They then all defcended, and roved with wonder through the labyrinth of fubterraneous paffages, where the bodies were laid in rows on either fide. CHA P. XLVII. Imlac difcourfes on the nature of the foul. WHAT reafon, faid the prince, can be given, why the Egyptians should thus expenfively preserve those carcaffes which fome nations confume with fire, others lay to mingle with the earth, and all agree to remove from their fight, as foon as decent rites can be performed?" "The "The original of ancient customs, faid Imlac, is commonly unknown; for the practice often continues when the caufe has ceafed; and concerning fuperftitious ceremonies it is vain to conjecture; for what reafon did not dictate reafon cannot explain. I have long believed that the practice of embalming arofe only from tenderness to the remains of relations or friends, and to this opinion I am more inclined, because it seems impoffible that this care fhould have been general: had all the dead been em talmed, their repofitories muft in time have been more fpacious than the dwellings of the living. I fuppofe only the rich or honourable were fecured from corruption, and the reft left to the course of nature. "But "But it is commonly supposed that the Egyptians believed the foul to live as long as the body continued undiffolved, and therefore tried this method of eluding death." "Could the wife Egyptians, faid Nekayah, think fo grofly of the foul? If the foul could once furvive its feparation, what could it afterwards receive or suffer from the body? "The Egyptians would doubtless think erroneously, faid the aftronomer, in the darkness of heathenism, and the first dawn of philofophy. The nature of the foul is ftill difputed amidst all our opportunities of clearer knowledge: fome yet say, that it may be material, who, nevertheless, believe it to be immortal." "Some, "Some, anfwered Imlac, have indeed faid that the foul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think; for all the conclufions of reafon enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of fense and investigations of fcience concur to prove the unconsciousness of mat ter. "It was never fuppofed that cogitation is inherent in matter, or that every particle is a thinking being. Yet, if any part of matter be devoid of thought, what part can we fuppofe to think? Matter can differ from matter only in form, denfity, bulk, motion, and direction of motion: to which of thefe, however varied or combined, can confciousness be annexed? To be round or fquare, to be be folid or fluid, to be great or little, to be moved flowly or fwiftly one way or another, are modes of material existence, all equally alien from the nature of cogitation. If matter be once without thought, it can only be made to think by fome new modification, but all the modifications which it can admit are equally unconnected with cogitative powers." "But the materialifts, faid the aftronomer, urge that matter may have qualities with which we are unacquainted." "He who will determine, returned Imlac, against that which he knows, because there may be fomething which he knows not; he that can fet hypothetical poffibility against acknowledged certainty, is not to |