] upon that Subject. They tell us, that
every Passion which has been contracted by the Soul during her Residence
in the Body, remains with her in a separate State; and that the Soul in
the Body or out of the Body, differs no more than the Man does from
himself when he is in his House, or in open Air. When therefore the
obscene Passions in particular have once taken Root and spread
themselves in the Soul, they cleave to her inseparably, and remain in
her for ever, after the Body is cast off and thrown aside. As an
Argument to confirm this their Doctrine they observe, that a lewd Youth
who goes on in a continued Course of Voluptuousness, advances by Degrees
into a libidinous old Man; and that the Passion survives in the Mind
when it is altogether dead in the Body; nay, that the Desire grows more
violent, and (like all other Habits) gathers Strength by Age, at the
same time that it has no Power of executing its own Purposes. If, say
they, the Soul is the most subject to these Passions at a time when it
has the least Instigations from the Body, we may well suppose she will
still retain them when she is entirely divested of it. The very
Substance of the Soul is festered with them, the Gangrene is gone too
far to be ever cured; the Inflammation will rage to all Eternity.

In this therefore (say the _Platonists_) consists the Punishment of a
voluptuous Man after Death: He is tormented with Desires which it is
impossible for him to gratify, solicited by a Passion that has neither
Objects nor Organs adapted to it: He lives in a State of invincible
Desire and Impotence, and always burns in the Pursuit of what he always
despairs to possess. It is for this Reason (says _Plato_) that the Souls
of the Dead appear frequently in Coemiteries, and hover about the Places
where their Bodies are buried, as still hankering after their old brutal
Pleasures, and desiring again to enter the Body that gave them an
Opportunity of fulfilling them.

Some of our most eminent Divines have made use of this _Platonick_
Notion, so far as it regards the Subsistence of our Passions after
Death, with great Beauty and Strength of Reason. _Plato_ indeed carries
the Thought very far, when he grafts upon it his Opinion of Ghosts
appearing in Places of Burial. Though, I must confess, if one did
believe that the departed Souls of Men and Women wandered up and down
these lower Regions, and entertained themselves with the Sight of their
Species, one could not dev