Note N — BOOK II

"'Tis well known that according to the sense of antiquity, these two considerations were always included in that one opinion of the soul's immortality—namely; its pre-existence as well as its post existence. Neither were there ever any of the ancients before christianity, that held the soul's future permanency after death, who did not likewise assert its pre-existence,—they clearly perceiving that if it was once granted that the soul was generated, it could never be proved but that it might be also corrupted. And therefore the asserters of its immortality commonly began here—first, to prove its pre-existence, proceeding thence afterwards to establish its permanency after death."—Cudworth.