7rsi<rfx,ui, xa) (rxoitw 07ru)g uTro<pavoo[ji,oti too xpirfi cog
vyisaTixTrjV tvjv ^v^^v, ^aigsiv ovv euaag rag Tiixoig rug tcjov ttoAAcuv
oivSgMTtoov, Ttjv uKrjQsiuv axOTtcav, irsipccdOi^oLi tm ovri cog av Suvco-
fjiui (^iXTKTTog coy xui ^^v x«i hzei^uv aTrofivijo-xco a7ro9vi^crxEiV,
riapotxoiXco ds xu) Tovg aWovg Travrag uv&pooTroug. Gorgias, Plato,
Bekker, pars ii. vol. i. p. 170.
s The passage is very strong in the original : Socrates
denies that we have the right, under any circumstances,
9.7
assigning at the same time as the motive of
his conduct, that he may be able to give a
good account to the gods who reign in
Hades*. Thus the very same man whose
arguments for the soul's immortality are
unsatisfactory or unintelligible, teaches in
plain and simple language the right source
of moral obligation ", the most perfect
moral precept, and the strongest motive
and encouragement for the practice of it
of returning evil for evil : Outs apx 'ANTAAIKEIN hi outs
KAK12S nOIEIN ovUvu avQ^coTrcov, OTA' *AN 'OTIOTN
nA:SXHI 'rn* ATTI2N. Crito, Uekker, pars i. vol. ii. p.
157.
In the Gorgias also he declares that it is better to suffer
injustice than to commit it : Su upu ^ov\oio av oSixsla-Qon
fj,uK\ov r} a^ixfiv ; (Soc.) BouAo<jU.>3V jxsv av syaoys oodiTsgct' el
8' ocvayxoiiov enj u^ixslv 15 a5ixs7o"5a<, kXolfXYjv av {xoiXXov u^ixsi-
a-QonYj oidiKslv. Gorgias, Bekker, pars ii. vol. i. p. 49.
^ M.YJTS 7ra7§aj TTSp) trKslovog ttoiov fj^rjTS to K,f,v ju-^ts «X>.o jOtyjSsv
•ffpo Tov diKCilov, 'iva s\g"hi^ov sXflcov eyr^g twjto. "KcaTo. ccKOXoyy]-
aotcrQcn To1g Ixsi oip^ouG-iv, Crit. p. 167.
u The statement here given by no means coincides with
the following assertions of Warburton : " The ancients
" neither knew the origin of obligation nor the conse-
" quence of obedience. Revelation hath discovered these
" principles; and we now wonder that such prodigies of
" parts and knowledge could commit the gross absurdities
" which are to be found in their best discourses on mo-
" rality.'"* Divine Legation, lib. iii. s. 5. vol. iii. p. 144.
28
in the expectation of future retribution.
It is not my intention to pursue the sub-
ject at length through the different schools
of antiquity; through the scepticism of
some, the atheism of others, or the sys-
tems of those who allowed the existence,
yet denied the providence of God; nor
to examine how far their principles are
consistent with their ordinary precepts, and
the comparative credit due to either in de-
ciding upon their own belief But it may
be a matter of interesting inquiry to in-
vestigate the opinions of one distinguished
teacher respecting a future state, who more
than divided with Plato the empire of phi-
losophy. It is however by no means easy
to ascertain the sentiments of Aristotle on
the subject : as he taught that happiness
would be the reward of virtue in this life,
he makes few allusions in his practical
works to the destinies of the soul in an-
other state of being. He never directly
proposes the doctrine of a future retribution
as the motive of our morality : and though
he certainly held the soul's immortality, it
is doubted by some if he believed its exist-
29
ence after death in a state of personal iden-
tity. In that important question, whether
the abstract principles of reason or the com-
mon opinions of mankind are the best evi-
dence of truth, he uniformly gives the pre-
ference to the latter''. And if this be adopt-
ed as the test of his own notions in the
present case, he believed in the separate
existence of the soul, for he represents it
as affected after death by the fortunes of
its living friends ^i but at other times his
language appears to be of a different ten-
dency ; and in his metaphysical works, if
amid many perplexed and obscure state-
ments his meaning be rightly understood ^
X Hence his continual appeal in his Ethics to the lan-
guage of men as an evidence of truth : and in the 10th
book, chap. 8, he observes, that the arguments of philo-
sophers have weight when they agree with experience,
but when they disagree they must be rejected.
y Aristot. Ethics, lib. i. cap. 11.
z Vid. Aristot. de Anima, book ii ; also more particu-
larly book iii. chap. 5, 6. Tennemann's Geschichte der
Philosophie, art. Aristotle, p. 109. Cudworth**s Intellect.
Syst. booki. §. 45. Warburton's Divine Legation, book 3.
sect. 4. vol. iv. p. 112. No writer but Warburton pro-
fesses to think Aristot. de Anima, book iii. chap. 5,Q,
clear and intelligible. His theory of the TO 'EN intro-
30
he denies to that part, or rather power of
the soul which he invests with immortahty,
the possession of memory, and consequently,
by a possible though not necessary infer-
ence, of individual consciousness ^ The
failure of the two most distinguished
among the philosophers of antiquity may
teach us how little the force of natural
reason could effect in clearing up the most
important of all subjects. Whatever they
believed themselves, or their followers be-
lieved, respecting, a future state, could not
have been altogether in consequence of
their arguments. As moralists they speak
with the tongue of men and of angels, and
prescribe a code of moral discipline beyond
the capacity of man to practise, but their
reasonings for the soul's immortality, with
some few exceptions, began and ended in
speculations alike inconceivable and unpro-
fitable, and left the common expectations
of mankind, loaded as they were with ab-
surdity, a better guide even to themselves
duced to explain the difficulty is an assumption, not an
argument.
a Appendix, note K.
31
than all the abstractions of philosophy
How often must Plato have felt, when
baffled and perplexed by the subtlety of
his own reasonings, the wish which he once
so strongly expressed ^ that the Deity would
^ The words «vayxa7ov ovv e^t) Trspifj^emv soog olv rig [i.ol^
cug hi Trgog Ssouj xai Trpoj uvQ^ctinovc ZiuxsiaSui. Alcib. Xlore ovv
TTupscrcii 6 •^povog ovTO(;y oo l^ooKpotrsg; xu) rig 6 TruiBsvo'ctiv ', ij^i-
ara yup av jxoi Soxw *8e7v rovrov rov uvSpooTTOv rig s<mvj have
been frequently cited by theologians as a proof that So-
crates expected some divine Teacher to appear upon
earth ; and it was with this impression that the remarks
were make in the text. If however the passage be fully
examined in connection with the dialogue that follows to
the end of the treatise, it will appear very dubious whe-
ther they have any such meaning. The more probable
import seems to be, that Socrates is speaking of himself,
as the teacher who watched over the interests of Alci-
biades, but he was aware that his disciple would not re-
ceive his instructions till his mind at some future period
should be less clouded by passion, and become better
prepared to distinguish" between good and evil. Alci-
biades II. Bekker, pars i. vol. ii. pp. 296 — 298. Nor will
the passage in the Republic, (ourco ^lUKslpLsvog 6 hUceiog ....
oiVix(r)(^iv^u\suQYj(rerui, Bekker, p. 66.) which is referred to
by Black wall and many other learned men, as a prophetic
description of our Saviour's crucifixion, appear to admit
any application of the kind, if the whole discussion con-
cerning justice and injustice be calmly considered from
the commencement of the book to the words alluded to.
Repub. lib. ii. Bekker, pp. 57 — 66.
32
appoint some one to reveal his will to
man, and enlighten his mind upon sub-
jects too excellent for human intellect to
attain to !
Let us turn from the speculations of pa-
gan philosophy, to consider the belief of
the Jewish people respecting a future state
of retribution, possessing as they did the
benefits of a divine revelation.
*" The opinion has been maintained and
supported with great learning and ability,
that throughout the Old Testament, from
Moses to the captivity, the Israelites had
not the doctrine of a future state of re-
wards and punishments ; and that so much
as an intelligible hint of it is not found in
the Mosaic law.
That being omitted in the sanctions of
the law, it was clearly never intended to be
revealed to them.
That in quality of historian as well as of
legislator Moses is silent on the subject,
and seems designedly to conceal the future
immortality.
c Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, book v.
sect. 5. vol. iii. pp. 131—134 edit. 1788.
33
"^That the extraordinary providence, which
under the Jewish dispensation extended
both to the state and the particular mem-
bers of the state, would prevent any of that
feeling arising from the unequal distribu-
tion of things, which, under the ordinary
course of God's providence, so naturally di-
rects the hopes of men to the recompense
of another life.
These propositions are certainly at vari-
ance with the general sentiments on the
subject; and it may not be unprofitable
briefly to examine as well into their truth
or falsehood, as also into the nature of that
foundation on which they are supposed to
rest.
"" Now it will readily be allowed by every
d Book V. sect. 4. vol. iii. pp. 112 — 131.
e Davison on Prophecy, p. 166. Maimonides and the
most eminent Jewish doctors maintain that eternal life is
to be found in the law, and that it is to be believed, not
from other considerations, but because it is in the law.
For the mode in which they support their interpretations
vide Pearson on the Creed, edit. Oxford, 1797. 2d vol.
p. 464. Warburton, Dedicat. to the Jews, 2d vol. p. 282.
Warburton, book vi. sect. 3. vol. iii. p. 343. has cited
the texts adduced by Manasseh Ben- Israel from the Pen-
tateuch, in his tract de Resurrectione Mortuorum. For
34
candid inquirer, that, using the term Mo-
saic law in its strict and limited sense, as
the code delivered on mount Sinai, the
doctrine of future retribution is not to be
found in it. For the cabalistic interpre-
tations and distortions of words and phrases,
by which many of the Jewish rabbin at-
tempt to establish a different opinion, are
too absurd to require refutation ; and those
solemn expressions of Moses, / call heaven
and earth to record this day against you^
that I have set before you life and deaths
blessing and cursing, therefore choose life,
which some theologians understand of a
future and eternal life, appear, when taken
in connection with their context, to refer,
in their simple and primary sense at least,
the immortality, Exod. xix. 6. xxxiii. 20. Levit. vii. 25.
Deut. xiv. 1, 2. xxii. 7. xxxii. 47. For the resurrection,
Gen. iii. 19. xxxvii. 10. Exod. xv. 6. Levit. xxv. Numb.
XV. 30. xviii. 28. Deut. iv. 4. xxxii. 39. xxxiii. 6. He
has also given at length Rabbi Tanchum''s ridiculous
Comment on 1 Sam. xxv. 29. Vide also Michaelis Argu-
menta Immortalitatis, sect. 9. p. 96. Syntagma Comment.
Goettingae 1759. who enumerates several texts from the
Diatribe of Theodorus Dassovius, some of which are the
same with those mentioned above, others different.
35
to the benefits of this life only^. And most
certainly this promise of temporal good and
evil on the part of the legislator, as the
recompense of obedience or disobedience,
when combined with the historical fact,
that the fortunes of the Jewish people for
ages are in exact accordance with it^, an
agreement which no human wisdom could
have foreseen, and no human power could
have fulfilled, does prove that the legis-
lator himself was an ambassador from hea-
ven, and that he must have been appointed
by that omniscient and omnipotent Being,
who alone could make the contingent de-
signs and contingent operations of free
agents, whether acting individually or as
nations, contribute to the accomplishment
of his own certain and unchangeable pur-
^ Deut. XXX. 19. Mr. Peters contends that the Abra-
hamic covenant was renewed in this chapter, and bishop
Bull understood it in the same way. Vid. Critical Disser-
tation on Book of Job, by Mr. Peters, part iii. sect. S.
also bishop BulPs Harmon. Apostol. Dissert. Poster,
cap. 11. This able divine argues very strongly through-
out the chapter in favour of the hypothesis alluded to.
g Vid. Joshua xxiii. 14. All are come to pass unto you,
and not one thing hath Jailed thereof.
D 2
36
poses. But to argue that, in consequence
of this omission, it was intended by Moses,
or rather by the Almighty, whose servant
he was, that the Jews should be shut out
from the knowledge of a future state, would**
imply a far greater acquaintance with the
counsels of divine wisdom than we may
presume to lay claim to. The question,
whether the Jews believed on such a doc-
trine or not, would depend upon the means
they might have of acquiring information
from other sources besides their legp-l code;
and whether the necessary effect of the
Mosaic code would be to check or anni-
hilate every other source of instruction.
In order to understand the subject rightly
it is necessary to keep in mind the object
of that law, which was\ to preserve the
h The law in its sanctions is only po,ntive, that God
will do so much, not exclusive, that he will do nothing
more. Davison on Prophecy, p. 175.
Warburton's work was translated into German in 1751.
J. D. Michaelis published a short Dissertation (if not
written, corrected by him) against it, Argumenta Im-
mortalitatis Animorum humanorum ex Mose collecta.
Goettingae 1752. Vide Schrockh. viii. Theil. vol. xliii.
p. 753.
i Warburton, book v. sect. 2. vol. iii. p. QQ,
37
memory of the one God in an idolatrous
world, till the coming of Christ. And it is
difficult to conceive how this object could
be effected by any other than temporal re-
wards ; by any other than some signal and
visible manifestations of the divine power,
which might convince the heathen nations
that the God of the Hebrews was indeed a
God that doeth wonders, and might recall
to the carnal-minded Jew himself, when
tempted to forget his Benefactor, by the
immediate vengeance attendant upon trans-
gression, a sense at once of his obligations
and his privileges:^ / will send my fear
before thee, and will destroy all the people to
whom thou shalt come, and I will make all
thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
^And five of you shall chase an hundred,
and an hundred of you shall put ten thou-
sand to flight, and your enemies shall fall
before you by the sword.
Such was the promised recompense of
obedience ; but in case of disobedience the
threat is denounced :
^ Exod. xxiii. 27. * lievit. xxvi. 8.
d3
38
'" / will set my face against you, and ye
shall be slain before you?* enemies.
""And I will scatter* you among the hea-
then, and will draw out a sword after youy
and your land shall be desolate and your
cities waste.
Nor does it appear that this promise of
temporal good, as many of the opponents
of Warburton° contended, was confined to
the nation only: health and wealth, ferti-
lity to the field and fruitfulness to the
cattle, the blessing of the olive and the
vine, the basket and the store, every kind
of prosperity, was promised to the indivi-
dual also ; yet as well to the individual as
to the state, in reference to the main ob-
ject, the preservation of both from idolatry,
which would generally be best effected by
the more striking example of national bless-
ings and national punishments. Yet it is
difficult to understand how such a condi-
tion of things should destroy in the minds
of the people either those natural expecta-
"» Levit. xxvi. 17. " Levit. xxvi. 33.
o Mr. Peters and other opponents of Warburton.
39
tions which the rest of mankind cherished
in regard to a future state, or the authority
of revelation, supposing the doctrine were
contained in other inspired writings, which
they acknowledged, besides the ordinances
of their legal code. The extraordinary
providence under which they lived could
not justify the ways of God to man upon
the ground of reason, as a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him, for (it has been well
remarked) though an extraordinary provi-
denceP, it was not an equal providence, and
under such a dispensation as the Mosaic
(with reverence be it spoken) Omnipotence
itself could not make it so. If the land
suffered for its transgressions and became
captive to its enemies, it is hardly possible
to imagine that some innocent individuals
should not have suffered with it. We read
in the books of Moses, that when one par-
ticular person had committed the offence,
P Mr. Peters (p. 263.) observes, that an extraordinary
providence does by no means include or infer an equal
providence. Mr. Lancaster has very properly remarked
on the egregious fallacy of Warburton in confounding
the two ideas. Vide Mr. Lancaster's Harmony of the
Law and the Gospel, p. 157.
D 4
40
the whole army and nation was punished
for his sin, though ignorant of it. In like
manner, subjects were punished for the dis-
obedience of the king. Again, when the
father offended, his innocent children and
family were cut off with him ; and, suppos-
ing they escaped the legal penalty, the loss
of the father would itself be an infliction
of evil on his kindred. The author of the
Divine Legation has called circumstances
like these, inequalities of events, and neces-
sarily arising from an equal providence %
as if by a change of phrase he could get rid
of the fact, that under such a dispensation
the innocent suffered with the guilty ; and
that it was even a necessary and appoint-
ed part of it for the crimes of the fathers
to be visited upon the children. Yet, amid
such inequalities, have we any reason to
^ Warburton's Divine Legation, book v. sect. 4. vol. iii.
p. 121.
He attempts also most paradoxically to shew that the
sacred writers, when they speak (more particularly in the
Book of Psalms and Ecclesiastes) of the inequalities of
Providence and the unfit distribution of things^ allude to
a dispensation existing among their pagan neighbours,
and not in Judaea. Book v. sect. 4. vol. iii. p. 120.
41
suppose that the peculiar people of God,
favoured as they were acknowledged to be,
should have been deprived of those hopes
of future recompense, in which every other
nation under heaven, when oppressed with
calamity, could find consolation? And
strong as the sanctions of their temporal
code might be as a motive of moral con-
duct, have we any probable grounds for
supposing that the Almighty excluded from
the breast of the Jew the fear of future re-
tribution, which, in many secret offences
to which the law cannot reach, provides a
surer check than temporal evils or tempo-
ral death, and which, even under such a reli-
gion as paganism, had a powerful operation
in deterring men from transgression : for
we have the testimony of one of their own
writers that it was the inordinate lusts and
passions of men that made them atheists "" ?
Nor is it necessary for us to explain why,
if it were intended that the Jewish people
should look forward to the good or evil of
the future life, it was not made a part of
^ "Axgursla r|8ov«)v xai sTnQvixim. Plato de Legibus, lib. x.
Bentley's First Sermon on the Folly of Atheism.
4£
the sanctions of their law. We cannot rea-
son clearly on the purposes of the Almighty,
who knows better than we do the compre-
hensiveness of his own designs, and the
best method and the best time of accom- •
plishing them : The secret things belong
unto the Lord, but those things which are
revealed belong unto us and to our children
for ever \ Yet if we reflect upon the me-
thod which God had appointed, by which
man was to be made partaker of eternal
life, the propitiation of Christ and not his
own merit or obedience, we may be led to
understand why the promise of eternal life
was not given in the law ^ Those who lived
under such a system might in that case
have supposed that the gift of eternal life
was annexed as the deserved reward of obe-
s Deut. xxix. 29.
' The apostle'*s answer will serve me ; For if there had
been a law which could have given life, verily righteous-
7iess should have been by the law. Gal. iii. 21 . that is, if
the genius of the law had produced such a dispensation
as was proper to convey to mankind the free gift of life
and immortality, this gift would have been conveyed by
it. Warburton, vol. iii. book v. sect. 6. p. 163; vid. also
p. 162. Mr. Lancaster's Harmony, preface, and p. 11.
and 12.
43
dience to the law ; that the law was in it-
self perfect, and sufficient for man's justifi-
cation, and not the shadow of good things
to come, and the preparation of a system
founded upon better pi^omises. It is evi-
dent from the Epistles of St. Paul, that it
was their confidence in the allsufficiency of
legal ordinances which wrought so strongly
on the ancient Jews in their obstinate re-
jection of the gospel; they believed that
their scriptures held out the blessing of im-
mortality as the destined portion of Israel ;
and they were persuaded, that, if not di-
rectly taught in the law, it was implied in
it, and would be given to the faithful Is-
raelite through the instrumentality of its
sanctions alone. Supposing then eternal
life had been the explicit promise of the
Mosaic code, all these errors would have ac-
quired tenfold strength ; their bitter aver-
sion to the gospel would in some degree
have been built upon reason, rather than
upon blind prejudice; and some of the most
powerful arguments, urged by the apostle
to overcome the obstinacy of his country-
men, would have lost much of their force
44
and propriety. And this reliance of their
forefathers on the privileges of their law
has been more than continued and con-
firmed in the breasts of the modern Jews.
The perverted " ingenuity of rabbinical in-
terpreters since the dispersion of Israel, su-
peradded to the ancient traditions, has in-
spired them with the full conviction that
eternal life is eoopressly revealed in the law;
and to this, among other causes, may be
ascribed the tenacious adherence with which
the scattered remnant of the Jewish people
still cling to the ancient dispensation "". If
these reflections be well-founded, the no-
tion of a double covenant and a twofold
law proposed by Moses, as of positive enact-
ment, the one his own national covenant
with temporal promises, the other the Abra-
hamic covenant with eternal life, a theory
which some eminent divines have adopted
with a view of reconciling difficulties, would
be in itself an improbable hypothesis ; nor
^ More especially of Maimonides, who lived in the
12th century,
X Vid. Mr. Lancaster's Supplementary Remarks, p.
873.
45 -^^^^
are the words upon which this idea is
grounded sufficient to support the super-
structure raised upon them.
From this general view of the question, it
is time to appeal to the word of God, and to
examine how far the promises and prophe-
cies relative to the future redemption con-
tained in the inspired writings, previous to
the captivity, together with those sentiments
and turns of expression which meet our eyes
almost in every page, are consistent with the
opinion that the peculiar people of God
were shut out from the knowledge of a fu-
ture state. In making this examination,
we should be cautious of attributing too
much weight to the inferences we are now
enabled to draw, by means of the full reve-
lation we enjoy, from passages whether in
the law of Moses or in other parts of the
Old Testament ^. The words that convey to
our minds clear notions of a future state
might not have appeared in the same light
to the understanding of the ancient Jews.
y Vide some very just remarks in Dr. Whately's Essays
on the peculiarities of Christianity, p. 49. on the passage
cited by our Lord himself against the Sadducees.
46
But not to insist upon inferences more or
less doubtful from particular texts, it would
seem extraordinary, if, intrusted as they
were with the oracles of God, in which the
scheme of mercy and deliverance from the
death denounced upon Adam and his pos-
terity is the one great object, proceeding
gradually to its accomplishment, from the
fall to the birth of our Saviour, they could
passively and without reflection have yielded
themselves to the punishment of Adam, the
bitter sting of death, without meditating
upon the promises and blessings scattered
through the same early records which re-
lated the original transgression. In a nar-
rative so concise as the history of the fall
is, we cannot determine with what degree
of clearness the revelation of redemption,
and of future triumph over the tempter, was
conveyed to the minds of our first parents
in the curse pronounced upon the serpent,
that his head should be bruised by the seed
of the woman : but it is impossible (as War-
burton himself allows) that the words could
have been understood in the bare literal
sense ; and without attempting to give any
47
undue extent to their signification, through
the reflected light thrown upon them sub-
sequently by the progressive developement
of the Almighty's purposes, it is surely most
probable, (because most consistent with that
union of justice and mercy which pervade
all the divine dispensations,) that at a time
when the Father of mankind was bowed
down under the weight of a penalty which
condemned him to eat bread with the sweat
of his brow, till he returned to the dust
from whence he came, they were intended
to convey to him the only hope of which he
could be susceptible, the anticipation of
final deliverance from his misery. What
reflections would naturally suggest them-
selves to the ancient Israelite, when, bearing
this promise in mind, he was taught, as he
proceeded in the sacred volume, that God
looked with an eye of regard on the sacri-
fice of Abel, and rejected the offering of
Cain, and yet suffered the same righteous
Abel to be murdered through envy excited
by his righteousness ! He might read that
the patriarchs of his race were the friends
and favourites of God, and yet were Strang-
48
ers and pilgrims upon earth ; and while
they rejoiced that their pilgrimage was
drawing to a close, and they were about to
be gathered to their fathers, would he be-
lieve that this joy was excited by the termi-
nation of their earthly labours in the in-
sensibility of the grave ; and that being "^ga-
thered to their fathers meant no more than
that the same sepulchre which had covered
the bones of their fathers should soon be
the receptacle of their own ? We learn that
Abraham looked for a city which hath
foundations, and that he was commanded
to train up his children and household
in the way of the Lord""; and would the
memory of these instructions be eradicated
entirely from the breasts of the children
of Abraham? ^Can we imagine that the
z Warburton allows that the origin of this phrase must
have been derived from the notion of a common recepta-
cle for souls, vol. iii. book vi. sect. 3. p. 320. Michaelis
observes, that the Hebrew word signifies non congregari^
solum sed et hospitio excipi, Argumenta immortalitatis
sect. 17. TrpoasTs^Yf Ttpos tov Kuov uutqu. Sept. Interp. Genesis
XXV. 8. 17. XXXV. 29. xlix. 33. Numbers xx. 24. 26. xxvii.
13. xxxi. 2.
a Vid. Genesis xviii. 19. Hebrews xi. 10. 17, 18, 19.
b « It appears that Enoch preached to the age in which
49
translation of Enoch would have awakened
no reflections, intended as we may sup-
" he lived, the doctrine of a future judgment ; his extra-
" ordinary death would be a confirmation of its truth."
Jude 14, 15. Davison on Prophecy, p. 122.
Quoniam quidem Enoch placens Deo, in quo placuit
corpore translatus est, translationem justorum prcemon-
strans, &c. Irengeus adversus Haereses, lib. v. cap. 5.
p. 439. edit. Paris. 1675.
The ancient fathers do not enter into the question, ex-
cept incidentally, as to the belief of the Jews in the im-
mortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and
punishments ; for it does not appear in the early history of
the church to have been much controverted, and the
Christian apologists in general allude to it as if it were
an acknowledged doctrine of the old dispensation, whether
they are writing against Jews or against Gentile philoso-
phers. Thus Eusebius, (Prsepar. Evangel, lib. x. xi.) in
arguing (with what justice it matters not to the present
question) that the Gentile sages borrowed all that is valu-
able in their writings from the Hebrews, speaking of
Plato, observes, " That he derived his notions of the
" soul's immortality from Moses, and that there was no dif-
" ference in their opinions on the subject ;""' xct) h rolg Tvsp)
^^X^^ aflavao-i'a^, ovUv Mooasoos 6 UkuTCtiv SieVryjxs Tr, So^r;,
X. T. X. lib. xi. c. 27. Vigeri edit. Paris, 1628. It is scarce-
ly necessary to remark that the assertion is beyond the
truth, but it will at least serve to prove, with many other
passages that might be adduced, that Eusebius did not
agree with Warburton as to the doctrine either of Plato
or the ancient Jews. The argument indeed throughout
this treatise, as well as the Demonstratio Evangelica
E
50
pose it to have been, since so many pa-
triarchs and righteous men were suffered
to die the common death of all men, not
so much as a privilege to himself, as a les-
son to his own age and succeeding genera-
tions. And are all those expressions in the
Old Testament, more especially in the Pro-
phets and the Psalms, which appear to us
clearly to point to a future life, satisfacto-
rily explained by Warburton, who uniformly
interprets the plain as relating to this life
only, and the figurative as illustrative of
some other truth, to be conveyed through
the medium of a figure, which in itself was
not intended to be considered as having any
foundation in truth ^? Thus such expres-
clearly evinces, that he did not suppose either the patri-
archs or the people of Israel to have looked only to trans-
itory promises.
c Divine Legation, book vi. sect. 2. vol. iii. p. 312.
Warburton, in combating Dr. Felton^s plain and simple
principle, that all words used in a figurative sense must
first be understood in a literal, adopts the same argument
which the opponents of TertuUian made use of when
they attempted to refute the doctrine of the resurrection.
They asserted that the language of tlie prophets was to
be understood figuratively, to which TertuUian replies,
" Si omnia figurae, quid erit illud cujus figurae?"" In con-
51
sions as these, Thy dead men shall live, to-
gether with my dead body shall they arise ^,
might be used by the prophet without his
conveying, or intending to convey, the no-
tion that his dead body v^^ould arise. And
that bold and sublime description of the
prophet, in which the souls in Hades are
represented as rising to meet the king of
Babylon at his coming, according to this
mode of interpretation, would be considered
as intelligible, without the supposition that
firmation, he appeals to the well-known passage in Eze-
kiel, chap, xxxvii. which they declared to be figurative,
and to convey no promise of a resurrection to the house
of Israel, but the assurance of temporal prosperity, and
the reunion of their scattered tribes ; his answer is, " Non
'' posset de ossibus figura componi si non id ipsum ossi-
" bus eventurum esset, nam etsi figmentum veritatis in
" imagine est, imago ipsa in veritate est sui." Tertull. de
Resurrect, Carnis cap. 29, 30, 31. Sculteti Syntagma,
cap. 4. sect. 3. Vide Warburton's remarks on the chapter
of Ezekiel alluded to, vol. iii. p. 314. book vi. sect. 2.
Bishop of BristoPs Eccles. Hist. p. 282.
*l Isaiah xxvi. 19. Few will agree with the observation
of Warburton, that " there was no occasion for the doc-
" trine of the resurrection to make the language intelli-
" gible." Warburton, vol. iii. p. 313 ; still less, " that an
'' image is of more force for its being ^inknownr p. 314.
E 2
52
Hades existed as a receptacle for souls ^
Hell from beneath is moved to meet thee at
thy coming ; it stirreth up the dead for thee^
even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath
raised up from their thrones all the kings of
the nations. All they shall speak and say
unto thee^ Aj^t thou also become weak as we ?
Art thou become like one of us?
Not to mention many other passages,
especially in the Prophets and the Psalms^,
which are sufficient to shew that the idea
was prevalent among the Jews, of Hades
e Warburton, book vi. sect. 3. p. 337. Isaiah xiv. 9, 10.
Warburton always translates Sheol the grave : but there
are above sixty places in the Old Testament where the
word occurs, and it is constantly rendered Hades by the
Seventy, except in one or two places at most. Peters on
the Book of Job, p. 322.
^^ Amongst all the ancients, whether heathens, Jews, or
" Christians, the usual acceptation of hell was^ that it was
*' the common lodge or habitation of separated souls both
" good and bad, wherein each of them, according to their
" deserts in this life, and their expectations of the future
^' judgment, remained either in joy or misery." Vide Cri-
tical History of the Apostles'" Creed; a most able and
learned work by an ancestor of the present lord King ;
art. Descent into Hell,
f Psalm Ixxxvi. 13. Prov. xv. 24. Psalm xvi. 10. Prov.
ix. 18. Job xxvi. 6.
53
being the region of the departed, and that
they divided this region, and assigned a dif-
ferent habitation in it for the reception of
the righteous and the wicked ^. Again, the
more plain and direct expressions, which
are generally understood as referring to a
future state, are forced from their natural
and obvious sense by the author of the Di-
vine Legation, and restricted in their im-
port to this life only : Thou wilt not leave
my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine
holy One to see corruption ^ might have
signified to the Jews of old. Thou wilt
not suffer me to fall immaturely ; The
righteous hath hope in his death '\ The right-
eous hath hope that he shall be delivered
from the most imminent dangers. Nor does
the expression, which have their portion in
g Luke xvi. parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Mr.
Peters on the Book of Job, sect. 8.
^ Psalm xvi. 10. An acquaintance with the opinions of
Epiphanius, Athanasius, Origen, and other ancient fa-
thers respecting this text, might have rendered Warbur-
ton more cautious in hazarding an interpretation which
has no merit but that of novelty to recommend it.
' Proverbs xiv. 3^.
E 3
54
this life S mark, according to such principles
of interpretation, any opposition between
this life and another. It is needless to mul-
tiply other passages of the same kind, which
will readily suggest themselves to all who
are conversant with the Old Testament,
and which no acuteness and ingenuity can
explain away. But that celebrated passage
in the Book of Job \ which would seem de-
cisive of the question, I have purposely
omitted ; because, as many commentators of
great knowledge and candour have doubted
whether it referred to a future state or not,
it would certainly be inadmissible as a proof
in a controverted question, till, after a cri-
tical examination of the original in con-
nection with the context, its validity as a
testimony were fully established* And theo-
logians should ever bear in mind, that no
greater injury can be done to the cause of
k Psalm xvii. 14.
^ Job xix. 25. Amid the conflicting opinions of com-
mentators, it is difficult for me to come to any conclusion
on the subject. None indeed but a good Hebrew scholar
is competent to the investigation : but while any doubt
remains, it should not be received as a testimony in a
matter of such importance.
55
truth, especially to that of religious truths
than bringing forward with indiscreet zeal
any questionable or doubtful evidence in
support of a doctrine. The adversary might
adduce it as a confession of weakness in a
cause which had recourse to such assist-
ance ; a presumption which can never be
excited against an argument founded upon
a comprehensive view of the general tenor
and language of revelation. Nor has any
appeal been made to the prophecy of Daniel,
because it is allowed by all, that at the time
when Daniel wrote the belief of a future
state, from whatever cause, was generally
prevalent among the Jewish people. Suffi-
cient indications remain, without calling in
the aid either of such specific declarations
or more doubtful inferences, to convince
every diligent and candid inquirer that
the ancient fathers of the Jewish church
did not look merely to transitory promises ;
unless we are to believe, that, because they
had a legal code with temporal advantages
annexed for a particular purpose, they were
to close their hearts against the natural re-
flections which suggested themselves to all
E 4
56
other men, and close their eyes against all
the instruction to be derived from the reve-
lation they possessed. Nor does the opinion,
that both Jew and Gentile believed in a
future state detract from the claims of the
gospel as having brought life and immor-
tality to light. The Gentiles assented to
the truth, they knew not why, from the
common apprehensions of nature ; but their
expectations, though connected with the
idea of responsibility and future judgment,
were vague and uncertain ; and we have
seen from the example of the philosophers,
who went on for ever learning, yet never
coming to a knowledge of the truth, how
little they could give a reason of the hope
that was in them. And the Jew, though
taught by many a prophetic vision, or in-
structive narrative, or consoling promise, or
significant type, to cherish the hope of the
immortal life, which the sin of Adam had
forfeited, through the medium of a Deli-
verer who was to be one of his descendants,
had not, and could not have, that distinct
and definite knowledge of the nature and
method and benefits of redemption which
57
was reserved till the coming of Him in
whom every type and prophecy and pro-
mise were to receive their full accomplish-
ment. The Israelite of old, in his journey
through the wilderness of life, was strength-
ened and cheered as he drank of the brook
by the way, or of the fountain here and
there gushing forth from the rock ; but the
living well was wanting, whose constant
and abundant waters are ever present to
us, for the comfort and refreshing of our
souls. He was conducted to his eternal
inheritance by a light shinmg in a dark
place, that pointed out dimly the glories
of the future Redeemer, like that pillar of
a cloud through which the glory of the
Lord appeared, and which guided his foot-
steps through the desert to the possession
of his temporal Canaan. In the fulness of
time the Sun of i'ighteousness arose with
healing in his ivings, and all those clouds
through which the light had shone dimly
on the eye of the faithful were dispersed
before him. God sent forth his Son pro-
claiming peace on earth, and good-ivill to-
wards men, revealed clearly in his offices of
58
Redeemer, Sanctifier, and Mediator, so ne-
cessary to the wants, so encouraging to the
hopes, so soothing to the apprehensions of
man. We need no longer perplex our-
selves with difficult questions respecting
the soul's immortality : having died to re-
deem us from iniquity, our Lord rose again
from the dead, in order to assure us of
eternal life, by teaching us the resurrection
of the bodv ; a truth which alone could
convey in a satisfactory manner to the
understanding of man the doctrine of a
future retribution. And if from a sense of
our imperfection, we tremble at the ex-
pectation of judgnnent to come, we may
derive encouragement from the assurance
that God hath committed all judgment to
the Son, who himself partook of man's na-
ture, and is touched with a feeling of hu-
man infirmity. The speculative disputer
may still object that there are many diffi-
culties that perplex, and mysteries not
fully explained, and to the finite under-
standing of man they must ever remain so.
There is a progressive order in the dispen-
sations of Almighty Wisdom, which it is
59
possible may not yet be terminated. As
the light which appeared to them of old
time was only the dawning of that compa-
rative fulness of light which we now enjoy,
Christianity itself may be only the dawning
of that perfect light which shall shine upon
us in our glorified state ; when, in the lan-
guage of St. Augustin, " the disposition of
" them that thirst shall be changed into the
" affection of them that taste and are re-
" plenished ""." Instead of indulging in
unprofitable speculations, we should place
implicit confidence in the benevolence and
wisdom of the Deity, and rest persuaded
that he has fed us with spiritual food con-
venient for us, and revealed all that was
suitable to the capacities of our moral and
intellectual improvement. And instead of
giving way to distrust, because every diffi-
culty is not cleared up, and which perhaps
to beings constituted as we are, never could
be, we should walk forward as men assured
of our final inheritance, having our hope in
heaven, our labour on earth, our reward in
rn Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, vol. i. p. 259. 8vo. edit.
60
both : on earth, the inestimable peace of a
conscience void of offence ; and in heaven,
that peace with God, the author and finisher
of our faith, which indeed passeth all un-
derstanding ".
^ Dr. Whately, in his ingenious Essay on a Future State,
has placed too much reliance on the bold assertions of
Warburton ; who, with all his learning and dexterity in
applying it, is by no means a safe guide. His learning is
often superficial, and his reasoning sophistical. Had the
author of the Essays on the Peculiarities of Christianity
pursued the inquiry independently for himself, with no
other aid than the resources of his own candid, vigorous,
and argumentative mind, I am satisfied that his discussion
on the subject would have been less liable to be mistaken.
The words of Aristotle, when criticising the political
dreams of his rival in philosophy, may justly be applied
to characterize the Divine Legation of Warburton.
To |u.£v DEPITTON e^oucri ttoivtss ol Koyoi, xai to KAINO-
TOMON, xal to ZHTHTIKON* xaXwj Ss Travra hw^ xa^sTrov.
Pol. Aristot. lib. ii. cap. 4.
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
A.
Orpheus, Pythagoras, ThaleSj Anaxagoras,
all travelled into other countries, and from thence
derived the greater part of their philosophical
tenets. The ^Egyptian priest observes to Solon
in the Timaeus % 'H SoXwv, SoAwv, ''EAA>yvef ael Trai^e^
€a-T€, yepoov ^V^EXXyjv ovk laztv, explaining his mean-
ing at the same time by declaring that the Greeks
had no ancient doctrine amongst them, no tradi-
tion rendered venerable by age. The passages
are innumerable in which Plato alludes to this
kind of evidence ; and he always makes the appeal
in the tone of a man who thought that it was en-
titled to considerable weight. The only exception
I recollect (and in this case the common remark
is most true, that exceptio prohat regulam) is the
passage in the Timaeus, in which, after mention-
ing the traditions respecting Jupiter, Oceanus, Te-
thys, &c. he observes, that we ought to assent to
them, because they have been handed down from
the heroic age ; and we must believe the sons of
^ Plato, Timjfius, pars iii. vol. ii. p. 12. Bekker. Eusebius,
Prsep. Evangel, lib. x. cap. 4.
64
the gods^ though there are no probable or neces-
sary proofs of their assertions. Warned by the
fate of Socrates, he thought it prudent to enume-
rate among his gods the deities of the popular
mythology ; but at the same time, from his mode
of expressing himself, we have no difficulty in col-
lecting his real sentiments. The author however
of the short compressed treatise in the ^ Doric
dialect, of which Plato's work above cited is a
kind of commentary, speaks of traditions respect-
ing the punishments of a future life as false yet
expedient. This must be considered as the sen-
timent of the Locrian ; for it may be proved from
his seventh Epistle that Plato's own opinion was
very different. '^ In the treatise Ilefi Koa-fjiov, attri-
buted to Aristotle, there is the same appeal made
to the oL^xcdog Koyog ; nor is it important, in regard
to the present subject, whether the work be ge-
nuine or not. If not written by the Stagyrite, it
is evidently a composition of great antiquity ^ :
^ 'Ahvvarov otv BeSv Tsaicriv airia-reiv Kal irep avev re elKorav ko,)
avajKaiuv aitohl^eccv Xeyovariv. Plato, Timseus, Bekker, pars iii.
vol. ii. p. 42.
<= Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 391.
*^ *Ap%aro5 jtA€V Qvv Tiq Xoyoq Koi waTpto? icrri iraa-iv avQpantOii; a<; Ik
Biov roc iravra Ka) S»a deov viy.7> o-vvcVrvj/cev. Aristot. Hep) KoafMv^
cap. 6.
^ In his Metaphysics he speaks of the importance deservedly
attributed to this kind of evidence : Ti/xtwraxoy yap to Ttpio-^vrot-
Tov, lib. i. cap. 3.
65
and we have similar testimony in works undoubt-
edly his own.
The early fathers of the church, in their con-
troversies with the Greek philosophers, always
accuse themi of having borrowed their knowledge
from foreign countries, principally from Egypt,
and refer through this channel the wisdom of the
ancients to divine revelation as its source ^.
B.
The assertion in the text, that Plato believed
the Deity to have created matter out of nothing,
has appeared to me, upon further examination*
more than dubious. The younger Platonists, Cle-
mens Alexandrinus, Ficinus, and Cudworth, main-
Ila/jaSeSoTai vito tav 'APXAIHN Kcti TIAAAION ot< Qtol re il<r)v
ovroi Ktxi TtepUx^i to 64kv rrji/ oX>jy (ftva-iv. Met. lib. xiv. C. 8.
Vide also de Coelo. A^oVep, KaXSq tyjn avixTieidiTv eavrov rovq
'APXAI0T2 'AAH0EI2 elvai Xoyovq. Lib. ii. C. I.
Diogenes Laertiiis, at the commencement of his work, cites
a treatise of Aristotle in which philosophy was represented to
have derived its origin from the Magi of Persia, the Chal-
dcEans of Babylon, the Gymnosophists of India, and the Druids
of Gaul. Diog. Laert. prooemium, p. i.
Cicero also speaks of the same kind of testimony. Tusc.
Qusest. lib. i. cap. 12, 13. 17.
f Vide Mr. Lancaster's Supplementary Remarks, p. 422. and
a learned Charge by Waterland in the 8th vol. of his Works ;
Van Mildert's edit. Eusebius, Praep. Evangelica, lib. x.
F
66
tain this opinion ; but their view of Plato's sen-
timents is disproved by the statements of & Cicero
and Aristotle; and the Timaeus alone appears
sufficient to shew that he held the eternity of
matter ; nor has Serranus been successful in la-
bouring to prove that his assertions are to be con-
sidered as applying only to the archetype of mat-
ter, and not to matter visible and corporeal. It
is also worthy of remark, that the fathers, in their
refutation of the Pagans, almost uniformly object
to them their ignorance of the creation of matter.
Thus Athanasius'^ rebukes the Platonists for re-
presenting the world to have been created out of
preexisting matter. EpiphaniusS in his treatise
against Hsereses, accuses Plato of holding contra-
dictory language on the subject, sometimes speak-
ing of matter as created, at others, as coeternal
with the Deity. Eusebius'', in his Praeparatio
Evangel., asserts the superiority of Hebrew theo-
logy in its declaring that God had made^ all things,
* Cic. Acadera. Qusest. lib. iv. 37. Avo yap apx^^i <p'70'* SoKcr
itoieTv 6 UKctTuy, to //.ev vTroK€if/.(vov kou vAy^v Tvpoa-ocryopevuVf to Se u^ ai-
Twv KOU Kivovv 6 deov KoKei kou vovv. Simplicius in Aristot. Phys.
lib. i. p. 19. ed. Aldus, 1526.
^ "Akkoi Se €v 0I5 ia-ri kou {/.iyci^ itap "EXXijo-i XWa/raVy Ik Tcpwrca-
K€i[Jt.evv}i KOU ayev^rov vX-t}^ iretroirjKiyat rov deov roc oXa hrjyovvrau. De
Incarnatione, p. 48. edit. Benedict. Paris. 1698.
' Epiphanius adversus Hsereses, lib. i. cap. 6. »
^ Praeparatio Evangelica, lib. vii. cap. 18 — 22.
67
and also the matter put of which they were
made.
C.
Warburton boldly asserts that all the ancient
philosophers embraced the principle, that it was
lawful and expedient to deceive for the public
good ^ : and TuUy, on the authority of Plato,
thinks it so clear, that he calls the doing other-
wise nefas, " a horrid wickedness." As this state-
ment appeared contrary to the whole tenor of
Plato's writings, I was for some time at a loss to
conceive what treatise of the philosopher could be
alluded to. I have no doubt, however, that the
assertion is grounded on a doubtful translation by
Cicero of a passage in the Timseus™. Plato hav-
^ Divine Legation, book iii. sect. 2. vol. ii. p. 13. Warbur-
ton gives no reference to the treatise in Tully where the sen-
tence is to be found.
"* Toy jM.ev oi/v iioiyjrvjv kou icarepa roUSe tov itavro^ evpelv re epyov Kai
evpovra eU izavtaq AATNATON "kiyuv, Timaeus, p. 23. Bekker.
Difficile est invenire Conditorem hujus mundi et inventum
evulgare nefas. Ciceronianum Lexicon GrcBcolatinum, ab Hen.
Stephano, 1557. Platonis Loci Interp. p. 13.
Eusebius praises Plato for this reverence in speaking of the
Deity, as teaching, like the Hebrew scriptures, afpt^rov etvan to
6€tov, Praep. Evangel, lib. xi. c. 12.
In the same book, cap. 29, Eusebius cites the above passage
from Plato ; and in the Latin translation by Vigerus the word
nefas is used. The fact is, nefas is not an improper term ; but
F 2
68
ing declared that it is very difficult to discover
the Deity, and, when we have discovered him,
that it is impossible to reveal him to all men, Ci-
cero has rendered the word, not by impossible,
but nefas. Yet upon this interpretation of Ci-
cero's, or rather misconception on the part of
Warburton of the proper meaning belonging to
nefas^ in the passage, aided by an unwarrantable
extension of a sentiment limited in its applica-
tion into a general principle, Warburton has at-
tempted to establish an hypothesis which would
annihilate at once all that is excellent in Plato's
philosophy. There is no author, ancient or mo-
dern, who appears to devote himself with greater
ardour to the pursuit of truth **. It is the conti-
nual object of his aspirations. And there are very
few occasions in which he allows of its being sa-
crificed to expediency, and then only for a parti-
cular purpose. Thus, in the third book of the
Republic, he proposes to banish poets from his
Warburton misunderstood its meaning. Eusebius, Vigeri edit.
Paris. 1628.
° Vide the word aSuvaxov (Timaeus, p. 42.) in the passage
cited in the Appendix, note A.
° OvK oktQcx,, "^v 8' iyoOi ort to ye ax; aX-^dut; i/^ci/So^, el oJov re tovtq
elvely, vmt€<; Beol re Koi avBpuTioi (aktovo-iv ; De Repub. Bekker,
p.103.
"^evloq jtx^Se*? jttvjSev jtAijTe Xoyy, /xoyze CjSygj irpd^eie, Plato, quoted
by Blackwall, Sacred Classics, vol. ii. p. 103. ed. 1731.
69
ideal commonwealth because they teach not truth,
but the images of truth ; and he asserts that truth
is always to be upheld as an object of great conse-
quence : 'AAAa (JiYjv Kai oLKrfiua.v ye irepi iroKXov ttoi-
^reovP. He permits however the governors of the
city to make use of deceit, either for the sake of
the citizens, or on account of the enemies ; mean-
ing probably for the good of the citizens,, more
especially against the enemies of the state ^ : Toig
ap'/ovdi '^vj TYjg itoKewg, ei irep tictiv akkotg, TrpoarJKei \pev-
^eaOai yj iroXefJ^iccv t] tto^itcov hveKa eir o^cpeXeia TYjg ttO'
Xi(cg : but a private person is forbidden to practise
it. Let us suppose then that Plato, while writ-
ing his Republic, considered himself as enjoying
the privileges of a magistrate ^ and entitled, at
the very time he dismisses the poets for giving
false representations of gods and men, to inculcate
falsehoods respecting the rewards and punish-
ments of another life, provided the tendency of
his fictions was beneficial. How comes it, that
not in the Republic and the Laws only, but in
works strictly philosophical, he holds out the same
prospect of retribution after death ?
P De Repub. Bekker, pars iii. vol. i. p. 112.
^ De Repub. p. 112.
^ Yet this supposition, which is allowed for the sake of ar-
gument, will not be entertained by any one who recollects the
concluding pages in the second book of the Republic.
F 3
70
Is he writing as a legislator in the Phaedo an
account of the death of Socrates ?
In the Crito, a narrative of his refusal to escape
from prison ?
In the Apologia, his defence before his judges ?
In the Timaeus, a philosophical description of
the creation of the world ?
It! the Phaedrus, a discussion on the difference
between the truly beautiful and the image of it ?
In the Gorgias, a treatise on rhetoric ?
D.
It would appear from the writings of Plato
himself, as well as from other testimonies, that
there were secret and esoteric^ doctrines reserved
for select disciples, which were intended to ex-
plain more fully the obscurer parts of his philo-
sophy. This seems to be the meaning of the pas-
sage in the seventh Epistle, in which, apparently
jealous that accounts of his instructions had been
made public without his sanction, he declares
(evincing at the same time, as may be perceived
from the tone of his feelings, a desire to magnify
the value of these hidden precepts) that there
were some things which he never had written,
and which he never would write ; and without
« Brucker, vol. i. p. 660. Plato, Phaedrus, Epist. 2. 7. 13.
De Repub. lib. iv. Bekker, p. 1 79.
71
these, his common instructions could not in many
points be clearly understood.
It is easy to suppose him having in view those
passages in his writings in which he makes vague
and obscure allusions to some apparently sublime
truth, and then hastens on, without dwelling far-
ther on the subject, to sentences like that in the
Phaedrus, where, after describing in a wild and
mystical style the happiness belonging to different
orders of spiritual beings, he hints at some more
exalted and perfect felicity confined to the Deity
alone, and which no poet ^ had ever yet described
or could worthily describe. But there is no foun-
dation for believing, that though his philosophical
writings might sometimes admit of di fuller sense,
they were therefore intended to bear a double
«ense, and that the very same words were calcu-
lated to convey to different classes of readers two
meanings opposite to each other. Yet it is upon
such a theory that we are to imagine Plato (ac-
cording to Warburton's views) not merely keep-
ing back something in his obscure representations,
but absolutely disbelieving" his plain and positive
* Tjy §€ vTiepovpdviov tottov ov re Tiq vfAv/ja-e iru tuv t^Bc troivjTY]^ ov re
TToB' tiiAvriati Kocr a^iocv. Phaedrus, Bekker, pars i. vol. i. p. 42.
" Cicero thought differently of Plato's belief on the subject.
Ut enim rationem Plato nullam afferret (vide quid homini tri-
buam) ipsa auctoritate me frangeret. Tot autem rationes attu-
F 4
72
statements, and having no conviction of a future
state of personal consciousness, though he never
fails in every treatise to inculcate it. A species of
literary Machiavellianism (as it has been called)
so extravagant, if not impossible, as this, and so
directly opposed to all the notions which a sober-
minded man would imbibe from a general view of
the tendency of Plato's writings, would require
the strongest evidence for its support. And the
supposition is at once disproved, as far as his be-
lief of a future state is. concerned, by a reference
to his Epistles ; those private Epistles, in which
(as Warburton properly remarks) a man speaks
his sentiments without disguise ; nay, to the very
same Epistles which are appealed to for the theory
of a double sense, and which, if they do contain
it, prevent its application to the question of a fu-
ture retribution, by their containing also other
passages in which the philosopher decidedly ex-
presses his conviction of individual consciousness
after death''. In fact, nothing can be more la-
lit, ut velle ceteris, sibi certe persuasisse videatur. Tusc. Quasi,
lib. i. c. 21.
^ *0 ^vj Kca iyu TiKfji'/i^iov 'Koiovi/.at tri ecTTt Tt^ alo-^vjcr;^ ToTij T€$yeu<rt
tSv ivOcile. at yap ^iXriffrai ypv^oii MANTETONTAI rcevra, o^tw?
e;^€<y. at Se fAoyfifipoTai-ai ov (paa-i, Kvpiccrepa, 8e ra rwv Oeiav av^puv
jxavnvixara ^ ra, tSv jea^. Epist. 2. ad Dionys. Bekker, p. 400.
TlilQecrdat Se ovTuq au ^yj Tor^ ndkamq re Ka) UpoTq "klyoiq 0* 8^
lAT^viiovtriv yiiuv AOANATON ^i^TXHN EINAI AIKA2TA2 TE ISXEIN
73
boured and unsatisfactory than the bishop's argu-
ments on the subject. The Epistles which he
cites would by no means prove the truth of the
general principle itself, omitting the question of
its application, but only the partial adoption of
such an expedient for a specific object y : and most
of the other testimonies may be dismissed at once.-
Such writers as Jamblichus and Synesius are of
very little value in determining such a question.
The latter was a Christian bishop of the fifth cen-
tury ; and, as he refused to surrender his heretical
notions respecting the soul to the testimony of the
written word of God, it is very possible that his
interpretations of philosophy might be equally at
variance with the actual statements of Plato. And
JambHchus, with all the Platonists of the Alexan-
drian schools (though they by no means univer-
sally support Warburton's views,) made it their
object to misrepresent the doctrines of their Mas-
ter. By the convenient theory of a double sense,
of which they constituted themselves the inter-
KAI TINEIN TA2 MEri2TA2 TIMnPIA2 OTAN T12 AnAAAAX0H
TOT SnMATOS. Epist. 7. p. 448.
y Warburton, book iii. sect. 2. 3. 4.
^ Plotinus, the most acute of themiill, never supposed that
the unity of the universal Soul excluded the idea of separate
consciousness after death, or of personal identity in the indivi-
duals who were parts of it. 4th Ennead, Plotinus, 9th book,
eh. I. 7th book, ch. 15.
74
preters, they were enabled to make any discoveries
they pleased : hence it is, that while plain and in-
telligible accounts were rejected, as intended for
the vulgar only, the most obscure and indistinct
conceptions were spiritualized into sublime truths;
and the sacred mystery of the Trinity, and other
doctrines of Christianity, were unfolded to the pro-
phetic eye of Porphyry and Plotinus in the dis-
cussions of the Academy ; till by these and similar
methods the dark oracles of paganism were exalted
into a perfect rule of truth and wisdom, to the dis-
paragement of the clear revelations of Christianity.
If we give the author of the Divine Legation the
full benefit of ^Numenius's testimony, (of whose
writings only a few fragments remain preserved
in Origen and Eusebius, which do not sanction
his opinions,) on the supposition, gratuitouly as-
sumed, that the lost works of this Pythagorean
and Platonist would have supported his view of
* Numenius is mentioned by Origen contra Celsum, lib. v.
pp. 258. 269. edit. Spencer. 16775 also Opiniones de Aniina,
p. 629. edit. Paris. 1618. Eusebius, Prsep. Evang. lib. xi. con-
tains Numenius's sentiments 3 ntp) rov Zevripov ahiov (cap. 18.);
nep) rayadov (cap. 2 2.). This philosopher, as well as Plotinus,
is fond of using the expressions " the Father" and *' the Son,"
(by the Son meaning the Avjpoypyo?,) to designate the first and
second Deities of their own, not Plato's theological system.
This was done wfth the view of making philosophy speak as
much as possible the language of revealed truth.
75
the question ; it is impossible, in discussing a sub-
ject of so much interest, to pass over without no-
tice the observations which he makes on a passage
quoted from Plato's Epinomis. The whole com-
ment exhibits a singular instance of the blind par-
tiality of a writer when advocating a favourite
hypothesis. The elegant ambiguity of which War-
burton speaks has no foundation, except in his
own fancy : the words admit but of one meaning
consistent with the general tenor of Plato's writ-
ings and the rules of just interpretation. In pro-
posing to render Ik voWav €ya^\ referring to the
word atdSyjfjem, which occurs in the previous clause,
that of many sensations he has only one left, the
bishop has fully proved how much his acuteness
and ingenuity surpassed his acquaintance with the
^ Divine Legation, book iii. sect. 3. vol. ii. p. 65.
The passage alluded to is as follows ; ^Ov koI hiaxv^ii^oiAai
itai'^av Koi <nTOvha<^uy ayLUj ore Oawdra) riq tuv Toiovrccv tv/j/ aviov uq7-
pav ai/aTTA^tre/, o-%eSoi/ iuv ivep er arcoOavuv ^, [X'^re [AiOi^eiv er* tcoXXuv
Tore KaQd trep vvv ouaB'ficreav^ [AiSi^ rt (/.olpaq fAer^iX'/icpota [/.ovov ko.) EK
nOAAnN 'ENA TErONOTA €iJSa*>ova tc eaea-eai kou aocpararw
a[f.a. Koi iJt.aKa,piov — here Warburton concludes : the sentence
continues thus; ci^Te TI2 EN HnEIP0I2 EIT EN NH20I2 MA-
KAPI02 ON ZHI, KaK€7vov [xeOe^civ r^q TOiavT-^q aei tvx*}^- Epinomis,
Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 374.
It is evident that the phrase eV ttoXXSv cW -ycyuvoTa alludes to
the doctrine of Plato, that the soul was uniform and uncom-
pounded, /-tovoeiS^?, as distinguished from the body which was
compounded. Vid. Phsedo, Bekker, pars ii. vol. iii. p. 50.
76
elementary principles of grammar, a far more hum-
ble, yet more necessary instrument in the investi-
gation of ancient learning. And if he had pur-
sued his inquiry to the end of the sentence, he
would have observed that the words immediately
following the part quoted could hardly fail to con-
vey the notion of that personal consciousness for
the denial of which he appeals to the passage as a
testimony. It is perhaps unnecessary to dwell
longer on this sentence ; for there is some reason
to doubt whether the Epinomis was written by
Plato. The Epistles appealed to in favour of a
double sense are generally the 2d, the 7th, and
the 13th. The meaning of the seventh has been
before alluded to. The second contains a kind of
cipher, expressive of the Deity, written with the
view^ as Plato himself declares, that if the letter
miscarried either by land or sea, the reader into
whose hands it should chance to fall might not
understand the import, a precaution not altogether
unnecessary if we recollect the polytheism of the
times, and the fate of Socrates his master: the words
are these: ^^pacrreov ^^ aoi ^/ alviy^^av, iv av ri tj '^eXrog
vj TTOVTOV Pj yvjg h irTv^oug TrdOvj, o avayvovg fjurj yvco. ^d^e
yap ej^e/. Uepi tov wavTWv ^aaiXea iravr ecrri kou eKeivov
eveKa iravTa, Kai €Keho aiTiov airoivTcov tZv KaXwv. ^evrepov
^ Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 403.
77
^€ v€p) TO, '^evrepa, koi rplrov vep] ra rptra. This pas-
sage is distinguished by a peculiarity of style
which awakens strong suspicions against its being
genuine. The founder of the Academy is mystical,
but he seldom gives utterance to his mysticism in
this kind of language. It will be observed also,
that there is a difference of construction between
the former part of the sentence irep). rov iravTm ^aai-
Aea, and the two concluding clauses. In the first
instance the Tre/?/ is made to refer to the person, in
the latter to the thing. But to enter into any. in-
vestigation as to the genuineness of the passage
would involve a critical discussion on the general
character of Plato's Epistles. And though the de-
cision of the question might have some weight in
determining the meaning we attach to the words
before us, the theory of a double sense would
not be in the least affected by such a considera-
tion. For whether genuine or not, they were in-
tended to convey obscurely one sense only; and to
those who did not understand them they would
have no signification at all. If we suppose the
sentence spurious, it was probably interpolated by
those who wished to represent Plato as teaching
doctrines equivalent to the Christian revelation of
the Trinity ; if really written by the philosopher,
an interpretation must be sought accordant with
the acknowledged principles conveyed in his works,
78
in which the Trinity is certainly not to be found ^.
The account of creation, given in the Timseus, will
furnish a probable explanation. The clause wepi
Tov TrdvTuv (Saa-iXea may be considered as alluding to
the chief Deity, Creator and Sovereign of all
things : the second, who has secondary objects
committed to his charge, may be referred to the
universe : the third Intelligence, who has a third
department allotted, was perhaps intended to de-
signate man himself, whose formation and final
destiny, as of a being distinguished for piety and
wisdom, Plato describes with great pomp and dif-
fuseness, and who, in the language of ancient phi-
losophers, was often represented as a type of the
world ^. It is true that Eusebius refers the whole
passage to the blessed Trinity, and censures the
interpretation of the Platonists^, who explain it by
that favourite system which they invented for
themselves of the Jirst God, the Father of all
things ; the second Deity, the i^^rnxiovpyog ; and the
*^ An account of the supposed Platonic Trinity will be found
in Cudworth, lib. i. c. 4. p. 406.
® [AlKpOKOa-fAOq,
f TavTot ol TOV TlKaTuiva ^tacracfyeTv ntdpuy.evot iir) tov irpuTov Seov
avdyova-iVy ini re to ^evTepov oitiov, kou Tphov t^v tov Koa-fAov ypvxrjVf
0eev TpiTOV Ko.) avTrjv opC^o^cvoi elvai. ol Se ye 0e«o« Koyoi t^v ouylav kou
fAdKupiav Tpidla.. k. t. X. Eusebius, Praeparat. Evangel, lib. xi.
cap. 20. Vide also lib. xi. cap. 17. where the passage is again
cited in an extract from Plotinus.
79
third, the soul of the world. But it must be re-
membered that the bitter opposition of the one
party to Christianity, and the injudicious argu-
ments of the other in its favour, render the testi-
mony of both on such a subject of little value.
With regard to the sentence in the 13th Epistle,
in which the writer professes to give a key to ex-
pressions which he might make use of respecting
the name of the Deity, rvjg fxh yap a-irovlaia^ 'Etho-to-
\Yjg 0EOS «/?%€/, 0EOI ^6 ryjg ?Trov, it may be suffi-
cient to observe, that the reason before alluded to,
viz. the fear lest his letters should miscarry, would
account for the adoption of such an expedient.
These words, notwithstanding the testimony of
Eusebius§^ in their favour, can furnish no proof
either of a double sense in Plato's writings, or of
his belief in the unity of the Godhead, for it is un-
deniable that in his works the terms Seo^ and 0eoi
are used indiscriminately ^.
E.
In considering the opinions of the ancient phi-
losophers respecting the absorption of the soul
after death into the one Spirit of the universe, it
is important to keep in view the distinction of the
g Praeparat. Evangel, lib. xi. cap. 13.
'' Socrates uses the terms Godhead and the Gods without
distinction in his works generally. Aristipps Briefti, Wieland,
book i. p. 114.
80
several schools, and not to cite passages from M.
Antoninus or Seneca as illustrative of the doctrines
of all, but as confined in their application to that
sect only of which the writers were members.
The truth may briefly be stated thus: Plato,
if the testimony of his own writings can be relied
on, never entertained the notion that death brought
with it the extinction of individual consciousness.
Of Aristotle the opinions are more dubious ;
yet there is nothing in his works which, if well
considered, ought to destroy the positive testimony
given in the Ethics of his belief that the dead are
affected by the fortunes of their living friends *.
Of Pythagoras^ there is no positive evidence
by which we can absolutely determine his notions
on the subject.
The most distinguished philosophers among the
Stoics differed from each other. Antoninus and
Epictetus avowedly maintained the absorption of
the human soul at its separation from the body
into the Soul of the world, and the extinction of
consciousness ; and it appears from some passages
in the Epistles of Seneca ^ that he was of the same
' Ethics, lib. i. c. ii.
^ Tennemann Geschichte der Philosophic, s. 94. Brucker,
Hist. Crit. Phil. p. 1039.
^ Brucker, pp. 951, 952, 953. Senecae Consolatio ad Mar-
ciam, cap3i9. conf. cap. 25. Epist. 54. Mors est, non esse.
Id quale sit, jam scio : hoc erit post me quod ante me fuit.
81
opinion; though at other times he dilates most
admirably on the happiness to be enjoyed after
death in the society of the gods. The prevailing
doctrine of the sect seems to have been, that the
souls of the virtuous and philosophical would be-
come inhabitants of the stars, and exist till the
periodical conflagration of the universe"^; but that
those of the wicked would endure only for a cer-
tain interval, and then be dispersed into the air.
Cleanthes, however, and some others, maintained
that all equally, the bad as well as the good, would
survive till this revolution of things.
The Epicureans disbelieved altogether that the
soul survived the body.
The middle and new Academy and the sceptics
cannot be said to have had any belief, for they
had no fixed opinions at all.
At the risk of appearing tedious, I shall venture
a few more observations on the different senses in
which the doctrine of the Anima Mundi was held
Quseris, quo jaceas post obitum loco
Quo non nata jacent. Seneca tragicus.
^ T»|v Ze ■tpvx^v yeiyYjT^v re (p6aprv)v "kiyovciv' ovk evOvt; Se tov a-w-
jtxaro? aTTCcXXayeTa-ay cf)d€lp€(r6ai, aXX' eitifJ-iv^iv rivaq ^povovq KaB' kav-
Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. xv. cap. 20. Cicero, Tusc. Quaest.
lib. i. 32.
Diog. Laertius,- lib. vii. p. 291. edit. 1570.
G
82
by the different sects. The notion appears to
have prevailed at an early period in Asia and
Egypt, and it was from this latter country, pro-
bably, that it was introduced into Greece, and be-
came subject to various modifications as it passed
through the several schools.
" The opinions of Orpheus, before Greek phi-
losophy was yet formed into a system, according
to the most favourable supposition, were, that God
was originally connected with matter,' but that he
expelled it from him, and that what was before
one nature was divided into two ; yet at the same
time he does not appear to have altogether eman-
cipated the Deity of his belief from the mass of
matter which he pervaded and guided. ^ The no-
tions of the Ionic school afterwards were probably
not very different from this, till the time of Anax-
agoras, who entertained nobler and more elevated
views of the divine Mind than his predecessors p.
" The opinions attributed to Orpheus seem to have been,
that the world was an emanation from God ; and Brucker
also thinks that he held this efflux of matter to be a part of
God : this has however been disputed : " Deum ante mundi-
" tum conditum cum chao infinite copulatum fuisse et ita con-
*'junctum ut omnia continuerit. Expulisse vero Deum ex
" sinu suo materiam." Brucker^ pars ii. lib. i. cap. i. p. 390.
° Brucker, pars ii. lib. i. pp. 470 — 490. Tennemann. Spe-
culation der lonier.
P Ka) TcpwTO^ iri vAji vovv iitiO'Trja'iy — itdvra %f'fiiAot.ia, rjv 6[a,qv eiTa
88
He taught that the essence of God had never been
united with matter, and was now totally distinct
from it; at the same time that he pervaded all
things, and set them in order ; a belief not very
far removed from the Christian doctrine of the
omnipresence.
According to Cudworth, Pythagoras held nearly
the same sentiments as those above ascribed to
Orpheus : but Brucker combats this opinion, and
degrades his philosophy to pure atheism or Spino-
zism ^. The fact is, that the treatises from which
N0T2 iXOuv avra h€Ko<ry,r)(T€' irctpo koi vovq iireKX^Br}. Diog. Laert.
in Anaxag. p. 51. edit. 1570. Idem, proosmiuni, p. 2.
NOTN Kai 6(Qv Tiparot; e'Kay<xyo[/.€VO(; ttj KCffiioitmc/L. ThemJstiuS,
quoted by Cudworth, p. 380.
Noi/^ MEMIKTAI ovlein ^p'^ixart' aXka. (Aovoq avroq icf) iavrov eVr/v.
Anaxagoras in Simplicio. Comment. Aristot. Phys. lib. i. p. 33.
T7J<; 8e Kivrja-euq kou tvj? y^vea-iuq aiTiov iirea-Trja-c tov NOTN 6 'Ava-
^ayopacq. Simplicius, p. 1 2.
*il^ apa N0T2 cVxiv 6 ^taK0<T[A.3]/ re koI ivdvruv aniot;. Socrates
speaking of Anaxagoras, Plato, Phsedo, Bekker, p. 85.
Aperta simplexque mens. Cicero de Natura Deorum lib. i.
c. II. Academ. Quaestionum lib. iv. c. 37.
Qua senlentia proxime ad Christlanorum dogma accesserit,
qui Deum docent per res omnes commeare ut cum nulla tamen
ullo modo misceatur. Brucker^ pars ii. lib. ii. cap. i. p. 507.
^ Qualis ille Deus Pythagoricus, nempe ignis mundi sub-
tilissimus. Brucker, p. 1077.
That he held an incorporeal Deity, distinct from the world,
is a thing not questioned by any Cudworth, p. 21.
Vide Aristot. de Anima, e^aadv xive? avrZv y^rv^qv uvai rd iv
Ta depi ^vajAaTUy ol Se to ravra kivovv, lib. i. cap. 2.
G 2
84
a knowledge of the Pythagorean principles is to
be derived differ from each other. Timaeus the
Locrian supports the view taken by Cudworth,
but Ocellus Lucanus asserts that the world was
neither created nor arranged ^ having had no ori-
gin, and destined to have no end : and in another
passage he seems to consider it as the Deity and
the Cause of all things. The Eleatic school iden-
tified God with the world. ^ Plato refined upon
the doctrines of Pythagoras, and taught the more
elevated philosophy of Anaxagoras, in separating
the supreme Deity from matter : and though he
makes a divinity of the law of nature, by assign-
ing a divine Intelligence or Soul to the world,
who guides and directs it to artificial ends, he
' AoK£7 yap (aoi to irav avaXeOpdJ/ eivai kcu ayivtirov aei re yap ^v
Kou €<rrai. Ocellus Lucanus, Gale, Opusc. Mythol. cap. i. j).
506. edit. 1688.
*0 Se ye K02M02, atrio^ i<m to?(J aKKoiq rov eivcci kcu rov crw^e-
a-Bai, KOU Tov avroTeh^ elvoci. p. 5^0*
Conf. p. 531. Taq hpi^€iq rnO TOT 0EOT 8iSo/A6va?— /cafi'
eVacrToy, a.vaMki\pa<xev O 0EO2. Vide also Justin Martyr, Briicker,
* Timaeus, passim.
Alcinous, as interpreter of Plato's doctrines, gives the fol-
lowing description of the Deity : nax^/j 8e cVti tS alnoii elvcxt
itavruv KOU ko(T[a,€7v tov ovpoiviov vovv kou t^v x/'i^X^v tov Ko<Ty,ov itpoq iav-
Tov KOU itpoq rotq iavrov vovjo-e*^. Kara yap t^v eavrov B0TAH2IN
ifATt€irXiqK€ TfdvTa iavTov, rvjv ypv^^jy tou Koa-f^ov iireyeipaq Ka) elq iaviov
iT[i(rrp€xl/aq rov vov ainviq atrioq iitdpxav. oq Koa-f/.'/jOelq vtio rov •narpoq
haK0<rfx€7 avfAiraa-av ^vtriv iv r^Se r^ KOiTfjicc. Alcinous, cap. lO.
85
never confounds this secondary god with the one
first Cause and Creator of all things.
In the works of Aristotle, few as the indications
are which they afford of his opinions on the sub-
ject, it is not impossible to discover that he does
not confound the Deity with the universe ^ In
the Politics he clearly marks the distinction be-
tween the two ideas, and in his metaphysical
works, the same distinction may be traced.
Among the followers of Plato in the Academy,
no important deviation from his system is to be
perceived^. The statements of Xenocrates and
Polemo are far from being irreconcileable with
the principles inculcated by the founder of the
school.
Into the doctrines of the middle and new
Academy it is unnecessary to enter, because, as
' Aristot. Pol. lib. vii. cap. 3. 2%oX^ yap av O 0EO2 e%ot KaKuq
Koi nA2 O K02M02 0*5 ovk tltrh i^anepiKOti irpd^eK; ntapa. Tccq ol-
Kelaq Tccq avTuv. Vid. also Metaphys. lib. xiv. cap. 7. in which
the Deity is said to be aiho^y axtvijTO?, Ki-xfiDpia-fA-ivoq rZv ala-OrjrZv,
ufXeprjq Kou ahaipeToq, — De Coelo, lib. ii. cap. I. In which Ari-
stotle argues, that if the Deity were confounded with the uni-
verse, he would have the fate of Ixion.
" Brucker, pp. 738. 742. Cudworth, Intellect. Syst. cap. 4.
sect. 24. p. 418. Speusippus autem et Xenocrates qui prirai
Platonis rationem auctoritatemque susceperant et post hos Po-
lemo, et Crates unaque Grantor in Academia congregati dili-
genter ea quae a superioribus acceperant, tuebantur. Cicero,
Academ. Qucest. lib. i. cap. 9.
G 3
86
was before remarked, they virtually made it their
principle to have no established system ^, and
they are therefore justly classed by Warburton
with professed Pyrrhonists.
The Peripatetics by no means uniformly ad-
hered to the tenets of their master, and one of
them, Strato Lampsacenus y, is distinguished for
having plunged into a depth of atheism beyond
that of any other philosophical teacher, and to
have inculcated more degrading notions respecting
the Deity than those of the Stoics ; for he main-
tained that there was no other God than a kind
of plastic life in nature,' without sense or con-
sciousness. The Stoics, like Strato, considered God
and matter to form one nature inseparably united,
but they maintained the existence (if such a dif-
ference between these two forms of atheism can
clearly be conceived) of a kind of divine reason,
^ Opinabor was their professed principle: Qusero enim,
quid sit, quod comprehendi possit — Incognito nimirum assen-
tiar, id est, opinabor, Cic. Academ. Qucest. lib. iv. 35.
y A short account of Strato's life, but not of his doctrines, is
given in Diog. Laert. and his works also are enumerated : he
succeeded Theophrastus in his school, and had been preceptor
to Ptolemy Philadelphus, Diog. Laert. p. 186. He is described
by St. Augustine as something between an atheist and a theist.
For his opinions, vide Cudworth, lib. i. cap. 3. sect. 4. p. 107.
Brucker, pars ii. lib. ii. cap. 7. pp. 845 — 847. Cicero de Na-
tura Deorum, lib. i. cap. 13. Academ. Qusest. lib. i. cap. 9. lib.
iv. cap. 38.
,87
divina ratio toti mundo insita ^, while their rivals
above alluded to allowed the divinity of plastic
force only. The distinction must be considered
more verbal than real % if we remember that the
god of the Stoics, notwithstanding the magnificent
language in which they sometimes extol him, was
corporeal made up of fire and liquid ether, finite,
inseparably united to matter, and subject to its
control, without free-will, and apparently without
personality. They taught that the soul of man
was a part of the divine essence, a Trvevfxa evBepixov ^,
that it partook of the same qualities, was an ema-
nation from it, and, after the destined period, would
be resolved into it ^, when the eternal law of fate.
^ Zeno autem naturalem legem divinam esse censet. Aliis
autem libris rationem quandani, per omnem naturam rerum
pertinentem ut divinam esse affectam (divina vi affectam)
putat. Cicero, de Nafura Deorum, lib. i. cap. 14. ratione mun-
dus utitur. Animans est mundus composque rationis. lib. ii.
cap. 8.
^ Brucker, parsii. lib. ii. cap. 9. p. 937. Tennemann, Stoiker,
s. 121. Diog. Laert. lib. vii. De Natura Deorum, Cicero, lib. i.
lib. ii. cap. 14, 15. Academ. Qusest. lib. iv. cap. 41. Cudworth,
lib. i. cap. 4. p. 419. Eusebius, Praeparat. Evangel, lib. xv. cap.
15, 16. S. Epiphanii Responsio ad Epist. Acacii etPauli, p. 7.
Adv. Haereses. lib. i. 5.
^ Diog. Laert. lib. vii. p. 291.
^ 'ApcV/cet Se ro7<; upca^vraToTq rav ocno Trjq atpea-euq rocvTi^q isaepov-
(xBat TcavTo. kccto. •mpiotovq tivaq raq fJt.iyKrraq ilq itvp aWepShcq avaXvo-
lA,ivuv •ttdvTm. Eusebius, Prsep. Evangel, lib. xv. cap. 18. Idem
rx4
88
from similar principles, would again produce simi-
lar combinations ; a new universe would arise from
its efementary fire, destined to become in the de-
velopement of all its successive phenomena, phy-
sical and moral, whether trifling or important, the
exact counterpart of the old : from the eruption of
volcanoes, or the convulsion of empires, to the
smallest blade of grass, and the most minute acci-
dent in the character and fortunes of every indi-
vidual that before existed.
^ The opinions of Epicurus are too well known
to require examination. The Romans were copy-
ists of the Greek philosophers, rather than in-
ventors of independent systems, and in the inter-
pretation of their sentiments they are frequently
superficial, and not always to be relied on. In the
time of Cicero the philosophy of Epicurus, of the
Stoics, and of the old and new Academy, was most
studied. Cicero himself, next to the works of the
new Academy, his own sect, was most conversant
in the writings of the Stoics. In speaking of
Aristotle he observes, that his philosophy was little
read even by the learned ^. It appears that those
cap. 19. Diog. Laert. lib. vii. p. 284. edit. 1570. Warburton,
book iii. sect. 3. vol. ii. p. 72. Vide also Origen contra Cel-
sum, lib. V. p. 244, 245. edit. Spencer. 1677. Even Socrates's
worn out clothes were to appear again in this regeneration.
^ Cicero de Natiira Deorum lib. i.
^ Rhetor autem ille magnus haec Aristotelica se ignorare re-
89
Romans in general who believed in a supreme
Deity identified him with the Soul of the universe.
^ Varro undoubtedly had no other notion of Ju-
piter, and he may be considered as representing
the principles prevalent in his time. The later
Platonists of the school of Ammonius were lost in
the dreams of oriental speculation. Plotinus, like
Spinoza, afterwards seems to have maintained that
God was no existence himself, but the cause of all
existence ^, and that matter, soul, and God were
inseparable, and had been so from all eternity. It
might be a subject of curious investigation to fol-
spondit. Quod quidem minime sum admiratus eum philoso-
phum rhetori non esse cognituni, qui ab ipsis philosophis, prae-
ler admodum paucos, ignoraretur. Topica, cap. i .
f Dicit ergo Varro adhuc de natural! theologia praeloquens,
Deum se arbitrari esse Animam Mundi quam Graeci vocant
KoV/xoi/ et hunc ipsuin mundum esse Deum. Augustin, Civ. Dei,
lib. vii. cap. 6.
A very interesting account of the theology of Varro is given
in Dr. Ireland's learned treatise on Paganism and Christianity
compared, chap. 5.
e Plotinus's notion in lib. ix. Ennead. 6. so far as an ordi-
nary mind may be permitted to approach such sublime ab-
stractions, appears to be, that the first original principle is No-
thing, yet the cause of all things ; having neither quantity nor
quality ; neither soul nor reason ; is neither in motion nor in
tranquillity ; is neither unity nor number ; neither in space nor
in time ; without thought or will ; yet the act of thinking, and
the cause of all thought ; the smallest, yet the largest j the good,
the perfect.
90
low up the question through the philosophical
sects of more modern times, to examine how far
the system of Spinoza accords with the doctrine
taught in some of the ancient schools, and to pursue
the inquiry even to our own day, through the most
recent philosophical systems, and ascertain to what
extent the charge of pantheism is justly to be im-
puted to them ^. But a superficial view of such
subjects seldom fails to produce or strengthen er-
roneous opinions, and an accurate research would
require the labours of a life.
It appears then, that, of the different schools of
antiquity, some held the soul of the world to be
the chief God, some a secondary Deity; of the
former, some believed the universal Soul to pass
through matter unmixed, some to be united and
form only one nature with it ; and of these again,
some considered the corporeal Deity to be a kind
of divine reason without personality, others a spe-
cies of vegetative life, called the plastic force of
nature. Is it too much to infer, from an examina-
tion of such unintelligible theories ', that the in-
ventors and supporters had no clear conceptions of
their own meaning, and that principles like these
^ Die neueste philosophie nahert sich dem system des Spi-
uoza von mehreren Seiten an. Tennemann, art. Spinoza.
' Exposui fere non philosophorum judicia sed delirantium
sorania. Cicero de Natura Deorum lib. i. cap. i6.
91
had very little influence on the practical belief of
mankind ? And degrading as the picture is which
such systems exhibit of the weakness of human
reason, it is at least a subject of satisfaction to per-
ceive, that the two great master minds of anti-
quity, Aristotle and Plato, never cherished those
low and debasing views of the Divinity which in-
ferior teachers ventured to inculcate. With that
humility which never fails to accompany talent of
the highest order, they both express themselves
unable to penetrate the darkness and difficulty
which involves such questions as those respecting
the divinre essence and the nature of the soul ; and
Plato more than once recommends prayer to the
Deity, that the understanding may be strength-
ened and enlightened ^,
G.
This must be the feeling of every man con-
versant with metaphysical systems. If we trace
the history of philosophical speculation from its
commencement to the present hour ^5 we shall
^ Plato, Timaeus, p. 22. Aristot. de Anima, lib. i.
' ^iXo<TO(pia ydip roi eVriv, u XuKpoirei;, xctfUv, a.v riq avrov fAerpiuq
oc'tpvjrcn iv T^ ^XtKt^t" idv Se Tcepanepci} tov Seovro^ ivhiccrpt-ipyj, ^laipOopa
ruv av6puituv. Gorgias, Bekker, pars ii. vol. i. p. 83. These words,
originally used by Plato with a diiferent object in view, will apply
to the present question.
92
observe the same forms of atheism and pantheism
reviving in different ages, and supported and com-
bated by nearly the same arguments. It would
seem as if speculation on its wildest wing was
still condemned to soar within prescribed limits,
and to pursue the same circling flight. The most
subtle and profound thinkers have arrived at little
certainty upon subjects of abstract reasoning.
Nor are the wild and dangerous theories that
have sometimes been adopted, to be attributed to
pure malice and malignity, at enmity with the
good of mankind, but to a restless desire of know-
ledge upon questions in which knowledge in our
present state can never be attained, and to a spirit
of intellectual ambition which allows of no limita-
tion to the exercise of human thought. Hence it
is that ancients and moderns, deists, atheists, and
Christians, men of immoral and moral life, of
pious and impious feelings, have built up philo-
sophical systems equally unintelligible. And some
of these have been established upon principles of
which it would be very difficult to shew the fal-
lacy, yet upon which no man, not even the in-
ventor of the system, would or could act for a
single moment. In seeking to become more, we
pay the penalty of our folly, and become less than
man. Hume declared that he was afraid to think,
on account of the conclusions to which he might
93
come, and the barriers of separation he might
create between himself and the rest of mankind.
This feeling should have taught him that the pur-
suit of truth, properly conducted, could never lead
to such a separation, and that there was other
and stronger evidence than abstract reasoning
alone "\ Reid was unable to refute Berkeley's
principles, till he appealed to the common belief
and conduct of mankind. And as a rule for our
own decision in judging of the conviction of a
writer, when his philosophy is opposed to his
common feelings and language ", it will be much
safer to depend upon the latter, than upon in-
ferences from his metaphysical creed ^. Anaxa-
goras is said to have maintained that snow was
black, in order to preserve his consistency as a
"^ Qui nondum ea, quae multis post annis tractari coepissent,
physica didicissent, tantum sibi persuaserant quantum natura
admonente cognoverant. Haec ita sentimus natura duce, nulla
ratione nullaque doctrina. Cic. Tusc. Qucest. lib. i. cap. 13.
nSv yap OTtep \ay.€v Kpemov vj kut'' airohel^iv tovto kocto, koiv^v tvvoiav
iV/Acv. Origen de Aniina, p. 618. ed. Paris. 161 8.
La Nature confond les Pyrrhoniens, et la raison confond
les dogmatistes. Pensees de Pascal, art. I.
" I do not wish by this statement to set up feeling in religion
above reason, but above metaphysical and abstract reasoning.
In an argument of reason our natural feelings and desires, to-
gether with conscience, should form a part of it.
" Anaxagoras nivem nigram dixit esse; ferres me si ego idem
dicerem ? Cicero Academ. Qucest. lib. iv. cap. 23.
94
reasoner ; but who will imagine that he was sin-
cere ?
The following brief sketch of the moral sys-
tems supported by Aristotle and Plato may be
of service in determining the question whether
the ancients generally believed that truth and
utility did not coincide. Notwithstanding the
subtlety of their speculative discussions, in which
the distinctions and divisions are often merely
verbal, it was evidently the object of both phi-
losophers to elevate, and as far as possible perfect,
the mind and faculties of man. They both main-
tained that the happiness which nature had taught
the desires of the soul to aim at, as its ultimate
end and object^ would consist in the perception of
truth. Plato considered this truth to be altogether
intellectual and speculative. Hence it is that he
enjoins the purest moral precepts ; the entire sub-
jugation, or rather annihilation of the passions?,
not because moral virtue was a direct means to
happiness, but because the purification of the soul
was necessary to the perception of intellectual
truth, in which alone human felicity would be
found. For the same reason he commands the
extinction of imagination also ^ ; it is a faculty
which cheats and deludes us with the image of
P Vid. Phaedo, passim. 'i Republic, book iii. x.
1
95
truth instead of the reality. Poetry and painting
and all the fine arts are to be banished, as obscur-
ing and impeding the exercise of reason in aspir-
ing after its substantial good. But though our
nature while on earthy by thus endeavouring to
destroy passion and imagination, might make
gradual progress towards the enjoyment of happi-
ness and the perception of truth, their full per-
fection could never be attained till the soul was
emancipated from the body, when the shadow of
knowledge would be changed into the substance,
and we should see essential truth as it really is,
uniform, unchangeable, and eternal.
Aristotle, on the contrary, does not consider
intellectual truth alone as the only knowledge to
which the human faculties are to be trained and
directed. Regarding man as a being possessed of
passion, imagination, and reason, he provides for
the due exercise and perfection of them all.
Truth with him is not one and indivisible, but
distinguished into truth in morals, truth in the
fine arts, and truth in questions of science and
wisdom, purely abstract and speculative. These
different kinds of knowledge are not inseparably
united and confounded^. He who possesses that
moral perfection which teaches him to think, feel,
and act on all occasions as becomes a virtuous
•^ Aristot. Ethics, lib. iii. iv. v. vi.
96
man, a good citizen, or a friend in the ordinary
intercourse of society; he who habitually sees
with the intuitive eye of taste the beautiful and
the true in architecture, sculpture, and painting,
may yet want that intellectual excellence em-
ployed in perceiving abstract truth. Refined and
masterly as this theory unquestionably is, and
more just and better adapted than Plato's to the
wants and capacities of man, it is still inferior to
that of the rival system in one striking and im-
portant feature. Aristotle (whatever were his
sentiments respecting a future state) seems to
propose the truth, which he teaches us to pursue,
as belonging in its perfection to our present con-
dition, as if the powers of the soul could here be
fully developed; whereas Plato uniformly repre-
sents it as a foretaste of knowledge, whose fulness
was yet to come ; a system to be commenced on
earth, but to be perfected in heaven ^.
While speaking on the doctrines of these philo-
sophers, it may perhaps be allowable to make an
observation on a difficult passage in another part
of Aristotle's works, not entirely unconnected with
the subject, the meaning of which is still dis-
puted among critics. I allude to the definition
* Or rather in some better part of the earth, (7^.) This pre-
sent habitation of ours, according to Plato, being only one out
of many divisions of it. Vid. Phsedo, ad fin.
97
of tragedy in the Poetics, in which he insists upon
its moral tendency. Plato had banished poets
from the republic, because he considered the
images which they presented as calculated to
strengthen the passions of pity and fear, and thus
oppose that perfect KaBapatgy or purification of the
soul, which he believed to constitute the excel-
lence of our nature. Aristotle, it is probable, had
this theory in his eye when he declared that the
pity and fear excited by the scenic representations,
so far from strengthening the passions, would have
a tendency to weaken them, and purify the soul
from their more powerful and pernicious effects.
Plato teaches that the pleasure resulting from
tragedy would be injurious to our moral consti-
tution. Aristotle therefore felt it necessary to
declare that this pleasure would have a directly
contrary effect, and become an instrument of vir-
tue : and thus he has gone a little out of his way
in adding the moral effects of tragedy to a defini-
tion already sufficiently complete.
Many authors have done themselves little cre-
dit in the attempt to degrade the character of
Socrates by bringing together calumnies founded
upon the representation of later writers, in whom
little confidence is to be placed. Those who have
H
98
examined his opinions, as recorded by his own
disciples, will understand the bold expressions of
an illustrious modern scholar, "Sancte Socrates,
" ora pro nobis." The vices attributed to him are
disproved by the testimony of Alcibiades in the
very treatise, the Convivium of Plato, most fre-
quently cited to establish the contrary opinion:
and it should be recollected, that the immoral
sentiments contained in this treatise are put into
the mouth of Aristophanes, and are censured by
Socrates himself as evidences of a debased mind.
In other parts of Plato's writings the same vices
are reprobated : thus in the first book of the Laws
the TO Tta^a. (pva-iv To\{xy}[j.a is an expression in which
Socrates strongly marks the infamy of the crime.
The latter part of the Convivium may be con-
sulted, from which the following sentences are
selected: Alcibiades, describing his reverence for
his master, observes, UeTrovSa ^e Trpo^ tovtov [/.ovov av-
BpooTTCCv^, ovK av Tig oioiTO ev e/xoi evehai^ to aiayyveaBai
OVTIVOVV.
Oiog yap 'A^^AXevf eyivero, anuKaaeiev av Tig Kai
Bpaa-i^av koi aXXovg, Ka) oiog av UepiKX^g, Kai NeaTopa
Ka) ^ AvTYivopa'^^ eia) &e Ka) eTepoi' oiog ^e ovToai yeyove
T^v aTOTTiav avSpoi)7rog, Ka) avTog Kai ot Xoryoi avTOv, ovo
eyyvg iv evpoi Tig JV^tcov, ovTe tSov vvv ovt€ t»v 7raXai(av,
Ov^h 'TTepiTTOTcpov KaTa^e^apdvjKCcg avea-TVjv f/,€Ta S«-
* Convivium, Bekker, p. 454. " Bekker, p. 465.
99
Kparovg ^ vj el fxerd iraTpog Kadvjv^ov rj a^e\(f>ov Trpea-jSyri"
pov.
Vide also Xenophon's Memorabilia, lib. iv.
" Sunt quidem inter veteres qui ei objecerunt
" pulchritudine Alcibiadis inferior em et juvenum
" corruptorem fuisse, qua de causa Aspasia quoque
" eum versibus suis traduxit. Sed impudentissi-
*' mam banc esse calumniam non solum tota vitae
" Socratis ratio loquitur, sed et Aristophanis silen-
" tium probat." JSrucker, pars ii. lib. ii. cap. 2t.
p. 539.
The opinion of Wieland, a man extremely well
read in the philosophers of antiquity, is of some
value on such a subject : " Socrates was a vir-
" tuous man in the highest and completest sense
" of the word ; in every relation of life he was a
" model for all men." Wielancfs Aristippus, p.
75. vol. i.
H.
The figurative representations in the Phsedrus
will be read with different feelings by different
minds ; images that are ridiculous and absurd in
the eyes of some, will appear to others pregnant
with beauty and truth, in the same manner as
honey and poison may be extracted from the same
flowers. It should be remembered that Plato him-
" Bekker, p. 461.
H 2
100
self does not propose his allegories of the souly to
be understood in a literal sense, but as serving to
convey, through the medium of sensible images
dnd similitudes, some notion of that spiritual es-
sence whose real nature is unintelligible ; and he
has evidently attempted to explain the imperfec-
tions of the soul, in its present union with body, by
a narrative of its fortunes in an earlier and un-
compounded state. It is not easy to follow him
in his lofty speculations, nor to overtake " the
" winged chariots of the gods," which he so fan-
cifully describes ; but the general impression that
remains upon the reader's mind is nearly to the
following effect :
^The soul at its first creation was perfect, and
winged, and sublime in its contemplations ; but,
unable to preserve so high a flight, it descended to
earth, and its wings fell off, and perished through
the evil with which it had become connected. The
desire of man upon earth should be to recover
these lost wings by meditations on the good^ the
true, and the celestial^.
y Hep* Se T^5 )^ka^ aiJiTj? wSe X^Kreov, olov [mv e<rT<, TravTij itavTccq
Plato, Phaedrus, p. 39. Bekker, pars i. vol. i.
^ Phaedrus, Bekker, pp. 39. 43. pars i. vol. i.
^ One of the fathers of the church has the same kind of ex-
pression, teaching us that it is the business of man, " to give
101
The soul is like a winged chariot, borne along^
by two steeds, and guided by a charioteer. The
steeds of the celestial intelligences, deities of a
higher nature than man, are both good, and di-
rected by the supreme Charioteer, who arranges
the order and beauty of all things ; the car passes
lightly forward in its course. Each intelligence
performs its appointed work, enjoys the contem-
plation of truth, and visits regions of happiness.
But the steeds in the winged chariot, destined to
become man's soul, are one good, the other bad ;
they urge it forward (like our desires now^) in
different directions, the one elevating it to heaven,
the other depressing it to earth, and often refuse
the guidance of the Charioteer.
I.
The poetic colouring with which Plato adorns
his sentiments is frequently considered a proof of
his insincerity. No one can deny that his mind
was essentially poetical, that in the highest sense
of the word he was a poet ; for his constant aspi-
ration is after some nobler and purer life than any
. this earth can supply. The warmth of his genius
pervades and elevates every subject which he
" wings to the soul," koI apiraaai Kocy^AOV ku) twvai 0€a. Vid.
Leighton's Works, vol. iv. p. 205.
^ like our desires now'] This application is not made by Plato.
H 3
102
touches, and imparts an energy and beauty to his
descriptions which no poet ever surpassed. But
is the sentiment less true because it is strongly
coloured? The ornament may be fiction, but the
feeling itself, and the foundation of the feeling, is
truth ^ ; and the voice of nature speaks more com-
monly its real belief in metaphor and allusion,
than in measured and artificial language. Those
elevated descriptions of the future world, the ra-
diant visions w^hich he creates in order to embody
his glowing anticipations of happiness to come,
prove only the intenseness of the feelings with
which he cherished this hope of immortality.
Hence his imaginary paradise, with its purple and
golden atmosphere of inconceivable brilliancy and
clearness, in which all the rocks are of jasper and
emerald "^ ; and his assertions, that the trees and
flowers, which nature pours forth in such profu-
*^ Aristotle observes, in his Rhetoric, lib. iii. 7, that poetical
expressions are natural to men under the influence of emotion,
dpixoTTii Xcyovri iraOvjriKai;. If the truth of this precept had been
kept in mind, Shakspeare would not have been so often cen-
sured for putting metaphors and images into the mouths of his
characters when strongly excited.
^ Vid. Phsedo, pp. 112 — 120; also Republic, book x. pp.
502 — 516. The prophet Isaiah predicts the future glory of
Jerusalem in images equally bold : Behold, I will lay thy
stones with fair colours^ and lay thy foundations with sapphires.
And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of car-
buncles. Isaiah liv. 11, 12.
108
sion for man's gratification on earth, are but faint
shadows of those trees and flowers and unfading
archetypes of beauty, which yield fruit and fra-
grance in some better part of the universe. If he
declare that in a retreat like this the souls of the
virtuous will enjoy in another state of being, not
the sensuality of Mahomet's paradise, but that per-
fect felicity which will result from the perception
of substantial truth ; is he to be considered at once
as a man who disbelieved entirely in personal con-
sciousness after death, and consequently in all re-
compense of the good ? If, again, he describe the
dark and tumultuous waves of Cocytus as destined
to bear the wicked in their bosom round the vast
circle of the universe, rolling on and tossing them
unceasingly, and resounding in their ears through
all the ages of eternity ; is he to be regarded as
one who in his heart believed that the retribution
of the wicked in every sense of the word was a
fable, an ingenious contrivance of the legislator to
curb the passions of mankind ? His conceptions of
paradise were probably derived from traditions re-
specting the garden of Eden, from which our first
parents were excluded, and which, in the oriental
imagery of the book of Job^ appears to be alluded
to as the place whose stones are sapphires, and
*= Job xxviii. 5. 6. Mr. Peters on the book of Job, p. 397.
Eusebius Praep. Evangel, lib. xi, c. 36. 37. 38.
H 4
104
whose dust is gold : and his representations of
the punishment reserved for the incurably wicked
might have arisen from traditions^ respecting that
universal deluge in which the whole guilty race of
man once perished.
K.
Aristotle's treatise de Anima is extremely per-
plexed and obscure ^. It is not so much a meta-
physical, as a physical work, the discussions con-
cerning mind are principally confined to its opera-
tions while in connection with body; and those
who expect to find in it any opinions stated posi-
tively as to the destination of the human soul in
another life will be entirely disappointed ^\ Aware
himself of the nature of the subject, the philoso-
pher observes, at the very commencement, that it
is of all things most difficult to obtain clear and
satisfactory evidence \
In defining soul in general to be a habit consti-
tuting the essential perfection of a natural body^,
f Mr. Peters, pp. 359. 360. 371. 372.
S OvT€ (f>va-iK7} aTTA&J? oIt€ f/.€Ta ra (f)V(rtKa, >j ncp) ypv^^q Oeapia.
Simplicii Prooemium de Anima Aristot. p. i .
^ OCSeva (paiverat irepi t^^ rZv ovpaviav 4'^X^i iroiovfAevoq Xoyov.
Idem, p. I. Prooemium.
' Hdvrv} Be Ka\ ntavru^ icrr) iwv ')(jx'kmci)ra/T(jt}v Xa^eiv T<va iclaTtv
itipi avT^<;.- De Anima, lib. i. cap. i.
^ 'EyT€Xe%eta ttpur'/} o-cy/xaxo? (pvaiKOV. Lib. ii. Cap. I. The WOrd
ENTEAEXEIA is translated by Cicero, Tusc. Qusest. lib. i. c. 10.
105
it would appear at first sight that he considered
its existence as inseparable from that of the body
which it animates. But in the third book, in which
the vovg^ or intelligence of the soul is discussed,
and which is divided into active and passive^ the
power of actively exercising its functions by think-
ing and reasoning, and the capacity of receiving
ideas, Aristotle assigns immortality to this intelli^
gence, but denies it memory. It has been dis-
puted whether he meant the whole of intelligence
to be immortal, or merely the active power. The
latter opinion is maintained by Warburton, by
Tennemann in his History of Philosophy ^ and has
continuata motio : it is frequently used in the sense of actus
as opposed to iv hwuixei: the translation I have given will com-
prehend the other senses : "Ea-n Se vj [acv vKv] S^va/A^, to Se EIA02
€VTcAe%€ia: it is what constitutes the form or essence of a thing.
Vid. Origen. Celebres Opiniones de Anima, p. 628. ed. 161 8.
Simplicii Prooemium, p. 2. Towards the end of the first chap-:
ter it is observed, that some of the functions of soul may be se-
parated from the body because they are not operations essen-
tially perfecting any parts of the body : O^ [a.v}v a>X evici ye ovOh
KooXvei hoc TO jwyj^eve? elvai aafj^enrog evrcAc^e/a? : thus, though the
sight of the eye cannot be separated from the bodily eye, the
speculative energy of the soul may be separated from body:
irep) he rov vov koI t^<; BeupvjTiK^t; hwdfAeut; ovHeita ^txvepov, aXX' €0iK€
^pv^yji; yevo^ (tepcv elvoci kou tovto y.ovov ivhexerai XnPIZE20AI KaOd
•nep TO aihcv rov (p$aprov. Aristot. de Anima, lib. ii. cap. 2.
^ Tennemann's Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic,
art. Aristotle. Lancaster's Harmony of the Law and the Gos-
» pel, p. 431. ' ■
106
been recently adopted by Mr. Lancaster. It ap-
pears that the question, after all, depends upon the
signification we attach to the term passive intelli-
gence. If Aristotle meant the power which the
mind has of receiving ideas through ^avracr/a,
which depends upon bodily sensation, it is obvious
that this sensation and (pavraaia being destroyed
at death, there can be no longer any capacity of
receiving ideas through the medium of the same
instruments : but, if we understand by the phrase
the power of receiving ideas without reference
to the mode in which they are conveyed, there is
no reason why the passive intelligence should not
exist after death "^. Such an interpretation of the
fifth and sixth chapters would appear perfectly
consistent with the assertion that vov^, or intelli-
gence, is immortal, and also with the declaration
that the manner of its apprehending while in
connection with the body is not so. It may ex-
*" Aristotle does not divide the vov<;, or intelligence^ into ac-
tive and passive with the precision of his Latin translators, but
describes it as operating actively and passively, and he cer-
tainly appears to consider these two kinds of operation as im-
plied in our very notion of intelligence. The term ita9ririKoq
1/01)5, which we meet with in the sixth chapter, is not used in
the fifth, where the functions of intelligence are described, and if
it be synonymous with (pavrotaluy is not to be confounded with
passive intelligence, as will readily be seen by a comparison of
the preceding chapter on <payra<Tia. Aristot. de Anima, lib. iii.
cap. 3—6.
107
ercise its active powers of thinking and reasoning,
though more quickly and perfectly after death, in
the same manner as now; but it cannot apprehend
ideas in the same way, viz. through the medium
of (pavraa-ia, which depends upon bodily sensation.
It does not follow then, because Aristotle denies
that the instruments by which the soul energizes
while in connection with the body will remain
after death, that the soul is to discontinue its
energies — that because it is no longer to receive
ideas through sensation ", it is to have no ideas at
all. For my own part, I do not understand what
is meant by the existence of active intelligence
after death ", without supposing that its activity is
to continue. Active intelligence, inert and with-
out consciousness, is a contradiction in terms ; and
so far from Aristotle denying consciousness to the
soul when separated from the body, as Tenne-
mann and others represent him to have done, he
speaks in the preceding chapter of its ability in
" Origen observes that even many notions which the soul
has in its present state, its ideas of the Deity for example, are
independent of body; iraivrvj Kcxc^pia-Toci a-wixarot; yj loiavr'^ ivepyeiat
Ku) ATTH2 AE TH2 ^^ANTASIAS. Origen, de Anima, p. 640.
Does not Aristotle mean that it may receive ideas in another
way, when, speaking of the intellect, he observes, AnA0E2 apa
Ser Jvai, AEKTIKON AE TOT EIAOTD ? De Anima, lib. iii. c. 5.
° OuTo? vovi; %ft>|5iO-T05, Ka) u(jt.iyy}(;, ku) airaBrj^y THI OT2IAI ON
ENEPFEIA. Again, Ov^ ore fAiv vou ore hi ov vo€7. Aristot. dc
Anima, lib. iii. cap. 6.
108
this state to speculate upon itself^. It is true, he
might mean this consciousness not to be separate
and individual, but a part of and absorbed in the
consciousness of the one universal Mind; but he
has never told us that this was his opinion, (ac-
cording to Warburton's gratuitous assumption,) nor
P Ka* avTO^ Se avroif Tore ^wdrai voeTv. Aristot. de Anima,
lib. iii. cap. 5. Origen. Opiniones de Anima, p. 677. As far as
I can understand Aristotle's notion, it appears to be this ; the
soul of map is like an unwritten tablet; ypafjLfAarelov a jixvjSfv lit-
dpx'^i, lib. iii. cap. 5. The senses exercised upon external ob-
jects communicate impressions to phantasia -which retains them,
and the intellect speculates and reasons upon the ideas so ob-^
tained. De Anima, lib. iii. c. 3. et 4. At death the senses and
the phantasia perish, but the intellect, having no necessary
connection with the two former, survives and is immortal.
Origen confirms this view of the subject : ^ (aIv cpavraaia tZv
irej/re alarQ-^aeuv Several rov(; rintovq. Opiniones de Anima, p. 620.
^avTCtaloc ydf icrriv tj rwv (pavBivrccv (Ttdariq. ta'TVj<n yap iy ainrj ra
e^a (pavivra, p. 6 1 9. Again, p. 66 1. Aristotle (he observes)
likens the soul to an unwritten tablet, Plato to a written tablet.
^nd in other passages he mentions that Aristotle was aware of
the rational soul being separable from body and immortal, and
of its capacity in this state for receiving the images of intel-
lectual things. Conf pp. 660. 631. It is surely a most un-
warrantable inference to argue, because a metaphysical writer
declares that the faculties which receive and retain impressions
from sensible and external objects perish at death, that he be-
lieved the soul in a separate and disembodied state no longer to
possess individual consciousness, and to be incapable of having
any power of thought whatever apart from the universal Mind.
It would appear from the comparison of the unwritten tablet
that Locke's theory is not altogether novel.
109
does such a consequence necessarily follow from
any assertion in any part of his works. He denies
indeed the continuance of memory after death,
which he observes is the result of cpavTaa-ia, and, if
memory be absent, it may be asked, how can the
consciousness of personal identity exist, the loss of
which would be fatal to the expectation of future
recompense ? But with regard to this conclusion
I would venture to remark, that, though memory
be excluded, it does not necessarily follow that
the knowledge which man obtains or preserves by
means of memory, while mind and body are unit-
ed, is to cease when they are separated. Aristotle
assigns to the Deity consciousness of happiness,
apprehension of ideas, and an interest in the con-
duct and fortunes of mankind ; and yet, by deny-
ing him *^ bodily sensation, virtually denies him me-
mory. He has defined memory to be a faint per-
ception of past reality : the perception of this re-
ality may be conveyed in another way, and more
vividly, after death ^ In the Ethics the dead are
said to be affected by the fortune of their living
friends, yet not affected so far as to have their
condition changed by this sympathy, whether they
^ The Epicurean in Cicero accuses Aristotle of depriving
the Deity of thought, because he deprived him of body. De Na-
tura Deorum lib. i. cap. 13.
•■ Aristotle's Ethics, book i. chap. 1 1.
110
are happy or otherwise. It is clear from this pas-
sage that the dead are supposed to be conscious
of personal identity, and to be sensible of pleasure
and pain, and that they are divided into classes,
some being happy and others not so ^ But if the
happiness of man in this life is not in Aristotle's
opinion a capricious gift of the gods, but the re-
ward of virtuous actions \ it is not easy to imagine
any other circumstances or conditions on which
the fortunes of the soul after death could be made
to depend. And this consideration would lead us
back to the necessity of some sort of future re-
tribution which the metaphysical theory we have
just examined apparently tended to annihilate.
It is surprising, that while almost every other
branch of human knowledge has been investigated
by Aristotle, how little consideration he has be-
stowed upon the question of the soul's immor-
tality. It is impossible to speak positively as to
his opinions on the subject ; for throughout his vo-
luminous works, metaphysical, physical, and moral,
we find no sufficient data from which to deduce
* This positive opinion can hardly be overthrown by the as-
sertion in the third book, that death is most terrible because it
is an end, and there appears to be neither good nor evil be-
yond. Aristotle's Ethics, book iii. chap. 6. He might speak
thus of death, and the fear of death, in the mind of man with-
out intending thereby to deny a future state.
* Aristotle's Ethics, book i. chap. 9. book x. chap. 8.
Ill
any certain conclusion. It is probable, from the
practical character of his mind, that he was un-
willing to indulge in speculations on a question
from the discussion of which he could arrive at no
clear and accurate knowledge. It is not often
that we meet with a more complete example of
what the logicians call the petitio principii than
the assertions of Warburton respecting the chap-
ter we have attempted to discuss. Cudworth had
declared it to be obscure, but, says the author of
the Legation, " " had that excellent person re-
^' fleeted on the general doctrine of the TO 'EN he
" would have found the passage plain and easy."
And he sums up his observations in that conve-
nient form of words recommended by the ancient
sophists and rhetoricians, to silence opposition by
alarming the adversary into an idea that his dis-
sent will be interpreted as a proof of ignorance :
" The learned well know that the Intellectus
«^ Agens of Aristotle was the very same with the
" Anima Mundi of Plato and Pythagoras." Now,
omitting all further inquiry into the correctness
of Warburton's representations respecting Plato's
creed, it may be sufficient to observe at present,
that if the learned have acquired such satisfactory
knowledge of the opinions entertained by the Sta-
" Divine Legation, lib. iii. sect. 4. vol. ii. p. 112.
112
gyrite on the same subject, it must have been
from other sources than his own writings.
That Aristotle believed in a ^ Supreme Beings
the original Mover of all things, enjoying perfect
felicity, and the source of all good, may be abun-
dantly proved ; that, besides the Supreme Being,
he maintained the existence also of y 07ie intelli-
gent Principle (notwithstanding his notion that
all the spheres were animated essences) pervading
the universe, may be inferred from some expres-
sions in his metaphysical works, and from a direct
assertion in his Politics. In addition to these, he
appears to have considered ^Nature as a third
and distinct cause, performing its functions sub-
ordinate to and dependent on the two former ;
^ ^a/>tev §e rov Beov elvcci ^£ov ai^iov apia-rov, ua-re ^covj koc) alwv (Tvv-
€Xr!? /ca* athot; viidpx^i rS Be^. Metaph. lib. xiv. cap. 7.
*H ocpx/j Kot TO TipaTov Tuv ovTcov aKiv^iov K(Xi KO.G' aino. Ibid,
cap. 8.
Ei [Ml €<rrai izapa. to, al<rdr)Ta aXka, ovk earrcci ap'^fj, ko,) rd^iq, kou
y€vi(rtq. Ibid. cap. 10.
*0 6eo<f ^0K€7 ro a'lriov Tracrij/ elvai kou dp^"^ riq. Ibid. lib. i. C. 2.
TluvTcc l^et rdyaOd Oecx; Kai i<TTiv avTdpKVji;. Magna Moralia,
lib. ii. cap. 15.
y 2%0A^ yap av o Oeo^ e^Oi KoXaq kou TIAS O K02M02, of? ovk etViv
i^uTepiKou Trpale*^ Trapa Tocq o</ce/a^ rdq avTuv. Aristot. Politic, lib.
vii. cap. 3. Vide also Metaph. lib. xiv. cap. 8. de Ccelo, lib. ii.
cap. 3. Idem, lib. i. cap. 9.
^ *Y.K roioivrv}(; dpoc, dpx^i ijpTvjTa* ovpavot; kou tj ^T2I2. Metaph.
lib. xiv. cap. 7. Vide also Phys, lib. ii. cap. i.
113
but he has by no means clearly or consistently
explained the peculiar province of each, nor the
relation which they bear to the human soul. Ah
though therefore it may be allowed that he held
the doctrine of the Anima Mundi, he does not
seem to have taught it in the fulness of Plato's
sense, who confounds it with the law of Nature,
and gives a diffuse account of its creation, attri-
butes, and operations. This view of his opinions
is supported by the authority of ^Eusebius and
other fathers of the church, who triumphantly
mention the discordance of these great teachers
on the subject, as contrasted with the harmony of
the inspired writers. It is well known also that
the two philosophers were opposed to each other
respecting the origin of the world itself: Plato
believed that matter in disorder^ was eternal,
Aristotle, that matter arranged, or the world, was
eternal ; a doctrine which he probably borrowed
^ In Eusebius, Praeparat. Evangel, lib. xv. cap. 12. where an
^extract is given from Porphyry containing an account of Plato's
Anima Mundi, the following words occur : Il/jo^ uvhh rovruv
^fMV * Apia-roTikviq ofMXoyitf od yap eivai rrjv <pv<riv i^y^V 'fcei ra irept
y^v in:o [Aia(; (pva-ea^ hoiKeia-Oaif &C.
^ De Coelo, lib. i. cap. 10. Idem, lib. ii. cap. i. Cicero, Tusc.
Quaest. lib. i. cap. 29. Eusebius, Praeparat. Evangel, lib. xv.
cap. 6, &c. It should be observed, in consulting Aristotle
de Ccelo, that ovpavot; is frequently used by him to signify the
world : it has the same sense also in Plato's Timaeus.
I
114
from Ocellus Lucanus ^ who in this instance de-
serted the principles of his master Pythagoras,
and almost all the more ancient writers.
TlMJSUS.
It has been asserted that Plato never confounds
the Soul of the universe with the one First Cause
and Creator of all things. In illustration of this
assertion it may not be uninteresting, however ex-
travagant and little intelligible such a " rhapsody
" rather than a philosophy" may be in itself, to
give a short abstract of the creation of the world
compressed from the Timaeus. Having observed
that it is difficult to discover the Maker and Fa-
ther of all things, and when we have discovered
him it is impossible to reveal him to all men ; hav-
ing laid down a necessary distinction ^between
what is created and uncreated, and declared that
the one is discerned by reason and intelligence,
(voy](Ti^,) the other by sensible perception, (aiaOy^cng,)
the author proceeds to give an account of creation
in terms which he premises will be akin to the
nature of the subjects treated of, where proba-
<= Vide an extract from Philo Judseus in Gale's Opusc. My-
tholog. p. 501. ed. 1688.
^ "Eariv ovv 8^ koct ifArjV ho^av irpurov ^lactper^ov raSe. t/ to ov ae),
yivea-iv Se ovk e%oy, ko,) il to yiyvQ^A.evov (/.ly ail, ov he ovhinore j Bek-
ker, pars iii. vol. ii. Timaeus, p. 22.
115
bility not certainty is to be expected. In that
flowing and beautiful language which is peculiar
to him, as different from the compressed and sim-
ple style of the short composition by Timaeus the
Locrian as the ornamented Corinthian column
from its Doric original, he explains in detail how
the supreme Deity, influenced by the desire of
diffusing his own ^goodness, out of disorder re-
duced to ^ order the fluctuating mass of matter,
gave intelligence to the soul, united soul with
body, till the whole material world arose into ex-
istence, an ^ animal endowed with life and intelli-
gence through the providence of God. In the
formation of this visible fabric after the model of
the invisible archetype which was eternal in the
divine Mind, the Creator first took fire and earth,
and made the union of these two substances com-
plete by the addition of a third called Analogia^, or
^ *Aya6o(; ijv, ayacQa Se oiJSei^ irepl o^Sevo? o^ScTroTe iyyiyverai (l)6ovoi*
Tovrov 8' €Kro(; av irdvra on [AtzXia-ra, yevetrOai i^ovX-^dvj irupanA'^<Tia
eavTw. Timaeus, p. 25.
f EU Tafiv avTo ^ya.yf.v Ik t^^ arouiia^. Timaeus, ibid.
g Zwoi/ ejiAi|/yp^ov ^vvavv re t^ aXvjfie/jt 5<a t^v rov Beov yevea-Qai Trpo-
votav. Timaeus, p. 26.
'^ This Analogia appears to be the law of nature, like the
apxh ^ApjMiyiccq, the law of harmonious arrangement ; (Aristot.
Polit. lib. i. cap. 35) or that law so beautifully described by
Hooker, to which all things in heaven and earth do homage :
^evf/i.uv 8e KoKkKTroq 0^ av avTov KOii ra ^vv^ov[/.€vci on lAokiara ev
irojj. Timaeus, p. 28. The principles on which Analogia per-
I 2
116
Proportion, which was to regulate the order and
limits of their connection. The First Cause next
took air and water, gave it in charge to Analogia
to combine these with the former elements, and
all with itself, till the one vast fabric was bound
together in the ties of friendship indissoluble, ex-
cept at the hands of him who first connected it.
The supreme Creator then assigned motion to the
whole, and placed a soul in the centre, that its
energy might be extended from thence through-
out the various parts. Thus did the eternal
Deity create the universe as an inferior deity
possessed of consciousness and enjoying happi-
ness ; a second cause and servant of himself;
{evdaifJLOva 6eov eyevv^aaro.) But this Soul of the
forms its functions, Plato attempts to illustrate by a mystical
application of the relations of numbers. Vide Timaeus the
Locrian also Aristot. Metaph. lib. i. cap. 5. It should be re-
membered, however, that when the ancients appear to speak
so extravagantly of the power of numher^ they do not use the
word exactly in our sense, but as conveying the idea that all
things are subject to certain definite rules and proportions,
which may be illustrated by the operation of numbers ; as if
they had some obscure notions of those physical laws of com-
bination which modern philosophers have demonstrated : 01
fA€V yap TlvOayoptioi MIMH2IN ra cvrd (fyaariv flvai ray api6fji.Zy^
Aristot. Metaph. lib. i. cap. 6. Thus when Aristotle in his
Rhetoric observes, Uepaiverai Se apiBfjLu itdvia, " All things are
" limited by number," he means, probably, all things are sub-
ject to some definite law.
117
world, though mentioned last in the descrip-
tion, was not contrived the last in order,
but was prior both in production and in excel-
lence. It was composed of three essences, the
divisible and changeable, the indivisible and un-
changeable, and of a third made up of the combi-
nation of the other two. From these three sub-
stances, the divinity formed one soul, and distri-
buted it to the different members of the universe.
But when the composition of the soul had been
thus completed according to the intention of the
Composer', the eternal Cause then contrived all
the material mass within, and united it centre to
centre^. The soul, diffusing itself from hence,
5 EHEI AE RATA NOTN TOl STNI2TANTI itaaa ^ t^ ^A^^ffi
^varouTiq iyiyevi^roy jwera rovro itav to (TftjjticaToeiSe? ivroq avt^^ ettKrai-
v€To. Thus translated by Cicero : " Aninmm igitur quum ille
" procreator mundi Deus ex sua mente et divinitate geniiisset."
This can hardly be considered a translation of the words. If
ex sua mente alone will bear the meaning, '* according to his
** intention," ex sua mente et divinitate together, can scarcely
signify any thing else than, " out of his own divine essence,"
which Plato does not say. Ciceronianum Lexicon Grseco-La-
tinum ab Henrico Stephano, edit. 1557. Platonis Loci a Ci-
cerone Interpretati, p. 23.
^ The principles on which this distribution is made are de-
scribed with all the useless and unintelligible mysticism in
which Plato was so fond of indulging. The laws again by
which the composition of the soul was regulated are explained
by a fanciful combination of numbers. In this sense, the
number of the soul in Timaeus the Locrian is declared to be
I 3
118
pervaded the extremity of the heaven revolving
upon itself around it, and established the com-
mencement of a life unceasing and full of intel-
lectual enjoyment. Formed by the most excellent
Creator the most excellent of created things, it is
endowed with a capacity of perceiving eternal
truths. From its proportionate distribution and
compound essence, and self-revolving power ^, when
it approaches any divisible or indivisible substance,
it is enabled to discern, by moving itself through
its own entire nature, the identity and differences
of things, to what class each belongs, the time and
place and manner of its existence, the distinction
1 1 4695. Vide Timseus the Locrian. Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii.
p. 382.
Absurd as these speculations of Plato are, they are more than
equalled by those of Darjes, a German writer, (and he was only
one of a school,) not a century ago, who published a philoso-
phical treatise to demonstrate the Trinity by algebraical formula.
Tractatus philosophicus in quo Plurahtas Personarum in Deitate,
&C.1735. Problems of the same kind are also to be found in Stap-
fer, a divine of a different church, in a learned work, (Institu-
tiones Theolog. tomi 5. Tiguri, 1743.) Vid. vol. iii. p. 481, 482,
&c. And Dr. Hutchinson, in his inquiry into the origin of our
ideas of beauty and virtue, has applied algebra to the question
of "moral merit:" "The benevolence (moral merit) of an
" agent is proportional to a fraction, having the moment of
** good for the numerator, and the ability of the agent for the
•* denominator." Life and Writings of Dr. Held, in Dugald
Stewart's edition of his works.
' Cicero de Natura Deorum lib. i. cap. 10.
119
between essences eternal and the same, and those
created and changeable. But when the Father
who had made this image of the eternal deities
had seen it living and moving, he was well-pleased
and rejoiced, and he determined to perfect his
work, and to render it still more similar to the
original archetype. He then applied himself to
the creation of time ™, the sun, moon, and stars,
and other divinities, who though parts of the one
vast animal, are endowed with separate conscious-
ness and personal happiness ". When the Father
"" It is remarkable that Plato makes no distinction of time in
the eternal archetype of the world as it existed in the divine
mind ; AeyofMv yap tv} uq ^v tarn re ku) eo^a/, t^ he ro tan [/.ovov
KUTo, Toy aXuj^ Xoyov 'rrpo(jr,K€i. Timaeus, p. 36.
" This is certainly Plato's theory, Timaeus, p. 29. If then all
the animals which are parts of the material universe possess
separate consciousness, what reason is there for supposing that
he believed the soul after death, when it became a part of uni-
versal mind, would lose its personality. He uniformly repre^
sents it as possessed of individuality. Parts are used in a figu-
rative sense : Plato himself tells us that the term body is ap-
plied to the universe, not literally, but figuratively, (Timaeus, p.
30.) I am well aware that by subsequent writers the distinctions
of the philosopher were not so accurately observed, and that
the still greater absurdity of their notions respecting the Anima
Mundi might justify the satire of the Epicurean in Cicero, or
the keener ridicule of St. Augustine : though we can hardly
imagine the creed of any to have extended so far as to embrace
the belief, that all things were literally a part of Jupiter, and
that the Deity in the torrid zone was parched with heat, and in
the hyperborean regions was stiff with cold ; and that he actually
I 4
of all things had created these principal parts of
the universe, he afterwards assigned to them, as
second causes and subject deities, their subordinate
departments in the work of creation. To their
care was committed the formation of other ani-
mated essences inferior to themselves. They are
charged in gratitude for the immortality which
their Maker in his benevolence has given them,
and to which they had no natural claim, to devote
themselves diligently to the task: "^ Deities of dei-
" ties, of whom I am Creator and Father, ye are
" not immortal and indissoluble; what I have made
" I can dissolve, yet ye shall not be dissolved, nor
*' be subject to death, through the might of my
*' will. Apply yourselves to the creation of ani-
" mals, imitating my power exerted in your pro-
" duction. , I will furnish you with the first prin-
" ciples and eternal seeds for the formation of
" those who are to resemble the immortal Gods,
" but do ye, adding the mortal to the immortal
" nature, mould and produce them into being,
died in men, and was whipped in hoys : " Quid infelicius credi
** potest quam Jovis partem vapulare cum puervapulat," Cicero
de Natura Deorum lib. i. cap. lo, ii. St. Augustin, Civ. Dei,
lib. iv. cap. 13. Dr. Ireland, p. 184, 185. Vide also Comment.
Marsil. Ficini, lib. iii. cap. 3. Plotini Ennead. 4.
° The spirit and beauty of the passage beginning ©eo* Oewv,
&v ^ya IvKA.iovpyoi itaTfip re epyecv will be felt by every reader of
Plato. Timseus, p. 43.
Ul
" nourish and multiply them, and receive back
" their dissolved elements when they perish."
Saying this, he turned to the cup in which he had
tempered the soul of the universe, and mingled
the materials in the same manner as before, but of
inferior purity ; and having formed souls, he dis-
tributed them to different stars, each to its own
star, to be reserved for the production of an ani-
mal distinguished for piety towards the Gods.
When these souls should be introduced into
bodies, and become subject to the influence of
bodily passions, the Creator ordained that the man
who lived his allotted time subduing his appetites
should enjoy a life of future happiness, returning
to that kindred star in which his spirit had been
at first deposited. If he failed to conquer them,
he was destined in his second formation to put on
the nature of woman p, and unless corrected then,
he was to pass into other animals, till the irrational
part should be at length overcome, and his soul
should approach to that excellency and purity in
which it had at first been formed. The Creator
having established these laws, in order that him-
P In other works Plato seems to consider women on an
equality with men. Vid. Republic, fifth book, in which he re-
commends the same course of bodily and mental discipline,
IMva-iK^i and yvfAvatrriKrj, to both. Aristotle considered women
inferior. Aristot. Polit. book i. chap. 13.
122
self might be guiltless of the evil which should
hereafter infect them, interspersed some souls in
the moon, others in the sun, and others in the
various stars. The inferior deities, having received
these first principles of the immortal soul, proceed
to the accomplishment of their work, and to form
the body of man as well as that mortal soul which
is the seat of the passions, and of pleasure and
pain : of pleasure, the greatest allurement to evil ;
of pain, that most strongly deters us from good ;
of anger and fear, inconsiderate twin-counsellors ;
of hope, that easily seduces by means of the
irrational senses ; and of love, that dares every
enterprise. Yet, fearing to mingle their work
with that of the supreme Deity, they implant this
irrational soul in the breast, whereas the immortal
soul was placed in the head, in order that from
this acropolis, or citadel, it might issue its com-
mands with authority to the inferior faculties and
passions.
An apology is perhaps necessary for introducing
such a wild and fanciful narrative to the notice of
the reader, but it may possibly furnish some illus-
tration of Plato's opinions, as well as of the poeti-
cal colouring with which he adorned them, though
we may be unable to determine the exact mea-
sure of belief which he himself gave to the dif-
ferent parts of such a theory. It is clear how-
123
ever, from the tenor of the whole account, that
he never confounds the soul of the universe with
the One First Cause ; nor can any inference be de-
duced, either directly or indirectly, from it, that
he believed the human soul after death would so
become a part of the Anima mundi as to lose per-
sonal consciousness. It will be no uninstructive
lesson to compare this diffuse and tedious history,
in which the acts of the Deity are so elaborately
detailed, with the simple and sublime language of
inspiration on the same subject. If such an argu-
ment were wanting to establish the truth of the
Mosaic history, the style itself would furnish
strong evidence in its favour. No attempt is
made to enchain the reader's attention, or satisfy
unprofitable curiosity upon matters too exalted
for human comprehension, by copious and high-
wrought descriptions. The sacred writer repre-
sents not the Creator mingling elements and sub-
stances like an earthly workman^, and determining
by calculated arrangements and multiplied com-
binations the limits and proportions of their union,
but as an Almighty Being, whose words and
whose works are the same. The single sentence,
'1 The disciple of Epicurus in Cicero makes this objection to
Plato's narrative : " Quae molitio ? quas ferramenta ? qui vectes ?
** quae machinae? qui niinistri tanti operis fuerant?" De Natura
Deormn lib. i. cap. 8.
124
Let there he light, and there was light, serves at
once to repress curiosity, and fill the mind with a
magnificent image of that infinite Power, who
spake, and it was done ; who commanded, and it
stoodfast.
The work of Timaeus the Locrian^ in the Doric
dialect, which has been before alluded to, and
which is supposed to contain the principles of the
Pythagoreans, differs in no important particulars
from the more diffuse description of Plato. Two
original principles are represented as existing from
eternity, God or Mind, and Necessity; 0€Of or
vovg, and avajKri, of which Matter and Form, vKfi
and /^ea, are the offspring ^ And it is asserted in
another passage, that before the heaven was pro-
duced the Deity and Matter existed, and also the
essential archetype or form of things ^ The Soul
of the universe is described as the composition of
the Deity with a degree of minuteness and mysti-
cism that Plato himself has not surpassed. But
there is nothing in the narrative to lead us to the
inference that the writer imagined the First Cause
to confound himself with the Soul of the universe,
the work of his own creation, or that the soul of
■■ T//*aio$ AoVpo? TaSe e^a. is the commencement of the work.
^ Ilpiv uv ^pavov <yev€<TBct^ Xoy^ Tjcrnjv l^eot re ko,) vXa koI o 0€o<
ZafAiovpyoq ta jScXr/ovo?. Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 380. The
Deity is also called *Xpy^ rSv apia-ruv, p. 379.
125
man was absorbed in it after death. The neces-
sity of the irrational part obeying the rational is
insisted on, and it is declared, that the perception
of truth will conduct the man who observes this
law to a life of the greatest happiness ". But it is
uncertain whether this relates to a future state of
happiness or not. The idea of future punishment,
and the menaces respecting it, are discarded, and
such doctrines are permitted only as providing a
check for those who refuse the admonitions of
reason ^. Yet the last words of the treatise leave
a doubt upon the mind whether the writer, re-
jecting as he did the representation of the poets,
and the fables of the metempsychosis, had not
some belief in an avenging Nemesis to punish the
guilty after death ; nor are they satisfactorily ex-
plained by the distinction that Warburton makes
between the physical and moral metempsychosis.
" A*' ocKaOecrrdTav ho^oiv ayerai €7ri tov ti/taifAOviaTarov ^lov. Bek-
ker, pars iii. vol. Hi. p. 391,
* *n^ yap roc o-ufAara voa-a^ea-i ttoKo. vyia^ofAeq^ ou ko. [Arj cIktj to<V vyi6i-
voTaTOig, ovru raq ypv^aq a,iT€ipyoi/.€q x^cfSeo-t Xoyoiq^ ei kcc fM] ay^tcti a\a-
Bea-i. Timseus ad fin. Vide also the concluding sentence of the
treatise. If Plato had left no works of his own behind him,
this passage might have been admitted as affording evidence of
his opinions ; but its authority is of little weight when opposed
to the numerous treatises written by himself, in which contrary
doctrines are inculcated. Vid. Warburton's Divine Legation,
book iii. sect. 3. also sect. i. vol. ii. p. 2. 54, 55.
U6
In conclusion it may be observed, that War-
burton's knowledge of ancient philosophy was
more extended, than sound and accurate y. He
asserts, that Aristotle believed the care of Provi-
dence not to extend to individuals; the Ethics
alone might have convinced him of his error.
He denies that the affection of love, joy, &c. were
believed by Plato and Pythagoras to belong to the
supreme Deity, but only to inferior divinities^; in
the Timaeus the supreme Deity is represented as
rejoicing when he had made the world. He ob-
serves again, that in taking away human passions
from God, they left him nothing but that kind of
natural excellence which went not from his will,
but his essence only. The assertion is not limited
to the Stoics, but applied universally. Did the
author of the Divine Legation ever read the pas-
sage in the Timaeus before alluded to ? " Deities of
" deities, ye are not immortal, and yet ye shall not
" be dissolved, t^$- efxvj^ povX'^a-ecDg, k. t. A. through
" the power of my will." * Upon a general re-
y Book iii. sect. 4. p. 95, 96. vol. ii. Aristot. Ethics, lib. i.
cap. 9. lib. X. cap. 8. E* ydp nq i'jrt(Ji.€K€ia tuv avBficimivuv vico Seav
yiveTOci uairep So/fe?, Koci etvj oiv evKoyov xaipeiv re avrolq r^ (rvyyeve-
a-Ta.1'^. and hence he deduces the inference, that he is the hap-
piest man who is dearest to the gods. Cudworth, lib. i. cap. i.
sect. 45.
z Book iii. sect. 4. p. 97, 98. vol. ii.
^ Vide also Alcinous on the doctrines of Plato, cap. x. Cud-
worth, Hb. i. cap. 4. p. 415.
127
view of the inquiry, we may, I think, venture to de-
termine, that he has by no means proved his asser-
tions against the philosophers of Greece : to quote
the words of Mosheim^, " Non apertis et planis
" testimoniis causam suam agit vir praeclarus, quod
" in tanti momenti accusatione necessarium vide-
" tur, sed conjecturis tantum, exemplis nonnullis,
" denique consectariis ex institutis quibusdam et
" dogmatibus philosophorum quibusdam ductis."
Though the author of the Divine Legation has
attempted to refute this charge, it will appear,
upon an accurate examination, not only strictly
true, but to fall short of the truth. In what man-
ner, for example, are the opinions of Plato attempt-
ed to be ascertained? Not by a comprehensive
view of his own writings, but by an appeal to
Jamblichus, Albinus, or Celsus. The sentiments
of Aristotle are pronounced upon after an investi-
gation equally partial and unsatisfactory. The
most important passage in the Ethics that bears
upon the subject is omitted, and the observations
on the chapters in the treatise de Anima are made
up partly of unwarranted assumption, partly of
reasoning, alike superficial and unphilosophical.
The statements of bishop Warburton, respecting
the other philosophers of Greece, are often founded
^ De Rebus Christ, ante Constantinum Magnum, p.i8. quoted
by Warburton, lib. iii. sect. 4. vol. ii. p. 138.
128
in the same manner upon scattered passages, ap-
plied with wonderful dexterity and ingenuity, but
not upon any general comparison of their writ-
ings. Nor does he shew much critical acumen
(and this is surprising in so acute a writer) in dis-
tinguishing the relative value of the testimonies
which he cites. He appears at times to argue in
the spirit of a man who might think Plutarch, or
even Porphyry, as good evidence for the doctrine
of the Academy as Plato himself; and M. Antoni-
nus or Apuleius sound authorities on the philoso-
phy of Aristotle. In answer to the chancellor of
Gottingen, he asserts, that the Greek philosophers
are proved by him to have made use of a double
doctrine — to have held it lawful to deceive, and
to say one thing when they thought another — to
have sometimes owned, and sometimes denied a
future state of rewards and punishments — to have
held that God could not be angry, nor hurt any
one — that the soul was part of the substance of
God — to have avowed that the consequence of
these ideas of God and the soul was no future
state of rewards and punishments. But how few
of these propositions have been established upon
any solid grounds. The author of the Divine Le-
gation has not shewn, nor is it possible to shew,
that Plato and Aristotle held the notion of a
double sense distinct from the division of doctrines
129
into exoteric and esoteric : the assertion, that Plato
held it lawful to deceive for the public good, is
grounded chiefly on a translation of a sentence by
Cicero, either wrong in itself, or misunderstood :
that they sometimes owned and sometimes denied
a future state, is not true of Plato, if it is meant
that his expressions of denial, or rather of doubt,
bear any proportion to those of belief and ac-
knowledgment ; and in the case of other philoso-
phers, occasional doubts upon such a subject would
furnish no very decisive evidence against the ge-
neral character of their belief. That they held God
could not be angry, was an opinion of some sects
of philosophy, not of all : the supposition that the
soul*^ was part of the substance of God does not
necessarily affect the argument respecting a future
state of retribution ; for the Platonists did not
imagine that being a part of universal mind ex-
cluded the notion of personal consciousness : that
they avowed the consequences of these ideas of
God and the soul was no future state of rewards
and punishments, is not true of the philosophers
in general, but chiefly of the Stoics. Nor are the
theories of bishop Warburton^ respecting the be-
^ Tertullian held that the soul was part of the substance of
God.
^ In Schrockh's Ecclesiastical History there is this brief and
just criticism on Warburton's theory : Sinnreich genugy aber
K
130
lief of the ancient Jews supported by more solid
arguments. History, prophecy, and precept, the
common hopes and fears of mankind, are all made
to bend to the supposed influence of a law, which,
while it included within the range of its enact-
ments temporal rewards as well as punishments,
cannot be proved upon any sound principles to
have excluded the expectation of future recom-
pense. Our admiration of learning and ingenuity,
however perverted and misapplied, will always en-
sure to the works of Warburton a certain degree
of popularity; but opinions like those developed
in the Divine Legation of Moses will never ex-
tensively prevail, till the love of novelty and inge-
nuity gets the better alike of sober criticism and
common sense.
nur sinnreich! "Ingenious enough, but otily ingenious!"
Schrockh viii. theil. vol. xliii. p. 753.
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