Ideal ills, that harrow up the breast, Call for the dead from Time's o'erwhelming main, Here ragged Avarice guards with bolted door The tree of knowledge from the axe of power; The births and deaths contend with equal strife, Ascends exulting from his funeral flame, In Grecian Temples taught the attentive youth; The immense munificence of NATURE'S LORD! NOTES TO THE TEMPLE OF NATURE. The perpetual circulation of matter in the growth and dissolution of vegetable and animal bodies, seemed to have given PYTHAGORAS his idea of the metempsycosis or transmigration of spirits, which was afterwards dressed out, or ridiculed, in a variety of amusing fables. Other philosophers have supposed, that there are two different materials or essences, which fill the universe. One of these, which has the power of commencing or producing motion, is called spirit; the other, which has the power of receiving and communicating motion, but not of beginning it, is called matter. The former of these is supposed to be diffused through all space, filling up the interstices of the sun and planets, constituting the gravitations of the sidereal bodies, the attractions of chemistry, with the spirit of vegetation and of animation. The latter occupies comparatively but small space, constituting the solid parts of the suns and planets, and their atmospheres. Hence these philosophers have supposed, that both matter and spirit are equally immortal and imperisha ble; and that, on the dissolution of vegetable or animal organizations, the matter returns to the general mass of matter, and the spirit to the general mass of spirit, to enter again into new combinations, according to the original idea of Pythagoras. It is probable that the perpetual transmigration of matter from one body to another, of all vegetables and animals, during their lives as well as after their deaths, was observed by Pythagoras; which he afterwards applied to the soul or spirit of animation, and taught, that it passed from one animal to another, as a punishment for evil deeds, [and reward for good ones,] though without consciousness of its previous existence; and from this doctrine he inculcated a system of morality and benevolence, as all creatures thus became related to each other. FROM DARWIN'S ZOONOMIA. Life is short, opportunities of knowledge rare; our senses are fallacious, our reasonings uncertain; man therefore struggles with perpetual error from the cradle to the coffin. He is necessitated to correct experiment by analogy, and analogy by experiment; and not always to rest satisfied in the belief of facts even with this two-fold testimony, till future opportunities, or the observations of others, concur in their support. Ignorance and credulity have ever been companions, and have misled and enslaved mankind; philosophy has in all ages endeavored to oppose their progress, and to loosen the shackles they had imposed; philosophers have on this account been called unbelievers: unbelievers of what? of the fictions of fancy, of witchcraft, hobgoblins, apparitions, vampires, fairies; of the influence of stars on human actions, miracles wrought by the bones of saints, the flights of ominous birds, the predictions from the bowels of dying animals, expounders of dreams, fortunetellers, conjurors, modern prophets, necromancy, cheiromancy, animal magnetism, metallic tractors, with endless variety of folly? These they have disbelieved and despised, but have ever bowed their hoary heads to Truth and Nature. Our first knowledge is acquired by our senses; but these are liable to deceive us, and we learn to detect these deceptions, by comparing the ideas presented to us by one sense with those presented by another. Thus when we first view a cylinder, it appears to the eye as a flat surface with different shades on it, till we correct this idea by the sense of touch, and find its surface to be circular; that is, having some parts gradually receding further from the eye than others. So when a child, or a cat, or a bird, first sees its own image in a looking-glass, it believes that another animal exists before it, and detects this fallacy by going behind the glass to examine, if another tangible animal really exists there. Another exuberant source of error consists in the false notions which we receive in our early years from the design or ignorance of our instructors, which affect all our |