that I know no other than that I live now as I lived formerly; with only this difference, that my reason now is sounder. At times I have been ashamed of my former thoughts." The PHILOSOPHER gave much the same account of himself as the politician had done; only differing in this respect, that he considered the new relations which he had heard concerning a life after death, as having reference to opinions and hypotheses which he had collected from the ancients and moderns. When the three strangers had done speaking, the sophi were all in amazement; and those who were of the Socratic school, said, that from the news they had heard from the earth, it was quite evident, that the interiors of human minds had been successively closed; and that in the world at this time a belief in what is false shines as truth, and an infatuated ingenuity as wisdom; and that the light of wisdom, since their times, has descended from the interiors of the brain into the mouth beneath the nose, where it appears to the eyes as a shining of the lip, while the speech of the mouth thence proceeding appears as wisdom. Hereupon one of the young scholars said, "How stupid are the minds of the inhabitants of the earth at this day! I wish we had here the disciples of Heraclitus, who weep at every thing, and of Democritus, who laugh at every thing; for then we should hear much lamentation and much laughter." When the assembly broke up, they gave the three novitiates the insignia of their authority, which were copper plates, on which were engraved some hieroglyphic characters; with which they took their leave and departed.