in the growth and dissolution of vegetable and animal bodies seems to
have given Pythagoras his idea of the metempsycosis or transmigration of
spirit; which was afterwards dressed out or ridiculed in 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 of 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 suns and planets, and 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 unperishable; and that on the
dissolution of vegetable or animal organization, 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.

The small apparent quantity of matter that exists in the universe
compared to that of spirit, and the short time in which the recrements
of animal or vegetable bodies become again vivified in the forms of
vegetable mucor or microscopic insects, seems to have given rise to
another curious fable of antiquity. That Jupiter threw down a large
handful of souls upon the earth, and left them to scramble for the few
bodies which were to be had.]


575 "So when on Lebanon's sequester'd hight