But upon such authority the Doctor placed as little reliance as upon the pretended recollections of Pythagoras, whether really asserted by that philosopher or falsely imputed to him by fablers in prose or verse. When man shall have effected his passage from the mortal and terrestrial state into the sphere where there is nothing that is impure, nothing that is evil, nothing that is perishable, then indeed it is a probable supposition that he may look back into the lowest deep from whence he hath ascended, recall to mind his progress step by step, through every stage of the ascent, and understand the process by which it had been appointed for him, (applying to Plato's words a different meaning from that in which they were intended) _ἐκ πολλῶν ἕνα γεγονότα εὐδαίμονα ἔσεσθαι_, to become of many creatures, one happy one. In that sphere such a retrospect would enlarge the knowledge, and consequently the happiness also of the soul which has there attained the perfection of its nature—the end for which it was created and redeemed. But any such consciousness of pre-existence would in this stage of our mortal being be so incompatible with the condition of humanity, that the opinion itself can be held only as a speculation, of which no certainty can ever have been made known to man, because that alone has been revealed, the knowledge of which is necessary: the philosophers therefore who pretended to it, if they were sincere in the pretension (which may be doubted) are entitled to no more credit, than the poor hypochondriac who fancies himself a bottle or a tea-pot. Thus our philosopher reasoned, who either in earnest or in jest, or in serious sportiveness, _παίζων καὶ σπουδάζων ἄμα_, was careful never to lean more upon an argument than it would bear. Sometimes he prest the lame and halt into his service, but it was with a clear perception of their defects, and he placed them always in positions where they were efficient for the service required for them, and where more valid ones would not have been more available. He formed therefore, no system of dendranthropology, nor attempted any classification in it; there were not facts enough whereon to found one. Yet in more than one circumstance which observant writers have recorded, something he thought might be discerned which bore upon this part of the theory,—some traces of those first affections, Those shadowy recollections,