The Religion of Nature Delineated

about; so the soul likewise will be dissipated, etc.” And Præterea gigni pariter cum corpore et unà Crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere mentem, etc. Quare animum quoque dissolvi fateare necesse est; Quandoquidem penetrant in eum contagia morbi: “Further we see that the soul and the body are produced together, and increase and grow old together also, etc. Wherefore we cannot but own that the soul must be dissolved, for the contagion of the disease reaches to it.”

(De Rerum Natura.)

Nor those in Pliny

(Naturalis Historia 6. 55)

: if there really are any at all. For to plead the antegenitale experimentum (“argument drawn from what we were before we were born”), is to beg the question, which may be put thus: Whether we shall after death be more conscious of our existence than we were before we were born. And if Dicæarchus’s Lesbiaci were extant, I believe we should find nothing stranger in them. The truth seems to be Οὐ βούλεται ὁ κακὸς ἀθάνατον εἶναι τὴν ἁυτοῦ ψυχήν: “That a wicked man does not desire that his soul should be immortal,” but he comforts himself with this thought, that ἡ μετὰ θάνατον οὐδένεια ἑαυτοῦ: “the being nothing after death” will prevent future sufferings. This is εἰς τὸ μὴ εἶναι καταφυγή: “to have recourse to nonexistence.”

(Hierocles, Commentary on the Carmen Aureum.)

↩

Nor that the soul still exists ἔρημον καταλιποῦσα ζωῆς τὸν ἡμέτερον οἶκον: “having left the house, in which it lived, desolate.”

(Philo Judaeus, De cherubim.)

Domus ab habitatore deserta dilabitur:⁠ ⁠… et corpus, relictum ab anima, defluit: “A house that is forsaken by the inhabitants becomes ruinous:⁠ ⁠… and a body, after it is forsaken by the soul, decays.”

(Lactantius, Divine Institutes.)

↩

Μακρὸς δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν [ἀρετὴν], καὶ τρηχὺς τὸ πρῶτον· ἐπὴν δ᾿ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηαι, Ῥηιδίη δ᾿ ἤπειτα πέλει: “The way to virtue is long and steep, and very rugged at first; but, after you are come at the top, it then becomes easy.”

(Hesiod, Works and Days.)

↩

Cœlo præfertur Adonis: “Adonis is preferred to heaven.”

(Ovid, Metamorphoses.)

↩

Ὁ ἀρετῇ διαπρέπων καὶ ἡδονὰς ἀμεταμελήτους καρποῦται: “He who excels in virtue, reaps pleasures that can never be repented of.”

(Hierocles, Commentary on the Carmen Aureum.)

↩

If the soul was mortal, yet the virtuous man τὴν ἑαυτοῦ τελειότητα ἀπολαμβάνων, τὸ ὀικεῖον καρπούμενος ἀγαθὸν, εὐδαίμων ὄντως ἐστὶ καὶ μακάριος καὶ γὰρ καὶ τὸ σῶμα, κ.τ.λ.: “becomes as perfect as he can be, reaps his own proper good, being truly blessed and happy: and the body also, etc.”

(Simplicius, Commentary on the Enchiridion.)

↩

Ὥστε μὴ μόνον τῷ καλῷ περιεῖναι τὸν σπουδαῖον τοῦ φάυλου, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀυτῇ τῇ ἡδονῇ νικᾷν, δἰ ἣν μόνην δοκεῖ εἰς κακίαν ὁ φᾶυλος ὑπάγεσθαι: “So that a good man excels a bad man not only in goodness, but he exceeds him in pleasure also, by which alone the bad man was led to be wicked.”

(Hierocles, Commentary on the Carmen Aureum.)

↩

Οἱ γὰρ δίκαιοι τῶν ἀδίκων, εἰ μηδὲν ἄλλο πλεονεκτοῦσιν, ἀλλ᾿ οὖν ἐλπίσι γε σπουδαίαις ὑπερέχουσιν: “If the righteous do not excel the wicked in anything else, yet they do in their expectations of happiness.”

(Isocrates, Demonicus.)

↩

Τρόπος γὰρ Θεοῦ θεραπείας ὗτος ὁσιώτατος [ἀσκεῖν ἀρετήν]: “For [to practice virtue] is the most sacred manner of worshipping God.”

(Josephus, Against Apion.)

↩

Some more were added in the second impression. ↩

Nothing more was intended at first. ↩

However, “W. B.” in Notes and Queries (#61, 27 February 1875) writes: “Though obliged to grope in the dark, through not having the works of Maimonides at hand, I venture to dissent from the interpretation given by Dr. Clarke⁠ ⁠… Instead of supposing, as he seems to have done, that the right-hand group of letters are the initials of the word Mi cha el, which compose the name Michael and signify ‘Who [is] like God?’ I take them to represent Mah cha emeth, substituting emeth for el, and to mean ‘What [is] like truth?’ In the left-hand group I take the first two characters (from right to left) to be an abbreviation for the personal pronoun othah⁠ ⁠… and the remaining letter to represent the verb lachad, to seize, lay hold of. The two mysterious Hebrew words would thus mean, ‘What is like truth? On her fix thy hold’⁠ ⁠…” (Editor’s note.) ↩

Colophon

The Religion of Nature Delineated
was published in 1722 by
William Wollaston.

This ebook was transcribed and produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
David M. Gross,
and is based on digital scans available at
Google Books.

The cover page is adapted from
The Astronomer,
a painting completed in 1668 by
Johannes Vermeer.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
December 30, 2016, 6:18 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-wollaston/the-religion-of-nature-delineated.

The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.

Uncopyright

May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

Copyright pages exist to tell you can’t do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you, among other things, that