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with a finger. Know therefore' that you are a divine person. Since it is divinity that has consciousness, sensation, memory, and foresight; that governs, regulates, and moves that body over which it has been appointed, just as the Supreme Deity rules this world; and in like manner, as an eternal God guides this world, which in some respect is perishable, so an eternal spirit animates your frail body.

For that which is ever moving' is eternal; now that which communicates to another object a motion which it received

"That the alienation has been gradual in one case, and in the other will be more at once, does not prove any thing to the contrary. We have passed undestroyed through those many and great revolutions of matter so peculiarly appropriated to us ourselves; why should we imagine death will be so fatal to us? Nor can it be objected, that what is thus alienated or lost is no part of our original solid body, but only adventitious matter; because we may lose entire limbs, which must have contained many solid parts and vessels of the original body; or if this be not admitted, we have no proof that any of these solid parts are dissolved or alienated by death. Though, by the way, we are very nearly related to that extraneous or adventitious matter while it continues united to, and distending the several parts of, our solid body. But after all the relation a person bears to those parts of his body to which he is the most nearly related, what does it appear to amount to but this, that the living agent and those parts of the body mutually affect each other? And the same thing, the same thing in kind though not in degree, may bo said of all foreign matter which gives us ideas, and which we have any power over. From these observations the whole ground of the imagination is removed, that the dissolution of any matter is the destruction of a living agent, from the interest he once had in such matter."

"It was the common opinion of all the ancient philosophers who followed the system of Pythagoras, that the souls of men, and even of beasts, were portions of divinity. What opinion our author had of the properties and immortality of the soul is difficult to determine. For wo are not to imagine that in the passage before us, and in many others in which he mentions the subject, he gives his own sentiments, but those of others; accordingly, in his first book, De Natura Deorum, he makes Veleius, one of his prolocutors, absolutely destroy the doctrine which is advanced here."-Guthrie.

"'T is the Divinity that stirs within us,

'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,

And intimates eternity to man !"—Addison's Cato.

3 "All this doctrine is taken almost word for word from the Phaedrus of Plato, and Macrobius has reduced it to the following syllogism. The soul is self-motive; now self-motion contains the principle of motion, the principle of motion is not created, therefore the soul is not created." Guthrie.

elsewhere, must necessarily cease to live as soon as its motion is at an end. Thus the being which is self-motive is the only being that is eternal, because it never is abandoned by its own properties, neither is this self-motion ever at an end; nay, this is the fountain, this is the beginning of motion to all things that are thus subjects of motion. Now there can be no commencement of what is aboriginal, for all things proceed from a beginning; therefore a beginning can rise from no other cause, for if it proceeded from another cause it would not be aboriginal, which, if it have no commencement, certainly never has an end; for the primeval principle, if extinct, can neither be re-produced from any other source nor produce any thing else from itself, because it is necessary that all things should spring from some original source. The principle of motion, therefore, can only exist in a self-motive being, and it is impossible that such a being should be born or that it should die, otherwise all heaven must go to wreck, and the whole system of nature must stop; nor can it come under any other force, should it be removed from its original impulsion.'

Since therefore it is plain that whatever is self-motive must be eternal, who can deny that this natural property is

1 It only remains then to bring this idea of the material word into connection with the principle that motion, in all cases, originates from mind; or in other words, in the effect of will-either the supreme will, or the will of created minds. Motion is either constant and uniform, obeying what we call a law, or it is incidental. The visible and palpable world then, according to this theory, is MOTION, constant and uniform, emanating from infinite centers, and spreading during every instant of its continuance from the creative energy. The instantaneous cessation of this energy, at any period, is therefore abstractedly quite as easily conceived of as is its continuance; and whether, in the next instant, it shall continue, or shall cease-whether the material universe shall stand or shall vanish-is an alternative of which, irrespective of other reasons, the one member may be as easily taken as the other; jnst as the moving of the hand, or the not moving it, in the next moment depends upon nothing but our volition. The annihilation of the solid spheres-tho planets, and the suns, that occupy the celestial spaces, would not on this supposition be an act of irresistible force crushing that which resists compression, or dissipating and reducing to an ether that which firmly coheres; but it would simply be the non-exertion in the next instant of a power which has been exerted in this instant; it would be, not a destruction, but a rest; not a crash and ruin, but a pause.-Taylor's Physical Theory of another Life, chap. xviii.

bestowed upon our minds?' For every thing that is moved by a foreign impulse is inanimate, but that which is animate is impelled by an inward and peculiar principle of motion; and in that consists the nature and property of the soul. Now if it alone of all things is self-motive, assuredly it never was originated, and is eternal. Do thou therefore employ it in the noblest of pursuits. and the noblest of cares are those

1 "It is motion that measures duration, and time is duration, measured into equal parts by the equable motion of bodies through space. But as motion belongs to matter, of which it is a condition, and is that wherein duration and extension combine to form a common product, so mind must become related to extension, in order to its having any knowledge of motion, or to its being able to avail itself of the measurement of duration; in other words, it is only in connection with matter that it can know any thing of time.

"Minds embodied, not only learn to measure out their own existenco equally, and to correct the illusions of which otherwise they would be the sport, but also, by an insensible habit, they came to exist at a moro even velocity, if we may so speak, than could else be possible, and learn unconsciously to put a curb upon the excessive and dangerous rapidity of thought; while in other cases a spur is supplied for the sluggishness of the mind, or a remedy found for its undue fixedness; and thus all minds are brought to move together at nearly the same rate, or at least as nearly so as is essential for securing the order and harmony of the social system.

"But then, this same intimate connection between mind and matter, while it exposes the mind, passively, to the influence of the inferior element, becomes in return the means of its exerting a power-and how extensive and mysterious a power is it-over the solid matter around it. Mind, embodied, by a simple act or volition, originates motion. That is to say, its will or desire, through the instrumentality of muscular contractions, as applied to the body itself, or to other bodies, puts it or them in movement. This power of the mind in overcoming the vis inertiæ of matter and the force of gravitation, is the only active influence in relation to the material world which we have a certain knowledge of its possessing; for, as is obvious, the various combinations of substances that are brought about by the skill of man, are all indirectly effected through the instrumentality of the muscular system; nor can it be ascertained, whether the chemical changes and assimilations that are carried on in the secreting glands and the viscera are effected by an unconsious involuntary mental operation. This organic influence excepted, suppos. ing it to exist, the mechanical power of the mind is the only one it en. joys; but this it enjoys in no mean degree. It may, without much hazard, be assured, that motion in all instances originates in an immediate volition, either of the supreme or of some created mind, and that this power is exerted by the latter through the means of a corporeal structure."-Taylor's Physical Theory of Another Life, chap. ii.

for the safety of thy country. The soul that is stirred and agitated by these will fly the more quickly to this mansion, even to its own home,' and this will be the more rapid, if even now, while it is imprisoned within the body it sallies abroad, and, contemplating those objects that are without it, abstracts itself as much as possible from the body. For the souls of those men who are devoted to corporeal pleasures themselves, and who having yielded themselves as it were as their servants, enslaved to pleasures under the impulse of their passions, have violated the laws of gods and men; such souls, having escaped from their bodies, hover round the earth, nor do they return to this place, till they have been tossed about for many ages." He vanished, and I awoke from my sleep.

1 We can not better conclude our notes on this interesting fragment, than by the peroration of that sermon of the late Robert Hall which was possibly suggested by this passage, and indeed some of the greatest beauties of that discourse seem to have been, by passages from the foregoing treatises of Cicero:

:

"To that state all the pious on earth are tending, and if there is a law from whose operation none are exempt, which inevitably conveys their bodies to darkness and to dust, there is another not less certain, or less powerful, which conducts their spirits to the abodes of bliss, to the bosom of their father and their God. The wheels of nature are not made to roll backward. Every thing presses on to eternity. From the birth of time an impetuous current has set in, which bears all the sons of men toward that interminable ocean. Meanwhile, heaven is attracting to itself, whatever is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself by the spoils of the earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure, permanent, and divine, leaving nothing for the last fire to consume but the objects and slaves of concupiscence; while every thing which grace has prepared and beautified, shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of the world to adorn that eternal city.

"Let us obey the voice that calls us thither; let us seek the things that are above, and no longer cleave to a world which must shortly perish, and which we must shortly quit, while we neglect to prepare for that in which we are invited to dwell forever. While every thing within us and around us reminds us of the approach of death, and concurs to teach us that this is not our rest, let us hasten our preparations for another world, and earnestly implore that grace which alone can put an end to that fatal war which our desires have too long waged with our destiny. When these move in the same direction, and that which the will of heaven renders unavoidable, shall become our choice, all things will be ours; life will be divested of its vanity, and death disarmed of its terrors."-Hall's Funeral Sermon for Dr. Ryland.

ON THE

DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE.

ADDRESSED TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS.'

THOUGH I doubt not that many messengers and indeed that rumor itself with characteristic rapidity will have outstripped this letter, and that you will already have heard that a third year has been added to your labors, and to our impatience, yet I have thought that the announcement of this annoyance should be made to you by me also. For while every one else despaired of the success, I still, by repeated letters, gave you hopes of an early return, not only that I might amuse you as long as possible with that pleasing expectation, but because I did not doubt that through the strong interest made both by me and the prætors the object might be accomplished. Now as it has so happened that neither the prætors by their interest, nor I by my zeal, were able to effect any thing, it is certainly difficult not to feel mortification at it, but yet we ought never to suffer our minds which are employed in managing and supporting the arduous affairs of government to be crushed or dejected by misfortune. And because men ought to be most annoyed by those ills which are incurred by their own faults, there is in this transaction somewhat more afflicting to me than ought to be to you, for it happened by my misconduct contrary to your understanding with me when parting, and subsequently

'Quintus Cicero was at this time proprætor of Asia Minor.

2 In the original "non dubitabam." The Roman idiom in epistolary writing, is that the verbs by which the writer expresses a present action or state, are put in the past tense; that is, as it will appear, to the person who subsequently reads the letter.

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