supposed by some which is that their happiness now & hereafter depends upon their intellectual improvement--Nor do they only study the forms of this universe but search deeply in their own minds and love to meet & converse on all those high subjects of which the philosophers of Athens loved to treat--With deep feelings but with no outward circumstances to excite their passions you will perhaps imagine that their life is uniform & dull--but these sages are of that disposition fitted to find wisdom in every thing & in every lovely colour or form ideas that excite their love--Besides many years are consumed before they arrive here--When a soul longing for knowledge & pining at its narrow conceptions escapes from your earth many spirits wait to receive it and to open its eyes to the mysteries of the universe--many centuries are often consumed in these travels and they at last retire here to digest their knowledge & to become still wiser by thought and imagination working upon memory [92]--When the fitting period is accomplished they leave this garden to inhabit another world fitted for the reception of beings almost infinitely wise--but what this world is neither can you conceive or I teach you--some of the spirits whom you will see here are yet unknowing in the secrets of nature--They are those whom care & sorrow have consumed on earth & whose hearts although active in virtue have been shut through suffering from knowledge--These spend sometime here to recover their equanimity & to get a thirst of knowledge from converse with their wiser companions--They now securely hope to see again those whom they love & know that it is ignorance alone that detains them from them. As for those who in your world knew not the loveliness of benevolence & justice they are placed apart some claimed by the evil spirit & in vain sought for by the good but She whose delight is to reform the wicked takes all she can & delivers them to her ministers not to be punished but to be exercised & instructed untill acquiring a love of virtue they are fitted for these gardens where they will acquire a love of knowledge