rarified.”  Proem in Arist. de Anima.  And Cudworth says, “Though spirits or ghosts had certain supple bodies which they could so far condense as to make them sometimes visible to men, yet is it reasonable enough to think that they could not constipate or fix them into such a firmness, grossness and solidity, as that of flesh and bone is to continue therein, or at least not without such difficulty and pain as would hinder them from attempting the same.  Notwithstanding which it is not denied that they may possibly sometimes make use of other solid bodies, moving and acting them, as in that famous story of Phlegons when the body vanished not as other ghosts use to do, but was left a dead carcase behind.”

In all these speculations the Anima Mundi plays a conspicuous part.  It is the source and principle of all animal souls, including the irrational soul of man.  But in man, who would otherwise be merely analogous to other terrestrial animals—­this soul participates in a higher principle, which tends to raise and convert it to itself.  To comprehend the nature of this union or hypostasis it would be necessary to have mastered the whole of Plato’s philosophy as comprised in the Parmenides and the Timaeus; and he would dogmatize rashly who without this arduous preparation should claim Plato as the champion of an unconditional immortality.  Certainly in the Phaedo the dialogue popularly supposed to contain all Plato’s teaching on the subject—­the immortality allotted to the impure soul is of a very questionable character, and we should rather infer from the account there given that the human personality, at all events, is lost by successive immersions into “matter.”  The following passage from Plutarch (quoted by Madame Blavatsky, “Isis Unveiled,” vol. ii. p. 284) will at least demonstrate the antiquity of notions which have recently been mistaken for fanciful novelties.  “Every soul hath some portion of nous, reason, a man cannot be a man without it; but as much of each soul as is mixed with flesh and appetite is changed, and through pain and pleasure becomes irrational.  Every soul doth not mix herself after one sort; some plunge themselves into the body, and so in this life their whole frame is corrupted by appetite and passion; others are mixed as to some part, but the purer part still remains without the body.  It is not drawn down into the body, but it swims above, and touches the extremest part of the man’s head; it is like a cord to hold up and direct the subsiding part of the soul, as long as it proves obedient and is not overcome by the appetites of the flesh.  The part that is plunged into the body is called soul.  But the incorruptible part is called the nous, and the vulgar think it is within them, as they likewise imagine the image reflected from a glass to be in that glass.  But the more intelligent, who know it to be without, call it a Daemon.”  And in the same learned work ("Isis Unveiled “) we have two Christian