their repositories must in time have been

more spacious than the dwellings of the living. I suppose only the rich or honourable were secured from corruption, and the rest left to the course of nature.

" But it is commonly supposed that the Egyptians believed the soul to live as long as the body continued undissolved, and there- fore tried this method of eluding death."

" Could the wise Egyptians," said Nekayah, " think so grossly of the soul ? If the soul could once survive its separation, what could it afterwards receive or suffer from the body ?"

"The Egyptians would doubtless think erroneously," said the astronomer, " in the darkness of heathenism, and the first dawn of philosophy. The nature of the soul is still disputed, amidst all our opportunities of clearer knowledge: some yet say, that it may be material, who, nevertheless, believe it to be immortal."

" Some," answered Imlac, " have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it who knew how to think; for all the con- clusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and in- vestigations of science concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter.

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