e materialists, who
endeavored to prove that death was to man the absolute end of
every thing. Secondly, there were the later Platonists, who
maintained that this world is the only Hades, that heaven is our
home, that all death is ascent to better life. "To remain on high
with the gods is life; to descend into this world is death, a
descent into Orcus," they said. The following couplet, of an
unknown date, is translated from the Greek Anthology:

"Diogenes, whose tub stood by the road, Now, being dead, has the
stars for his abode."

54 Muller, Greek Literature, ch. vi.

55 Works and Days, lib. i. II. 120-125.

56 Lib. ii. cap. 7.

57 Lib. i. epist. 16.

58 Sat. II.

59 Sat. II.

60 Tusc. Quest. lib. i. cap. 16.

61 Ibid. cap. 21.

Macrobius writes, in his commentary on the "Dream of Scipio,"
"Here, on earth, is the cavern of Dis, the infernal region. The
river of oblivion is the wandering of the mind forgetting the
majesty of its former life and thinking a residence in the body
the only life. Phlegethon is the fires of wrath and desire.
Acheron is retributive sadness. Cocytus is wailing tears. Styx is
the whirlpool of hatreds. The vulture eternally tearing the liver
is the torment of an evil conscience."62

To the ancient Greek in general, death was a sad doom. When he
lost a friend, he sighed a melancholy farewell after him to the
faded shore of ghosts. Summoned himself, he departed with a
lingering look at the sun, and a tearful adieu to the bright day
and the green earth. To the Roman, death was a grim reality. To
meet it himself he girded up his loins with artificial firmness.
But at its ravages among his friends he wailed in anguished
abandonment. To his dying vision there was indeed a future; but
shapes of distrust and shadow stood upon its disconsolate borders;
and, when the prospect had no horror, he still shrank from its
poppied gloom.

62 Lib. i. cap. 9, 10.

CHAPTER XI.

MOHAMMEDAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

ISLAM has been a mighty power in the earth since the middle of the
seventh century. A more energetic and trenchant faith than it was
for eight hundred years has not appeared among men. Finally
expelled from its startling encampments in Spain and the
Archipelago, it still rules with tenacious hold over Turkey, a
part of Tartary, Palestine, Persia, Arabia, and large portions of
Africa. At this moment, as to adherence and influence, it is
subordinate only to the two foremost rel