indolent, lazy life, and to divert themselves just as they think proper. Thus he has got rid of the troublesome doctrine of a divine superintending Providence. Sometimes he forgets himself, and seems to deny their very existence. For he tells us in one place, that the whole universe contains nothing but matter and empty space, or what arises from the casual concurrence of these two principles:[315] consequently that no third nature, different from these two, can possibly be proved to exist either by the cognizance of our senses, or by the utmost efforts of our reasoning faculty. He teaches, that the soul is composed of the finest, and most subtile atoms, consequently discerptible and mortal. That the identity of man consists in the union of these finer corpuscles with the grosser ones, which compose the body. That, at their disunion by death, the soul evaporates, and is dissipated in the upper regions, from whence it first distilled, and the same man exists no more.[316] Nay he is so amazingly absurd as to assert, that if the soul,[317] after its separation, should still retain its consciousness, and, after a length of time, by some lucky jumble of his atoms, should happen to animate another body, this new compound would be quite a different man: consequently, that this new man would be no more interested in the actions of the former, than the former would be responsible for the behaviour of the latter, or for that of any future man, who might happen hereafter to be produced by another casual assemblage of the atoms of the same soul, united to those of another body. This doctrine is plainly stolen from the Pythagorean system of the transmigration of souls; but mutilated, and miserably perverted to the purposes of atheism. The absurdities in this wild philosophy are so self-evident, that to attempt a refutation of them, would be an affront to common sense. Yet, from this source, these philosophers draw their pretended consolations against the fear of death. That at death the identity of the man absolutely ceases, and we totally lose our existence.[318] Yet, from these excellent comforters, our modern scepticks have revived their senseless tenet of annihilation to serve the cause of libertinism. The grand _desideratum_, in libertinism, is, to be able to give an unbounded loose to the sensual passions, to their very utmost extent, without any impertinent hints from a certain disagreeable monitor, called conscience, and the dread of an after-reckoning. Now as both these terrors are removed by this system of annihilation, it is no wonder that libertines, who abound in a corrupt licentious age, should fly eagerly to so comfortable a doctrine, which at once silences those enemies to their pleasures. This is the creed introduced by the sect of Epicurus amongst the Romans, which easily accounts for that sudden, and universal revolution in their manners. For manners can never be so effectually, and so speedily depraved, as by a