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.
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