o confound themselves with the beasts
of the field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they
entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a spot of
earth, and to a few years of duration. With this favorable prepossession
they summoned to their aid the science, or rather the language, of
Metaphysics. They soon discovered, that as none of the properties of
matter will apply to the operations of the mind, the human soul must
consequently be a substance distinct from the body, pure, simple, and
spiritual, incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher
degree of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal
prison. From these specious and noble principles, the philosophers who
trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very unjustifiable conclusion,
since they asserted, not only the future immortality, but the past
eternity, of the human soul, which they were too apt to consider as a
portion of the infinite and self-existing spirit, which pervades and
sustains the universe. A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses and the
experience of mankind, might serve to amuse the leisure of a philosophic
mind; or, in the silence of solitude, it might sometimes impart a ray
of comfort to desponding virtue; but the faint impression which had
been received in the schools, was soon obliterated by the commerce and
business of active life. We are sufficiently acquainted with the eminent
persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first Caesars,
with their actions, their characters, and their motives, to be assured
that their conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious
conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state. At the bar
and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not apprehensive of
giving offence to their hearers, by exposing that doctrine as an idle
and extravagant opinion, which was rejected with contempt by every man
of a liberal education and understanding.

Since therefore the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no
further than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most,
the probability, of a future state, there is nothing, except a
divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence, and describe the
condition, of the invisible country which is destined to receive the
souls of men after their separation from the body. But we may perceive
several defects inherent to the popular religions of Greece and Rome,
which render