Herodotus upon this occasion says, that the whole romance of the soul and its transmigrations was invented by the Egyptians, and propagated in Greece by men, who pretended to be its authors.

I know their names, adds he, but shall not mention them (lib.

2).

Cicero, however, has positively informed us, that it was Pherecydes, master of Pythagoras.

Tuscul.lib.1, sect.16.Now admitting that this system was at that period a novelty, it accounts for Solomon's treating it as a fable, who lived 130 years before Pherecydes.