(perhaps from an imperfect combination of the silica) as to scratch glass; less bright than the preceding alloy.

Platinum, antimony, and zirconia. The igninition here was extremely beautiful, and the fusion of the whole was more complete than any tried. It was crushed by the steel-mortar, and presented brilliant facets. The fused globules were exteriorly spotted with very minute and sparkling crystalline points. This alloy was less silvery and brilliant than that with silica and charcoal.

Glucina, platinum, and antimony,—had a color not unlike a specimen of native nickel from Hesse, or intermediate between pure nickel and refined silver. Scarcely abraded by the knife. Crushed in the steel-mortar, it was less granular and angular in its particles than the preceding. Alumina, antimony, and platinum, very much resembled the former, but a shade darker in color.

The alloy with silica, charcoal, potassium, antimony, and platinum; and that with zirconia, potassium, &c., seemed to differ little from those without potassium. The potassium burns before the fusion of the alloy takes place, and, perforating the platinum-foil, escapes in the character of flame, so that it would only preserve the reduction of the earthy oxide.

The combination of zinc, platinum, and protoxide of barium was ragged, scoriaceous, and very hard.

From its hardness, infusibilty, and difficulty of being acted upon by most agents, platinum is of great value for making various chemical vessels. These have, it is true, the inconvenience of being liable to erosion from the caustic alkalies and some of the neutral salts.

Platinum is now hammered in Paris into leaves of extreme thinness. By enclosing a wire of it in a little tube of silver, and drawing this through a steel plate in the usual way, Dr. Wollaston has succeeded in producing platinum wire not exceeding 30th of an inch in diameter.

3000

According to Mr. E. Davy, there are two phosphurets and three sulphurets of platinum. See his excellent memoir in the Philosophical Magazine, vol. xl.

The salts of platinum have the following general characters:

1. Their solution in water is yellowish-brown. 2. Potash and ammonia determine the formation of small orange-colored crystals.

3. Sulphureted hydrogen throws down the metal in a black powder Ferroprussiate of potash, and infusion of galls, occasion no precipitate.

1. The sulphate of platinum may be obtained by passing a current of sulphureted hydrogen gas through the nitro-muriatic solution. It should be washed and boiled once or twice with nitric acid, to ensure its entire conversion into sulphate. It has a brownish-black color, and resembles the carbonaceous crust left when sugar is decomposed by heat. It is brittle, easily pulverised, and has the lustre nearly of crystallised blende. Its taste is acid, metallic, and somewhat caustic. It reddens litmus paper slightly. It is deliquescent, and soluble in water,

alcohol, and ether, as well as in muriatic, nitric, and phosphoric acids. At a red heat it is resolved into metal.

The suboxide of platina and the oxide of the sulphuret of platina absorb whatever combustible gas is brought into contact with them, but they do not absorb either oxygen or carbonic acid gas. 100 grains of the suboxide of platina absorb from fifteen to twenty cubic inches of hydrogen gas; and, during this process, so great a quantity of heat is developed, that the metallic substance becomes red-hot, and the hydrogen gas detonates, if previously mixed with atmospheric air, or with oxygen gas. The platina thus charged with hydrogen greedily absorbs a portion of oxygen, as much as will suffice for the formation of water; if brought in contact with less than the portion of atmospheric air required for this purpose, the hydrogen combines with part of the azote, and forms ammonia. During this process the platina is perfectly reduced to a metallic state, and loses the property of decomposing alcohol.

The following is a beautiful experiment for exhibiting the action of powder of platina upon hydrogen gas. Put the powder of platina into a glass-funnel, closed at its lower extremity. Introduce from above a current of hydrogen gas through a capillary tube, the end of which must be distant from one to two inches from the platina, in order to have the hydrogen gas mixed with atmospheric air, before it comes into contact with the metal. The dust of platina almost instantaneously becomes first red, then white-hot, and continues in this state as long as there is any hydrogen gas acting upon it. If introduced in a quantity sufficiently considerable the gas itself will be inflamed.

M. Dobereiner has since endeavoured to deduce a eudiometrical process from this singular property of platina. He mixes the pulverised platinum with a little clay, and, having formed it into a mass of the consistency of paste, he converts it into small balls of the size of a pea. He then dries them, and makes them red-hot with the blowpipe, in order to give them solidity. He now introduces one of these balls into a tube of glass, shut up above, and resting on a trough of mercury, and containing two volumes of hydrogen gas and one of oxygen. The mixture of these two gases forms water in a few seconds. One of these balls may serve for a hundred experiments, provided it is dried in the air after each experiment.

Fulminating platinum has been lately discovered by Mr. Edmund Davy. Into a solution of the sulphate in water aqueous ammonia is poured, and the precipitate which falls, being washed, is put into a matrass with potash-ley, and boiled for some time. It is then filtered, washed, and dried. A brown powder is obtained, lighter than fulminating gold, which is the fulminating platinum. It explodes violently when heated to 400°; but does not detonate by friction or percussion.

PLATO, an illustrious philosopher of antiquity, who was by descent an Athenian, though the place of his birth was the island of Egina. His descent by his father was from Codrus the

last king of Athens and by his mother from Solon the celebrated legislator. The time of his birth is placed in the beginning of the eighty-eighth Olympiad; but Dr. Enfield thinks it may be more accurately fixed in the third year of the eighty-seventh Olympiad, or 430 years before the Christian era. He gave early indications of an extensive and original genius, and had an education suitable to his high rank, being instructed in the rudiments of literature by the grammarian Dionysius, and trained in athletic exercises by Aristo of Argos. He applied with great diligence to the arts of painting and poetry; and wrote an epic poem, which, upon comparing it with Homer, he burnt. He next wrote a dramatic piece, which was to have been acted; but, happening to attend upon a discourse of Socrates, he was so captivated by his eloquence that he reclaimed his tragedy, renounced the muses, burnt all his poems, and applied himself wholly to the study of philosophy. It is said that Plato's first masters in philosophy were Cratylus and Hermogenes, who taught the systems of Heraclitus and Parmenides; but when he was twenty years old he attached himself wholly to Socrates, with whom he remained eight years as a scholar. During this period he frequently displeased his companions, and sometimes even his master, by grafting upon the Socratic system doctrines which were taken from some other stock. Plato, however, retained the warmest attachment to his master. When Socrates was summoned before the senate, his illustrious scholar undertook to plead his cause, and began a speech in his defence; but the judges would not permit him to proceed. After the condemnation, he presented his master with money sufficient to redeem his life; which, however, Socrates refused to accept. During his imprisonment Plato attended him, and was present at a conversation which he held with his friends concerning the immortality of the soul; the substance of which he afterwards committed to writing in the beautiful dialogue entitled Phædo. The philosophers at Athens were so alarmed at the death of Socrates that most of them fled from the city. Plato, whose grief upon this occasion is said by Plutarch to have been excessive, retired to Megara; where he was kindly entertained by Euclid, who had been one of Socrates's first scholars, till the storm was over. He afterwards travelled in pursuit of knowledge; and from Megara went to Italy, where he conferred with Eurytus, Philolaus, and Archytas, the most celebrated of the followers of Pythagoras, whose doctrine was then become famous in Greece; and from these the Pythagoreans have affirmed that he received all his natural philosophy. He next went to Cyrene, where he studied geometry under Theodorus the mathematician. Thence he passed into Egypt, to acquire their theology, to study more nicely the proportions of geometry, and to instruct himself in astronomical observations; and, having taken a full survey of the country, he settled for some time in the province of Sais, learning of the wise men there their opinions concerning the universe; and Pausanias affirms that he learned from these the immortality and transmigration of souls. He next travelled into Persia to consult the magi on

Re

the religion of that country. He then returned into Italy, to the Pythagorean school at Tarentum, where he endeavoured to improve his own system, by incorporating with it some of the doctrines of Pythagoras, then taught by Archytas, Timæus, and others. And afterwards, when he visited Sicily, he retained such an attachment to the Italic school, that, through the bounty of Dionysius, he purchased at a vast price several books which contained the doctrines of Pythagoras, from Philolaus, one of his followers. turning home, richly stored with knowledge of various kinds, Plato settled at Athens, and formed a new school for the instruction of youth in philosophy, in the academy. This new school soon became famous, and its master was ranked among the most eminent philosophers. People of the first distinction in every department frequented the academy; and even females disguised often attended his lectures. Among the illustrious names which appear in the catalogue of his followers are Dion the Syracusan prince, and the orators Hyperides, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, and Isocrates. The distinguished reputation of Plato brought upon him the envy of his former companions in the school of Socrates, and they loaded him with detraction and obliquy. From this spirit Xenophon and Plato, though they relate the discourses of their common master, avoid mentioning one another. Diogenes the Cynic ridiculed Plato's doctrine of ideas. In the midst of these private censures, however, the public fame of Plato daily increased: and several states, among which were the Arcadians and Thebans, sent ambassadors with earnest requests that he would come over, not only to instruct the young men in philosophy, but also to prescribe them laws of government. The Cyrenians, Syracusans, Cretans, and Eleans, sent also to him: he did not, however, visit any of them, but sent laws and rules of government to all. He was a man of great virtues, and exceedingly affable. Diogenes, piqued at the taste and elegance of Plato, took every opportunity of attacking him. He dined one day at his table with other company, and, trampling upon the tapestry with his dirty feet, said, I trample upon the pride of Plato;' to which Plato cleverly replied, 'With greater pride.' The admiration of this illustrious man was not confined to a few philosophers. He was greatly esteemed by several princes, particularly Archelaus king of Macedon, and Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily. At three different periods he visited the court of this latter prince, and made several bold but unsuccessful attempts to subdue his haughty spirit. The professed object, says Dr. Enfield in his History of Philosophy, of Plato's first visit to Sicily, which happened in the fortieth year of his age, during the reign of the elder Dionysius, the son of Hermocrates, was to take a survey of the island, and particularly of Mount Etna. Whilst he resided at Syracuse he was employed in the instruction of Dion, the king's brother-in-law, who possessed excellent abilities, though hitherto restrained by a tyrannical government, and relaxed by the luxuries of a licentious court. Disgusted by the debaucheries of the Syracusans, Plato endeavoured to rescue his pupil from the general de

pravity. Nor did Dion disappoint his hopes; and, hoping that philosophy might produce the same effect upon Dionysius, he procured an interview with him. During the conference, whilst Plato discoursed on the happiness of virtue, and the miseries attending injustice and oppression, Dionysius took offence, dismissed him with displeasure, and even formed a design against his life. It was not without difficulty that Plato escaped. A vessel which had brought over Pollis, a delegate from Sparta, was fortunately then returning to Greece. Dion engaged Pollis to land Plato safely in his native country; but Dionysius discovered the design, and made Pollis promise that he would either put him to death or sell him as a slave. Pollis accordingly sold him in his native island of Egina. Anicerris, a Cyrenaic philosopher, discovered the stranger, and purchased his freedom for thirty minæ (£84 10s. sterling), and sent him home to Athens. Repayment being afterwards offered to Anicerris by Plato's relations, he refused the money, saying, with that generous spirit which true philosophy inspires, that he saw no reason why the relations of Plato should engross to themselves the honor of serving him. After a short interval Dionysius repented of his unjust resentment, and wrote to Plato, requesting him to return to Syracuse, and to forget his former tyrannous behaviour; to which request Plato returned this high-spirited answer, that philosophy would not allow him leisure to think of Dionysius. He was, however, prevailed upon by Dion to return to Syracuse, and take upon him the education of Dionysius the younger, the heir apparent. He was received by Dionysius I. with every possible respect; but after seeing his friend banished, and being himself kept as a kind of prisoner at large in the palace, he was by the tyrant sent back into his own country, with a promise that both he and Dion should be recalled at the end of the war in which the Sicilians were then engaged. This promise was not fulfilled. The tyrant wished for the return of Plato, but could not resolve to recal Dion. At last, however, he prevailed upon Plato to visit that capital a third time. When he arrived, the king met him in a magnificent chariot, and conducted him to his palace. The Sicilians too rejoiced in his return; for they hoped that the wisdom of Plato would at length triumph over the tyrannical spirit of the prince. Dionysius seemed wholly divested of his former resentments, listened with apparent pleasure to the philosopher's doctrine, and among other expressions of regard presented him with eighty talents of gold. In the midst of a numerous train of philosophers Plato now possessed the chief influence and authority in the court of Syracuse. Whilst Aristippus was enjoying himself in splendid luxury; whilst Diogenes was freely indulging his acrimonious humor; and whilst Eschines was gratifying his thirst after riches; Plato supported the credit of philosophy with an air of dignity which his friends regarded as an indication of superior wisdom, but which his enemies imputed to pride. After all, Plato could not prevail upon Dionysius to alter his system of policy, or to recal Dion from exile. At length

Plato requested permission to return to Greece, which was granted him after some delay, and he was sent home loaded with rich presents. On his way to Athens, passing through Elis during the celebration of the Olympic games, he was present at this general assembly of the Greeks, and eugaged universal attention. Plato now devoted himself to science, and spent the last years of a long life in the instruction of youth. Having enjoyed the advantage of an athletic constitution, he arrived at the eighty-first year of his age, and died in the first year of the 108th Olympiad. He passed his whole life in a state of celibacy, and therefore left no natural heirs, but transferred his effects, by will, to his friend Adiamantus. The grove and garden which had been the scene of his philosophical labors at last afforded him a sepulchre. Statues and altars were erected to his memory; the day of his birth long continued to be celebrated as a festival by his followers; and his portrait is to this day preserved in gems; but the most lasting monuments of his genius are his writings, which have been transmitted, without material injury, to the present times. The ancients thought more highly of Plato than of all their philosophers: they always called him the Divine Plato; and they resolved that his descent should be more than human, for Apuleius mentions a common report, that his mother Perictione, who was a very beautiful woman, was impregnated by Apollo in the shape of a spectre.' Plutarch, Suidas, and others, affirm this to have been the common report at Athens. When he was an infant, his father Aristo went to Hymettus, with his wife and child, to sacrifice to the Muses; and, while they were busied in the rites, a swarm of bees came and distilled their honey upon his lips. This, says Cicero, was considered as a presage of his future eloquence. The writings of Plato are all in the form of dialogue; where he seems to deliver nothing from himself, but every thing as the sentiments and opinions of others, of Socrates chiefly, of Timæus, &c. His style, as Aristotle observed is betwixt prose and verse: on which account some have not scrupled to rank him with the poets. The first edition of Plato's works in Greek was published by Aldus at Venice in 1513; but a Latin version by Marsilius Ficinus had been printed there in 1491. They were reprinted together at Lyons in 1588, and at Frankfort in 1602. Henry Stephens, in 1578, gave a most beautiful and correct edition of Plato's works at Paris, with a new Latin version by Serranus, in 3 vols. folio. An elegant and correct edition after the Greek text of Henry Stephens, and the Latin version of Ficinus, was published at Deux Ponts, 1788, 12 vols. 8vo. English versions of Plato's Dialogues have been published at various periods; but the best is that of Floyer Sydenham, 1767-8, 4 vols. 4to., the whole of which have been republished, with the additional works of Plato. by Thomas Taylor, with copious notes, 5 vols. 4to.

PLATOFF, or PLATOW, a late hetman of the Cossacks, was born in South Russia, about 1763, and in 1806 and 1807 had the rank of lieutenant general in the army sent to the assistance of Prussia. He was afterwards employed against

the Turks in Moldavia, and became a general of cavalry. When the French invaded Russia, in 1812, Platoff was defeated at Grodno and obliged to retire; but he returned during the retreat of the enemy, and with twenty regiments of Cossacks harassed them much in their flight. In 1813, after the battle of Leipsic, he entered France, and was at Paris with the emperor Alexander, with whom he came to England, and was the object of much popular admiration. In 1815 he commanded the Cossacks destined for the second invasion of France. After the peace he retired to Tcherkash, where he died in February

1818.

PLATONISM, the philosophy of Plato, which was divided into three branches, theology, physics, and mathematics. Under theology were comprehended metaphysics and ethics, or that which, in modern language, is called moral philosophy. Plato wrote likewise on dialectics, but with such inferiority to his pupil Aristotle that his works in that department of science are seldom mentioned. The ancient philosophers always began their theological systems with disquisitions on the nature of the gods, and the formation of the world; and it was a fundamental doctrine with them, that from nothing nothing can proceed. They believed that a proper creation is improper even to Omnipotence, and that to the production of any thing a material is not less necessary than an efficient cause. That, with respect to this important question, Plato agreed with his predecessors and contemporaries appears evident from the whole tenor of his Timæus. We agree with Dr. Enfield in thinking that in this dialogue, which comprehends his whole doctrine on the formation of the universe, matter is so manifestly spoken of as eternally co-existing with God, that this part of his doctrine could not have been mistaken by so many learned and able writers had they not been seduced by the desire of establishing a coincidence of doctrine between the writings of Plato and Moses. It is certain that neither Cicero, Apuleius, Alcinous, nor even Chalcidius, understood Plato in any other sense than as admitting two primary and incorruptible principles, God and matter; to which we have reason to add a third, namely ideas. The passages quoted, by those who maintain the contrary opinion, by no means answer their purpose. Plato indeed calls God the parent of the universe, and speaks of him as forming animate and inanimate things, which did not before exist:' but these expressions do not imply that this offspring of Deity was produced from nothing, or that no prior matter existed from which they were formed. Through the whole Timæus Plato supposes two eternal and independent causes of all beings; one that by which all things are made, which is God; the other that from which all things are made, which is matter. He distinguishes between God, matter, and the universe, and supposes the Architect of the world to have formed it out of a mass of pre-existent matter. Matter, according to Plato, is an eternal and infinite principle. His doctrine on this head is thus explained by Cicero :- Matter, from which all things are produced and formed, is a substance without form or quality, but capable of

receiving all forms, and undergoing every kind of change; in which, however, it never suffers annihilation, but merely a solution of its parts, which are in their nature infinitely divisible, and move in portions of space which are also infinitely divisible. When that principle which we called quality is moved, and acts upon matter, it undergoes an entire change, and those forms are produced from which arises the diversified and coherent system of the universe.' Plato also insists upon the notion that matter has originally no form, but is capable of receiving any. He calls it the mother and receptacle of forms, by the union of which with matter the universe becomes perceptible to the senses; and maintains that the visible world owes its form to the energy of the divine intellectual nature. Our author is supported, in drawing this inference, by the testimony of Diogenes Laertius; yet the learned Dr. Ogilvie has expressed great surprise that any one should consider matter as having been, in Plato's opinion, uncreated; and he affirms that Laertius, instead of asserting that spirit and matter were the principles of all things, ought to have said that God alone, in Plato's estimation, was their original. To prove this, he gives from the Timæus a quotation, in which Plato declares that God framed heaven and earth, and the inferior deities; and that as he fashioned, so he pervades all nature. He observes that Cicero denominates the God of Plato the maker, and the God of Aristotle only the governor of the world. And, to satisfy those who demand a proof of Plato's having taught a real creation, he affirms that his writings abound with declarations on the subject, of which the meaning cannot be misapprehended. But the declarations of Plato on this subject appear by no means explicit; and the inference which Dr. Ogilvie draws from the words of Cicero seems not to flow necessarily from the sense of those words. That Plato believed God to have framed the heaven and the earth, and to have fashioned all nature, is a position which has never been controverted; but between framing or fashioning the chaos, and calling the universe into existence from non entity, there is an infinite and an obvious difference. The distinction made by Cicero between the God of Plato and the God of Aristotle is just, but it will not bear the superstructure which Dr. Ogilvie builds upon it. Aristotle maintained the eternity of the world in its present form. Plato taught that the first matter was in time reduced from a chaotic state into form by the power of the Demiurgus; but nothing in his writings declares his belief that the first matter was itself created. The learned Cudworth, who endeavoured, like Dr. Ogilvie, to show a coincidence of doctrine between the theology of Plato and that of the Gospel, gives a number of quotations in support of his position; of which we shall here insert only those two upon which Dr. Ogilvie seems to lay the greatest stress. Plato, says he, calls the one God, 'He that makes earth, and heaven, and the gods, and doth all things both in heaven, and hell, and under the earth.' And again, 'He by whose efficiency the things of the world were afterwards made, when they were not before.' Both Cud

worth and Ogilvie think this last sentence an explicit declaration of Plato's belief in the creative power of God: but that they are mistaken has been evinced by Mosheim with a force of argument which will admit of no reply. Mosheim thinks that Cudworth was misled by too implicit a confidence in Ficinus; and it is not impossible that Dr. Ogilvie may have been swayed by the authority of Cudworth. That intellect existed antecedent to all bodies is indeed a Platonic dogma, from which Dr. Ogilvie, after Cudworth, wishes to infer that the doctrine of the creation was taught in the academy; but Plato, with every other Greek philosopher, distinguished between body and matter: and, though he held the priority of intellect to the former, it by no means follows that he believed it to have existed antecedent to the latter. That he believed mind, or rather soul (for he distinguishes between the two), to be the cause or principle of motion, cannot be denied; but we are not therefore authorised to conclude that he likewise believed it to be the cause of the existence of matter. That he believed mind to be the most ancient of all things, taking the word things in the most absolute sense, cannot be true, since, by Dr. Ogilvie's own acknowledgment, he held the existence and eternity of ideas not to add that he believed To Ev or To aya0ov, the first 'hypostasis in his trinity, to be superior to mind and prior to it, though not in time, yet in the order of nature. When, therefore, he calls mind the most ancient of all things, he must be supposed to mean only that it is more ancient than all bodies and inferior souls. In the Platonic cosmogony, we cannot, therefore, doubt, but that the eternity of the vλn πpwrn was taken for granted. But Plato did not believe it to have a single form or quality which it did not receive either from the demiurgus, or the psyche-the second or third person of his trinity. Except Aristotle, all the Greek philosophers, who were not materialists, held nearly the same opinions respecting the origin of the world; so that, in examining their systems, we shall be greatly misled if we understand the terms incorporeal and immaterial as at all synonymous. It was also a doctrine of Plato that there is in matter a necessary, but blind and refractory force; and that hence arises a propensity in matter to disorder and deformity, which is the cause of all the imperfection which appears in the works of God, and the origin of evil. On this subject Plato writes with wonderful obscurity, but he appears to have thought that matter, from its nature, resists the will of the Supreme Artificer, so that he cannot perfectly execute his designs: and that this is the cause of the mixture of good and evil in the material world. Plato, however, was no materialist. He taught that there is an intelligent cause, which is the origin of all spiritual being, and the former of the material world. The nature of this great being he pronounced it difficult to discover. The existence of God he inferred from the marks of intelligence which appear in the form and arrangement of bodies in the visible world: and, from the unity of the material system, he concluded that the mind by which it was formed must be one. God, accord

ing to Plato, is the supreme intelligence, incorporeal, without beginning, end, or change, and capable of being perceived only by the mind. His notions of God are indeed exceedingly refined, and such as it is difficult to suppose that he could ever have acquired but from some obscure remains of primeval tradition. In the Divine Nature he believed that there are two, and probably three, hypostases, whom he called ro ov and To Ev, vous and uxn. The first he considered as self-existent, and elevated far above all mind and all knowledge; calling him, by way of eminence, the being, or the one. The only attribute which he acknowledged in this person was goodness; and therefore he frequently styles him To aya0ov--the good, or essential goodness. The second he considered as mind, the wisdom or reason of the first, and the maker of the world; and therefore he styles him vove, λoyos, and onμloupyos. The third he always speaks of as the soul of the world; and hence calls him uxı, or vxn Tov Kooμov. He taught that the second is a necessary emanation from the first, and the third from the second, or perhaps from the first and second. Plato often asserts, as superior to the self-moving principle, an immoveable vors, or intellect, which was properly the demiurgus, or framer of the world; and above this hypostasis one most simple and absolutely perfect being, who is considered, in his theology, as auro eos, the original deity, in contradistinction from the others, who are only OcoL EK Oεov. These doctrines are to be gathered from his works at large, particularly from his Timæus, Philebus, Sophista, and Epinomis; but there is a passage in his second epistle to Dionysius, in answer to a letter in which that monarch had required him to give a more explicit account of the nature of God. In treating of the eternal emanation of the second and third hypostases from the first, the philosophers of the academy compare them to light and heat proceeding from the sun. Plato himself, as quoted by Dr. Cudworth, illustrates his doctrine by the same comparison. It is not, however, certain, that Plato considered his yuxa Tou Kooμov as a pure spirit, or as having subsisted from eternity as a distinct hypostasis. This governing spirit, of whom the earth, properly so called, is the body, consisted, according to him, of the first matter, and of pure intelligence, framed to actuate the machinery of nature. Supreme Being placed him in the middle of the earth; which, in the vivid idea of Plato, seemed itself to live, in consequence of an influence that was felt in every part of it. From this seat his power is represented as being extended on all sides to the utmost limit of the heavens; conferring life, and preserving harmony in the various and complicated parts of the universe. Upon this being God looked with peculiar complacency after having formed him as an image of himself, and gave beauty and perfect proportion to the mansion which he was destined to occupy. The Supreme Being struck out from this original mind innumerable spirits of inferior order, endowed with principles of reason; and he committed to divinities of secondary rank the task of investing these in material forms, and of dispersing them as inhabitants of the sun, moon, and

The