from the dead. Now, since this process was evermore going on with the same persons, therefore they, issuing from the same, must always have remained in number the same. For they who emerged (into life) could never have become more nor fewer than they who disappeared (in death). We find, however, in the records of the Antiquities of Man," that the human race has progressed with a gradual growth of population, either occupying differ- ent portions of the earth as aborigines, or as nomade tribes, or as exiles, or as conquerors — as the Scythians in Parthia, the Temenidae in Peloponnesus, the Athenians in Asia, the Phrygians in Italy, and the Phoenicians in Africa; or by the more ordinary methods of emigration, which they call anoiKiai or colonies, for the purpose of throwing off redundant population, disgorging into other abodes their overcrowded masses. The aborigines remain still in their old settlements, and have also enriched other districts with loans of even larger populations. Surely it is obvious enough, if one looks at the whole world, that it is becoming daily better cultivated and more fully peopled than anciently. All places are now accessible, all are well known, all open to commerce; most pleasant farms have ob- literated all traces of what were once dreary and dangerous wastes; cultivated fields have subdued forests; flocks and herds have ex- pelled wild beasts; sandy deserts are sown; rocks are planted; marshes are drained; and where once were hardly solitary cottages, there are now large cities. No longer are (savage) islands dreaded, nor their rocky shores feared; everywhere are houses, and inhabitants, and settled government, and civ- ilised life. What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint), is our teem- ing population: our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly supply us from its natural elements; our wants grow more and more keen, and our complaints more bit- ter in all mouths, whilst Nature fails in afford- ing us her usual sustenance. In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earth- quakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuri- ance of the human race; and yet, when the hatchet has once felled large masses of men, the world has hitherto never once been alarmed at the sight of a restitution of its dead coming back to life after their millennial exile. 5 But such a spectacle would have be- come quite obvious by the balance of mortal ■»A probable allusion to Varro's work, De Antigq. Rerum Humanarum.
5 An allusion to Plato's notion that, at the end of a thousand years, such a restoration of the dead, took place. See his PAte- drus, p. 248, and De Republ. x. p. 614.
CHAP. XXXII.]
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
loss and vital recovery, if it were true that the dead came back again to life. Why, however, is it after a thousand years, and not at the moment, that this retimi hem death is to take place when, supposing that the loss is not at once supplied, there must be a risk of an utter extinction, as the failure precedes the compensation? Indeed, this furlough of our present life would be quite disproportioned to the period of a thousand years; so much briefer is it, and on that account so much more easily is its torch extinguished than re- kindled. Inasmuch; then, as the period which, on the hypothesis we have discussed, ought to intervene, if the living are to be formed from the dead, has not actually oc- curred, it will follow that we must not believe that men come back to life from the dead (in the way surmised in this philosophy).
-FURTHER EXPOSURE OF TRANSMI- ITS INEXTRICABLE EMBARRASS- CHAP. XXXI. GRATION. MENT.
Again, if this recovery of life from the dead take place at all, individuals must of course resume their own individuality. Therefore the souls which animated each several body must needs have returned separately to their several bodies. Now, whenever two, or three, or five souls are re-enclosed (as they constantly are) in one womb, it will not amount in such cases to life from the dead, because there is not the separate restitution which individuals ought to have; although at this rate, (no doubt,) the law of the primeval creation is signally kept,' by the production still of sev- eral souls out of only one! Then, again, if souls depart at different ages of human life, how is it that they come back again at one uniform age? For all men are imbued with an infant soul at their birth. But how hap- pens it that a man who dies in old age returns to life as an infant? If the soul, whilst dis- embodied, decreases thus by retrogression of its age, how. much more reasonable would it be, that it should resume its life with a richer progress in all attainments of Hfe after the lapse of a thousand years! At all events, it should return with the age it had attained at its death, that it might resume the precise life which it had relinquished. But even if, at this rate, they should reappear the same evermore in their revolving cycles, it would be proper for them to bring back with them, if not the selfsame forms of body, at least their original peculiarities of character, taste, and disposition, because it would be hardly • Signatur. Rigaltius reads " singulatur, after the Codex Agobard.y as meaning, " The single origin of the human race is in principle maintained," etc.
possible ' for them to be regarded as the same, if they were deficient in those characteristics by means of which their identity should be proved. (You, however, meet me with this question): How can you possibly know, you ask, whether all is not a secret process? may not the work of a thousand years take from you the power of recognition, since they re- turn unknown to you? But I am quite cer- tain that such is not the case, for you yourself present Pythagoras to me as (the restored) Euphorbus. Now look at Euphorbus: he was evidently possessed of a military and warlike soul, as is proved by the very renown of the sacred shields. As for Pythagoras, however, he was such a recluse, and so un- warlike, that he shrank from the military ex- ploits of which Greece was then so full, and preferred to devote himself, in the quiet re- treat of Italy, to the study of geometry, and astrology, and music — the very opposite to Euphorbus in taste and disposition. Then, again, the Pyrrhus (whom he represented) spent his time in catching fish; but Pythagoras, ou the contrary, would never touch fish, ab- staining from even the taste of them as from animal food. Moreover, ^thalides and Her- motimus had included the bean amongst the common esculents at meals, while Pythagoras taught his disciples not even to pass through a plot which was cultivated with beans. I ask, then, how the same souls are resumed, which can offer no proof of their identity, either by their disposition, or habits, or living? And now, after all, (we find that) only four souls are mentioned as recovering life ^ out of all the multitudes of Greece. But limiting our- selves merely to Greece, as if no transmigra- tions of souls and resumptions of bodies oc- curred, and that every day, in every nation, and amongst all ages, ranks, and sexes, how is it that Pythagoras alone experiences these changes into one personality and another? Why should not I too undergo them? Or if it be a privilege monopolized by philosophers — and Greek philosophers only, as if Scythians and Indians had no philosophers — how is -it that Epicurus had no recollection that he had been once another man, nor Chrysippus, nor Zeno, nor indeed Plato himself, whom we might perhaps have supposed to have been Nestor, from his honeyed eloquence?
CHAP. XXXII. — EMPEDOCLES INCREASED THE ABSURDITY OF PYTHAGORAS BY DEVELOPING. THE POSTHUMOUS CHANGE OF MEN INTO VARIOUS ANIMALS.
But the fact is, Empedocles, who used to 2 Temere.
3 Recensentur.
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
[chap, xxxil dream that he was a god, and on that account, I suppose, disdained to have it thought that he had ever before been merely some hero, declares in so many words: "I once was Thamnus, and a fish." Why not rather a melon, seeing that he was such a fool; or a cameleon, for his inflated brag? It was, no doubt, as a fish (and a queer one too!) that he escaped the corruption of some obscure grave, when he preferred being roasted by a plunge into ^tna; after which accomplish- ment there was an end for ever to his fiETEvau- fidTDai(: or putting himself into another body — (fit only now for) a light dish after the roast- meat. At this point, therefore, we must likewise contend against that still more mon- strous presumption, that in the course of the transmigration beasts pass from human be- ings, and human beings from beasts. Let (Empedocles') Thamnuses alone. Our slight notice of them in passing will be quite enough: (to dwell on them longer will inconvenience us,) lest we should be obliged to have recourse to raillery and laughter instead of serious instruction. Now our position is this: that the human soul cannot by any means at all be transferred to beasts, even when they are supposed to originate, according to the phi- losophers, out of the substances of the elements. Now let us suppose that the soul is either fire, or water, or blood, or spirit, or air, or light; we must not forget that all the ani- mals in their several kinds have properties which are opposed to the respective elements. There are the cold animals which are opposed to fire — water-snakes, lizards, salamanders, and what things soever are produced out of the rival element of water. In like manner, those creatures are opposite to water which are in their nature dry and sapless; indeed, locusts, butterflies, and chameleons rejoice in droughts. So, again, such creatures are opposed to blood which have none of its pur- ple hue, such as snails, worms, and most of the fishy tribes. Then opposed to spirit are those creatures which seem to have no respi- ration, being unfurnished with lungs and wind- pipes, such as gnats, ants, moths, and minute things of this sort. Opposed, moreover, to air are those creatures which always live under ground and under water, and never imbibe air — things of which you are more acquainted with the existence than with the names.
Then opposed to light are those things which are either wholly blind, or possess eyes for the darkness only, such as moles, bats, and owls. These examples (have I adduced), that I might illustrate my subject from clear and palpable natures. But even if I could take in my hand the "atoms" of Epicurus, or if my eye could see the "numbers" of Pythago- ras, or if my foot could stumble against the "ideas" of Plato, or if I could lay hold of the " entelechies " of Aristotle, the chances would be, that even in these (impalpable) classes I should find such animals as I must oppose to one another on the ground of their contrariety. For I maintain that, of which- soever of the before-mentioned natures the human soul is composed, it would not have been possible for it to pass for new forms into animals so contrary to each of the separate natures, and to bestow an origin by its pas- sage on those beings, from which it would have to be excluded and rejected rather tiian to be admitted and received, by reason of that original contrariety which we have sup- posed it to possess,' and which commits the bodily substance receiving it to an intermina- ble strife; and then again by reason of the subsequent contrariety, which results from the development inseparable from each several nature. Now it is on quite different condi- tions- that the soul of man has had assigned to it (in individual bodies 3) its abode, and aliment, and order, and sensation, and affec- tion, and sexual intercourse, and procreation of children; also (on different conditions has it, in individual bodies, received especial) dispositions, as well as duties to fulfil, likings, dislikes, vices, desires, pleasures, maladies, remedies — in short, its own modes of living, its own outlets of death. How, then, shall that (human) soul which cleaves to the earth, and is unable without alarm to survey any great height, or any considerable depth, and which is also fatigued if it mounts many steps, and is suffocated if it is submerged in a fish- pond,— (how, I say, shall a soul which is be- set with such weaknesses) mount up at some future stage into the air in an eagle, or plunge into the sea in an eel? How, again, shall it, after being nourished with generous and del- icate as well as exquisite viands, feed deliber- ately on, I will not say husks, but even on thorns, and the wild fare of bitter leaves, and beasts of the dung-hill, and poisonous worms, if it has to migrate into a goat or into a quail? — nay, it may be, feed on carrion, even on human corpses in some bear or lion? But how indeed (shall it stoop to this), when it remembers its own (nature and dignity)? In the same way, you may submit all other in- stances to this criterion of incongruity, and so save us from lingering over the distinct consideration of each of them in turn. Now, ■ Hujus. '•' Alias.
3 This is the force of the objective nouns, which are all pui in the //ura/ form.
CHAP. XXXIII.]
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
whatever may be the measure and whatever the mode of the human soul, (the question is forced upon us,) what it will do in far larger animals, or in very diminutive ones? It must needs be, that every individual body of what- ever size is filled up by the soul, and that the soul is entirely covered by the body. How, therefore, shall a man's soul fill an elephant? How, likewise, shall it be contracted within a gnat? If it be so enormously extended or contracted, it will no doubt be exposed to peril. And this induces me to ask another question: If the soul is by no means capable of this kind of migration into animals, which are not fitted for its reception, either by the habits of their bodies or the other laws of their being, will it then undergo a change ac- cording to the properties of various animals, and be adapted to their life, notwithstanding its contrariety to human life — having, in fact, become contrary to its human self by reason of its utter change? Now the truth is, if it undergoes such a transformation, and loses what it once was, the human soul will not be what it was; and if it ceases to be its forrrier self, the tnetetisomatosis, or adaptation of some other body, comes to nought, and is not of course to be ascribed to the soul which will cease to exist, on the supposition of its com- plete change. For only then can a soul be said to experience this process of the meten- sofnatosis, when it undergoes it by remaining unchanged in its own (primitive) condition. Since, therefore, the soul does not admit of change, lest it should cease to retain its iden- tity; and yet is unab}e to remain unchanged in its original state, because it fails then to receive contrary (bodies), — I still want to know some credible reason to justify such a transformation as we are discussing. For al- though some men are compared to the beasts because of their character, disposition, and pursuits (since even God says, " Man is like the beasts that perish " '), it does not on this account follow that rapacious persons become kites, lewd persons dogs, ill-tempered ones panthers, good men sheep, talkative ones swal- lows, and chaste men doves, as if the self- same substance of the soul everywhere re- peated its own nature in the properties of the animals (into which it passed). Besides, a substance is one thing, and the nature of that substance is another thing; inasmuch as the substance is the special property of one given thing, whereas the nature thereof may pos- sibly belong to many things. Take an exam- ple or two. A stone or a piece of iron is the substance: the hardness of the stone and the iron is the nature of the substance. Their hardness combines objects by a common quality; their substances keep them separate, 'rhen, again, there is softness in wool, and softness in a feather: their natural qualities are alike, (and put them on a par;) their sub- stantial qualities are not alike, (and keep them distinct.) Thus, if a man likewise be desig- nated a wild beast or a harmless one, there is not for all that an identity of soul. Now the similarity of nature is even then observed, when dissimilarity of substance is most con- spicuous: for, by the very fact of your judg- ing that a man resembles a beast, you confess that their soul is not identical; for you say that they resemble each other, not that they are the same. This is also the meaning of the word of God (which we have just quoted): it likens man to the beasts in nature, but not in substance. Besides, God would not have actually made such a comment as this concern- ing man, if He had known him to be in sub- stance only bestial CHAP. XXXIII. THE JUDICIAL RETRIBUTION OF THESE MIGRATIONS REFUTED WITH RAILLERY.
Forasmuch as this doctrine is vindicated even on the principle of judicial retribution, on the pretence that the souls of men obtain as their partners the kind of animals which are suited to their life and deserts, — as if they ought to be, according to their several charac- ters, either slain in criminals destined to ex- ecution, or reduced to hard work in menials, or fatigued and wearied in labourers, or foully disgraced in the unclean; or, again, on the same principle, reserved for honour, and love, and care, and attentive regard in characters most eminent in, rank and virtue, usefulness, and tender sensibility, — I must here also re- mark, that if souls undergo a transformation, they will actually not be able to accomplish and experience the destinies which they shall deserve; and the aim and purpose of judicial recompense will be brought to nought, as there will be wanting the sense and conscious- ness of merit and retribution. And there must be this want of consciousness, if souls lose their condition; and there must ensue this loss, if they do not continue in one stay. But even if they should have permanency enough to remain unchanged until the judg- ment,— a point which Mercurius yEgyptius recognised, when he said that the soul, after its separation from the body, was not dissipated back into the soul of the universe, but retained permanently its distinct individuality, "in order that it might render," to use his own words, "an account to the Father of those things which it has done in the body; " A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
[chap. XXXIII.
— (even supposing all this, I say,) I still want to examine the justice, the solemnity, the majesty, and the dignity of this reputed judg- ment of God, and see whether human judg- ment has not too elevated a throne in it — exaggerated in both directions, in its office both of punishments and rewards, too severe in dealing out its vengeance, and too lavish in bestowing its favour. What do you suppose will become of the soul of the murderer? (It will animate), I suppose, some cattle destined for the slaughter-house and the shambles, that it may itself be killed, even as it has killed; and be itself flayed, since it has fleeced others; and be itself used for food, since it has cast to the wild beasts the ill-fated victims whom it once slew in woods and lonely roads. Now, if such be the judicial retribution which it is to receive, is not such a soul likely to find more of consolation than of punishment, in the fact that it receives its coup de grace from the hands of most expert practitioners — is buried with condiments served in the most piquant styles of an Apicius or a Lurco, is introduced to the tables of your exquisite Ciceros, is brought up on the most splendid dishes of a Sylla, finds its obsequies in a banquet, is devoured by respectable (mouths) on a par with itself, rather than by kites and wolves, so that all may see how it has got a man's body for its tomb, and has risen again after returning to its own kindred race — ex- ulting in the face of human judgments, if it has experienced them? For these barbarous sentences of death consign to various wild beasts, which are selected and trained even against their nature for their horrible office, the criminal who has committed murder, even while yet alive; nay, hindered from too easily dying, by a contrivance which retards his last moment in order to aggravate his punishment. But even if his soul should have anticipated by its departure the sword's last stroke, his body at all events must not escape the weapon: retribution for his own crime is yet exacted by stabbing his throat and stomach, and piercing his side. After that he is flung into the fire, that his very grave may be cheated.' In no other way, indeed, is a sepulture allowed him. Not that any great care, after all, is bestowed on his pyre, so that other animals light upon his remains. At any rate, no mercy is shown to his bones, no indulgence to his ashes, which must be punished with exposure and naked- ness. The vengeance which is inflicted among men upon the homicide is really as great as that which is imposed by nature. Who would not prefer the justice of the world, which, as * Or, " that he may be punished even in his sepulture."
the apostle himself testifies, " beareth not the sword in vain," ^ and which is an institute of religion when it severely avenges in defence of human life? When we contemplate, too, the penalties awarded to other crimes — gib- bets, and holocausts, and sacks, and harpoons, and precipices — who would not think it better to receive his sentence in the courts of Py- thagoras and Empedocles? For even the wretches whom they will send into the bodies of asses and mules to be punished by drudgery and slavery, how will they congratulate them- selves on the mild labour of the mill and the water-wheel, when they recollect the mines, and the convict-gangs, and the public works, and even the prisons and black-holes, terrible in their idle, do-nothing routine? Then, again, in the case of those who, after a course of integrity, have surrendered their life to the Judge, I likewise look for rewards, but I rather discover punishments. To be sure, it must be a handsome gain for good men to be restored to life in any animals whatsoever! Homer, so dreamt Ennius, remembered that he was once a peacock; however, I cannot for / my part believe poets, even when wide awake. | A peacock, no doubt, is a very pretty bird, pluming itself, at will, on its splendid feathers; but then its wings do not make amends for its voice, which is harsh and unpleasant; and there is nothing that poets like better than a good song. His transformation, therefore, into a peacock was to Homer a penalty, not an honour. The world's remuneration will bring him a much greater joy, when it lauds him as the father of the liberal sciences; and he will prefer the ornaments of his fame to the graces of his tail! But never mind! let poets migrate into peacocks, or into swans, if you like, especially as swans have a respecta- ble voice: in what animal will you invest that righteous hero ^acus? In what beast will you clothe the chaste and excellent Dido? What bird shall fall to the lot of Patience? what animal to the lot of Holiness? what fish to that of Innocence? Now all creatures are the servants of man; all are his subjects, all his dependants. If by and by he is to become one of these creatures, he is by such a change debased and degraded he to whom, for his virtues, images, statues, and titles are freely