its position
there.... To me, when I consider the nature of the soul, there is far more
difficulty and obscurity in forming a conception of what the soul is while
in the body,--in a dwelling where it seems so little at home,--than of
what it will be when it has escaped into the free atmosphere of heaven,
which seems its natural abode".[1] And as the poet seems to us inspired,
as the gifts of memory and eloquence seem divine, so is the soul itself,
in its simple essence, a god dwelling in the breast of each of us. What
else can be this power which enables us to recollect the past, to foresee
the future, to understand the present?

[Footnote 1: I. c. 22.]

There follows a passage on the argument from design which anticipates that
fine saying of Voltaire--"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer;
mais toute la nature crie qu'il existe". "The heavens", says even the
heathen philosopher, "declare the glory of God". Look on the sun and the
stars; look on the alternation of the seasons, and the changes of day and
night; look again at the earth bringing forth her fruits for the use
of men; the multitude of cattle; and man himself, made as it were to
contemplate and adore the heavens and the gods. Look on all these things,
and doubt not that there is some Being, though you see him not, who has
created and presides over the world.

"Imitate, therefore, the end of Socrates; who, with the fatal cup in his
hands, spoke with the serenity of one not forced to die, but, as it were,
ascending into heaven; for he thought that the souls of men, when they
left the body, went by different roads; those polluted by vice and unclean
living took a road wide of that which led to the assembly of the gods;
while those who had kept themselves pure, and on earth had taken a divine
life as their model, found it easy to return to those beings from whence
they came". Or learn a lesson from the swans, who, with a prophetic
instinct, leave this world with joy and singing. Yet do not anticipate
the time of death, "for the Deity forbids us to depart hence without his
summons; but, on just cause given (as to Socrates and Cato), gladly should
we exchange our darkness for that light, and, like men not breaking
prison but released by the law, leave our chains with joy, as having been
discharged by God".

The feeling of these ancients with regard to suicide, we must here
remember, was very different from our own. There was no distinct idea
of the san