discarding of the Counsellors above-mentioned, _Avarice_ supplies _Luxury_ in the room of _Plenty_, as _Luxury_ prompts _Avarice_ in the place of _Poverty_. C. [Footnote 1: Alieni appetens, sui profusus. _Sallust._] * * * * * No. 56. Friday, May 4, 1711. Addison. 'Felices errore suo ...' Lucan. The _Americans_ believe that all Creatures have Souls, not only Men and Women, but Brutes, Vegetables, nay even the most inanimate things, as Stocks and Stones. They believe the same of all the Works of Art, as of Knives, Boats, Looking-glasses: And that as any of these things perish, their Souls go into another World, which is inhabited by the Ghosts of Men and Women. For this Reason they always place by the Corpse of their dead Friend a Bow and Arrows, that he may make use of the Souls of them in the other World, as he did of their wooden Bodies in this. How absurd soever such an Opinion as this may appear, our _European_ Philosophers have maintained several Notions altogether as improbable. Some of _Plato's_ followers in particular, when they talk of the World of Ideas, entertain us with Substances and Beings no less extravagant and chimerical. Many _Aristotelians_ have likewise spoken as unintelligibly of their substantial Forms. I shall only instance _Albertus Magnus_, who in his Dissertation upon the Loadstone observing that Fire will destroy its magnetick Vertues, tells us that he took particular Notice of one as it lay glowing amidst an Heap of burning Coals, and that he perceived a certain blue Vapour to arise from it, which he believed might be the _substantial Form_, that is, in our _West-Indian_ Phrase, the _Soul_ of the Loadstone. [1] There is a Tradition among the _Americans_, that one of their Countrymen descended in a Vision to the great Repository of Souls, or, as we call it here, to the other World; and that upon his Return he gave his Friends a distinct Account of every thing he saw among those Regions of the Dead. A Friend of mine, whom I have formerly mentioned, prevailed upon one of the Interpreters of the _Indian_ Kings, [2] to inquire of them, if possible, what Tradition they have among them of this Matter: Which, as well as he could learn by those many Questions which he asked them at several times, was in Substance as follows.