An enquiry into the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organization / by John Barclay, M.D.

  • Barclay, John, 1758-1826.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An enquiry into the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organization / by John Barclay, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    ness, animated by his ou/Mg. Such simulacra were supposed to speak, to complain, to feel hunger, and receive nourishment; and therefore, when Ulysses sacrificed to the dead, ghosts of all de- scriptions flocked in great numbers around the trench where the smoking blood flowed, till, alarm- ed by their noise, he caused the victims to be burn- ed, and their smoke to ascend ; a proof, says the author of the life of Homer, that the poet was not ignorant of the fact, that the blood is the food and nourishment of the soul ^ , To the Highlanders of Scotland, and also to the Romans*^, these simulacra occasionally appear- ed as if formed of clouds, or the mists of the hills. In latter times, when they were observed previous^ ly to death, they were generally so rarified as only to be seen by those endowed with the second sight. According to Virgil, these umbrje were the ani- mag or souls themselves ; and whether of man, quadruped, fish, or bird, were all sprung from the same origin, as the soul of the universe from pure aether, or elemental flre ; for, Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitaeque volantum, Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus ^. The umbrae, therefore, which ^neas saw, when he went to yisit his father Anchises in the regions ' 'oil TO ai/Mu voiiT) Kui Teo<pn HI Tn '^Tviv/jMlog. (Opuscula My- thohgica, p. 341.) f See Lucret. iv. 130, &c. ? ^n. vi. 728.