Reincarnation : A study of forgotten truth

By E. D. Walker

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Title: Reincarnation
A study of forgotten truth

Author: E. D.

Release date: November 24, 2025 [eBook #77318]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin And Company, 1888

Credits: Richard Tonsing, Carla Foust, MFR, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

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REINCARNATION

The weary pilgrim oft doth seek to know
How far he’s come, how far he has to go.
QUARLES.

Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand million of them walking the earth
openly at noontide; some half hundred have vanished from it, some half
hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch tick one.

CARLYLE.

Truth dwells in gulphs, whose deeps hide shades so rich
That Night sits muffled there in clouds of pitch,
More darke than Nature made her: and requires
(To cleare her tough mists) heaven’s great fire of fires
To wrestle with those heaven-strong mysteries.
GEORGE CHAPMAN.

I am: how little more I know!
Whence came I? Whither do I go?
A central self which feels and is;
A cry between the silences;
A shadow-birth of clouds at strife
With sunshine on the hills of life;
A shaft from Nature’s quiver cast
Into the future from the past.
WHITTIER.

Where wert thou, Soul, ere yet my body born
Became thy dwelling-place? Didst thou on earth
Or in the clouds, await this body’s birth,
Or by what chance upon that winter’s morn
Didst thou this body find, a babe forlorn?
Didst thou in sorrow enter, or in mirth?
Or for a jest, perchance, to try its worth
Thou tookest flesh, ne’er from it to be torn.
WADDINGTON.

REINCARNATION
A STUDY OF FORGOTTEN TRUTH

E. D. WALKER

“_Ex oriente lux_”

[Illustration: [Logo]]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
=The Riverside Press, Cambridge=
1888

_All rights reserved._

_The Riverside Press, Cambridge_:
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH

AND TO

THAT EMBODIMENT OF TRUTH, NAMED

ARIEL,

THIS LITTLE VOLUME PROMPTED BY THEM

=Is Dedicated,=

WITH THE HOPE THAT THEY ARE NOT HERE DISHONORED

BY THEIR DISCIPLE,

THE AUTHOR.

Soul, dwelling oft in God’s infinitude
And sometimes seeming no more part of me—
This me, worms’ heritage—than that sun can be
Part of the earth he has with warmth imbued,—
Whence camest thou? Whither goest thou? I, subdued
With awe of mine own being thus sit still,
Dumb, on the summit of this lonely hill,
Whose dry November grasses dew-bestrewed
Mirror a million suns. That sun so bright,
Passes as thou must pass, Soul, into night.
Art thou afraid who solitary hast trod
A path I know not, from a source to a bourn
Both which I know not? Fearest thou to return
Alone, even as thou camest alone, to God?

D. M. MULOCK.

Insect and reptile, fish and bird and beast,
Cast their worn robes aside, fresh robes to don;
Tree, flower, and moss, put new year’s raiments on;
Each natural type, the greatest as the least,
Renews its vesture when its use hath ceased.
How should man’s spirit keep in unison
With the world’s law of outgrowth, save it won
New robes and ampler as its girth increased?
Quit shrunken creed, and dwarfed philosophy!
Let gently die an art’s decaying fire!
Work on the ancient lines, but yet be free
To leave and frame anew, if God inspire!
The planets change their surface as they roll:
The force that binds the spheres must bind the soul.

HENRY G. HEWLETT.

PREFACE.

“The idea of a transmigration of souls has hitherto remained a dream of
the fancy, nor has any one yet succeeded in giving it a higher moral
significance for the order of the universe.” So writes Hermann Lotze,
the German philosopher, in his magnificent “Microcosm,” expressing the
common feeling of Christendom. If this little book achieves its purpose
it will show the strength and value of that dreamy idea.

The present perplexity of all Christendom upon the deepest problems of
life, the sense of blind fate oppressing mankind, the despairing
restlessness of many leading poets, the absence of sublime ideals in
art, the prevalence of materialism and agnosticism (if not in
philosophy, in the most vital form of practical life), all feed a
flood-tide of dissatisfaction which Christianity tries in vain to
resist, and indicate that the West deeply needs some new truth. Not only
the wavering masses of men, but many of those uncompromising devotees of
truth who dare surrender themselves, like St. Christopher, to the
mightiest, are yearning after a larger revelation. A portion of this is
contained, we believe, in the doctrine variously termed as
Reincarnation, Metempsychosis, Transmigration. By this we do not mean
the theories concerning re-birth of men in brute bodies, which are
attributed to oriental religions and philosophies because popularly
accepted by their followers. These are crude caricatures of the true
conception. They represent the reality as absurdly as ordinary life in
Europe and America illustrates the teaching of Jesus. But we mean the
inner kernel of that husk, which in protean forms has irrepressibly
welled up in every great phase of thought, which is an open secret lying
all around us and not simply a foreign importation, and which
Christendom cannot afford to lose.

For those who are content with the usual creeds this little work will
have no attraction. They may be pleased to regard it as a heathen
invasion of Christendom. But for truth-seekers it may prove useful,
though it claims only to be an earnest investigation of what seems an
undemonstrable proposition. Its doctrine was first met as the
declaration of the profoundest students of the mysteries enveloping
humanity—coming with authority but no proof of weight to most western
thinkers. Its violent antagonism to current ideas compelled the writer
to dispose of it by independent methods. If true, there must be some
confirmation of it such as will impress any candid mind. If false,
nothing can force it to live. This led to a careful study of the
subject, which was summarized in a brief essay read and published to a
small circle of Theosophists. A continuation of that study has resulted
in this volume. Some readers will regard it as a waste of energy, except
as a diverting curiosity, the truth or falsehood of reincarnation being
to them of little consequence. But a sincere motive underlies it. For
reincarnation illuminates the darkest passages in the murky road of
life, dispels many haunting enigmas and illusions, and reveals cardinal
principles which, if apprehended, will steady the shambling gait of
mankind. Virtue, kindliness, and spirituality may thus be seen in their
unveiled splendor as the only proper modes of action and thought. The
noblest life is discerned to be the only sensible kind, and not
abandoned to the accidental expression of impulse or sentiment. The
cause of all the evils of modern society, the parent of the revolutions
of Europe, the source of the labor disturbances aggravating America, is
the arch-enemy of the race—materialism. Reincarnation combats that foe
by a most subtle and deadly warfare.

The sincere thanks of the writer are due to a number of kind friends,
whose assistance has largely facilitated the collection of materials for
this book, and also to the authors who have kindly permitted the use of
extracts from their writings, (in chapters iv and v.)

E. D. W.

Of all the theories respecting the origin of the soul, it
(preëxistence) seems to me the most plausible and therefore the one
most likely to throw light on the question of a life to
come.—FREDERICK H. HEDGE.

It would be curious if we should find science and philosophy taking up
again the old theory of metempsychosis, remodelling it to suit our
present modes of religious and scientific thought, and launching it
again on the wide ocean of human belief. But stranger things have
happened in the history of human opinion.—JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

If we could legitimately determine any question of belief by the
number of its adherents, the _quod semper_, _quod ubique_, _quod ab
omnibus_ would apply to metempsychosis more fitly than to any other. I
think it is quite as likely to be revived and to come to the front
again as any rival theory.—PROFESSOR WILLIAM KNIGHT.

It seems to me, a firm and well-grounded faith in the doctrine of
Christian metempsychosis might help to regenerate the world. For it
would be a faith not hedged round with many of the difficulties and
objections which beset other forms of doctrine, and it offers distinct
and pungent motives for trying to lead a more Christian life, and for
loving and helping our brother-man.—PROFESSOR FRANCIS BOWEN.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
INTRODUCTION 3

I.
WHAT IS REINCARNATION? 9

II.
WESTERN EVIDENCES OF REINCARNATION 15
1. Immortality demands it; 2. Analogy suggests it; 3. Science
confirms it; 4. The nature of the soul requires it; 5. It
answers the theological question of “original sin” and “future
punishment;” 6. Many strange experiences are explained by it;
7. The problems of life and of Nemesis are solved best by it.

III.
WESTERN OBJECTIONS TO REINCARNATION 49
1. We have no memory of past lives; 2. It is unjust for us to
receive the results of forgotten deeds; 3. Heredity opposes
it; 4. It is an uncongenial doctrine.

IV.
WESTERN AUTHORS UPON REINCARNATION 63
Extracts: 1. Schopenhauer; 2. Lessing; 3. Fichte; 4. Herder; 5.
Henry More; 6. Sir Thomas Browne; 7. Chevalier Ramsay; 8.
Soame Jenyns; 9. Joseph Glanvil; 10. Dowden’s Shelley; 11.
Hume; 12. Southey; 13. William Blake; 14. William Knight; 15.
W. A. Butler; 16. Bulwer; 17. Pezzani; 18. Emerson; 19. James
Freeman Clarke; 20. William R. Alger; 21. Francis Bowen; 22.
Frederick A. Hedge.

V.
WESTERN POETS UPON REINCARNATION 125
I. American Poets: Hayne, Whittier, Taylor, Aldrich, Leland,
Thompson, Willis, Trowbridge, Longfellow, Lowell, Whitman,
Parsons.
II. British Poets: Wordsworth, Gosse, Alford, Milnes, Tennyson,
Rossetti, Addison, Bailey, Sharp, Tupper, Browning, Leyden,
Coleridge, Miss Tatham, Dr. Donne, Collins, Matthew Arnold.
III. Continental Poets: Boyesen, Hugo, Béranger, Goethe,
Schiller, Campanella.
IV. Platonic Poets: More, Milton, Anonymous, Shelley, Vaughan,
Emerson, Mrs. Rowe, Hymns.

VI.
REINCARNATION AMONG THE ANCIENTS 193
I. Brahmans; II. Egyptians; III. Pythagoras; IV. Plato; V. The
Jews.

VII.
REINCARNATION IN THE BIBLE 213

VIII.
REINCARNATION IN EARLY CHRISTENDOM 223
I. The Gnostics; II. The Neo-Platonists; III. The Orthodox
Church Fathers.

IX.
REINCARNATION IN THE EAST TO-DAY 239
I. Brahmanism; II. Buddhism; III. Zoroastrianism and Sufism.

X.
EASTERN POETRY OF REINCARNATION 249
Extracts: 1. Kalidésa’s “Sakoontala;” 2. The Katha Upanishad; 3.
The Light of Asia; 4. A Persian Poem; 5. From Hafiz; 6. A Sufi
Poem.

XI.
ESOTERIC ORIENTAL REINCARNATION 261

XII.
TRANSMIGRATION THROUGH ANIMALS 271

XIII.
DEATH, HEAVEN, AND HELL, WHAT THEN OF? 287

XIV.
KARMA, THE COMPANION TRUTH OF REINCARNATION 297

XV.
CONCLUSION 307

APPENDIX.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REINCARNATION 327

By the sea, by the dreary darkening sea
There stands a youthful man,
His frame is throbbing with doubt’s agony,
His lips move sadly and wan.

Oh, solve me Life’s enigma, ye waves,
The torturing riddle of old
With which the mind of humanity raves,
Whose answer is never told;

The mystery hidden from hoary sage,
From soldier, saint, and king;
From wisest heads in every age,
Weary and languishing

For light upon the misty road.
Tell me, what am I?
Whence came I, whither do I plod?
Who dwells in the blazing sky?

The billows murmur ceaselessly,
The wind speaks night and day,
Calm and cold sing the stars on high,
But he knows not what they say.
HEINE.

The doctrine of metempsychosis may almost claim to be a natural or
innate belief in the human mind, if we may judge from its wide
diffusion among the nations of the earth and its prevalence throughout
the historical ages.—PROFESSOR FRANCIS BOWEN.

INTRODUCTION.

We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Enquiring wherefore we were born,—
For earnest, or for jest?

The senses folding thick and dark
About the stifled soul within,
We guess diviner things beyond,
And yearn to them with yearning fond;
We strike out boldly to a mark
Believed in, but not seen.

And sometimes horror chills our blood
To be so near such mystic things,
And we wrap round us, for defence,
Our purple manners, moods of sense,—
As angels, from the face of God,
Stand hidden in their wings.
MRS. BROWNING.

INTRODUCTION.

Once the whole civilized world embraced reincarnation, and found therein
a complete answer to that riddle of man’s descent and destiny which the
inexorable sphinx Life propounds to every traveler along her way. But
the western branch of the race, in working out the material conquest of
the world, has acquired the compensating discontent of a material
philosophy. It has lost the old faith and drifted into a shadowy region,
where the eagerness for “practical” things rejects whatever cannot be
physically proven. Even God and immortality are for the most part
conjectures, believed only after demonstration, and not vitally then.
The realization of this condition is provoking throughout Christendom a
counter-current of spirituality. The growing freedom of thought and the
eastward look of many leading minds seem to herald a renaissance more
radical, although more subtle and gradual, than the reformations of
Columbus, Luther, and Guthenberg. As surely as the occupation and
development of the western Eldorado revived Europe into unprecedented
vigor, the exploration of Palestine, and beyond into India, for
treasures more precious than gold and dominion, shall revitalize the
West with an unparalleled growth of spiritual power.

Strangely enough, too, just as the “New World” proved to be geologically
the oldest continent, so the “new truths” recently discovered are found
to be the most ancient. They are as universal as the ocean, always
waiting to be used. The latest philosophies and heterodoxies are only
fresh phrasings of early ideas. The most advanced conceptions of art,
education, and government are essentially identical with those of Greece
and Rome. The newest industries are approaching the lost arts of Egypt.
The modern sciences (as electricity and chemistry) are merely ingenious
applications of what the schoolmasters of the primitive races knew
better in some respects than Edison and Cooke. Geology has just dawned
upon us to reveal the sublime synopsis of earth’s history hidden for
over three thousand years in the first chapter of the Bible. The last
great thought of this era—Evolution—is as old as the hills in the East.
Professor Crookes’s wonderful experiment connected with the instability
of certain elements, psychic force, and the fourth dimension of matter
(so far in advance of present scientific culture that many physicists
deride them) are stumblings upon the outskirts of a domain long familiar
to oriental students. After many centuries of tedious jangling with
creeds and sects, we are slowly learning that primitive Christianity
will make earth a paradise. The permanent edifice of the world’s
complete education seems to patiently await the time when men shall tire
of fashioning useless building stuff from their crumbling theories and
revert to the basal granite of which the everlasting foundations are
laid, caring only to shape the superstructure by the Architect’s plan.

Although commonly rejected throughout Europe and America, reincarnation
is unreservedly accepted by the majority of mankind at the present day,
as in all the past centuries. From the dawn of history it has prevailed
among the largest part of humanity with an unshaken intensity of
conviction. Over all the mightiest eastern nations it has held permanent
sway. The ancient civilization of Egypt, whose grandeur cannot be
overestimated, was built upon this as a fundamental truth, and taught it
as a precious secret to Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Virgil, and Ovid,
who scattered it through Greece and Italy. It is the keynote of Plato’s
philosophy, being stated or implied very frequently in his dialogues.
“Soul is older than body,” he says. “Souls are continually born over
again from Hades into this life.” In his view all knowledge is
reminiscence. To search and learn is simply to revive the images of what
the soul saw in its preëxistent state in the world of realities. It was
also widely spread in the Neo-platonism of Plotinus and Proclus. The
swarming millions of India have made this thought the foundation of
their enormous achievements in government, architecture, philosophy, and
poetry. It was a cardinal element in the religion of the Persian Magi.
Alexander the Great gazed in amazement on the self-immolation by fire to
which it inspired the Gymnosophists. Cæsar found its tenets propagated
among the Gauls. The circle of metempsychosis was an essential principle
of the Druid faith, and as such was impressed upon our forefathers the
Celts, the Gauls, and the Britons. It is claimed that the people held
this doctrine so vitally that they wept around the new-born infant and
smiled upon death; for the beginning and end of an earthly life were to
them the imprisonment and release of a soul, which must undergo repeated
probations to remove its degrading impurities for final ascent into a
succession of higher spheres. The Bardic triads of the Welsh are replete
with this thought, and a Welsh antiquary insists that an ancient
emigration from Wales to India conveyed it to the Brahmans. Among the
Arab philosophers it was a favorite idea, and it still may be noticed in
many Mohammedan writers. In the old civilizations of Peru and Mexico it
prevailed universally. The priestly rites of the Egyptian Isis, the
Eleusinian mysteries of Greece, the Bacchic processions of Rome, the
Druid ceremonies of Britain, and the Cabalic rituals of the Hebrews, all
expressed this great truth with peculiar force for their initiated
witnesses. The Jews generally adopted it after the Babylonian captivity
through the Pharisees, Philo of Alexandria, and the doctors. John the
Baptist was to them a second Elijah. Jesus was commonly thought to be a
reappearance of John the Baptist or of one of the old prophets. The
Talmud and the Cabala are full of the same teaching. Some of the late
Rabbins assert many entertaining things concerning the repeated births
of the most noted persons of their nation. Christianity is not an
exception to all the other great religions in promulgating the same
philosophy. Reincarnation played an important part in the thought of
Origen and several other leaders among the early Church Fathers. It was
a main portion of the creed of the Gnostics and Manichæans. In the
Middle Ages many scholastics and heretical sects advocated it. It has
cropped out spontaneously in many western theologians. The elder English
divines do not hesitate to inculcate preëxistence in their sermons. In
the seventeenth century Dr. Henry More and other Cambridge Platonists
gave it wide acceptance. The Roman Catholic Purgatory seems to be a
makeshift improvised to take its place. Sir Harry Vane is said by Burnet
to have maintained this doctrine.

Many philosophers of metaphysical depth, like Scotus, Kant, Schelling,
Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, and the younger Fichte, have upheld
reincarnation. Geniuses of noble symmetry, like Giordano Bruno, Herder,
Lessing, and Goethe, have fathered it. Scientists like Flammarion,
Figuier, and Brewster have earnestly advocated it. Theological leaders
like Julius Müller, Dorner, Ernesti, Rückert, and Edward Beecher have
maintained it. In exalted intuitional natures like Boehme and Swedenborg
its hold is apparent. Most of the mystics bathe in it. Of course the
long line of Platonists from Socrates down to Emerson have no doubt of
it. Nearly all the poets profess it.

Even amid the predominance of materialistic influences in Christendom it
has a considerable following. Traces of it are found among the
aborigines of North and South America, and in many barbaric tribes. At
this time it reigns without any sign of decrepitude over the Burman,
Chinese, Japanese, Tartar, Thibetan, and East Indian nations, including
at least 750,000,000 of mankind and nearly two thirds of the race.
Throughout the East it is the great central thought. It is no mere
superstition of the ignorant masses. It is the chief principle of Hindu
metaphysics,—the basis of all their inspired books. Such a hoary
philosophy, held by the venerable authority of ages, ruling from the
beginning of time the bulk of the world’s thought, cherished in some
form by the disciples of every great religion, is certainly worthy of
the profoundest respect and study. There must be some vital reality
inspiring so stupendous an existence.

But the western fondness for democracy does not hold in the domain of
thought. The fact that the majority of the race has agreed upon
reincarnation is no argument for it to an occidental thinker. The
conceit of modern progress has no more respect for ancient ideas than
for the forgotten civilization of old, even though in many essentials
they anticipated or outstripped all that we boast of. Therefore we
propose to treat this subject largely from a western standpoint.

I.
WHAT IS REINCARNATION?

You cannot say of the soul, it shall be, or is about to be, or is to
be hereafter. It is a thing without birth.—BHAGAVAD GITA.

As the inheritance of an illustrious name and pedigree quickens the
sense of duty in every noble nature, a belief in preëxistence may
enhance the glory of the present life and intensify the reverence with
which the deathless principle is regarded.—WILLIAM KNIGHT.

If we except the belief of a future remuneration beyond this life for
suffering virtue and retribution for successful crimes, there is no
system so simple, and so little repugnant to our understanding, as
that of metempsychosis. The pains and pleasures of this life are by
this system considered as the recompense or the punishment of our
actions in another state.—ISAAC D’ISRAELI.

The experiences gained in one life may not be remembered in their
details in the next, but the impressions which they produce will
remain. Again and again man passes through the wheel of
transformation, changing his lower energies into higher ones, until
matter attracts him no longer, and he becomes—what he is destined to
be—a god.—HARTMANN.

As billows on the undulating main
That swelling fall, and falling swell again,
So on the tide of time incessant roll
The dying body and the deathless soul.

I.
WHAT IS REINCARNATION?

Reincarnation is an extremely simple doctrine rooted in the assurance of
the soul’s indestructibility. It explains at once the descent and the
destiny of the soul by so natural and forcible a method that it has not
only dominated the ingenuous minds of all the primitive races, but has
become the most widely spread and most permanently influential of all
philosophies.

Reincarnation teaches that the soul enters this life, not as a fresh
creation, but after a long course of previous existences on this earth
and elsewhere, in which it acquired its present inhering peculiarities,
and that it is on the way to future transformations which the soul is
now shaping. It claims that infancy brings to earth, not a blank scroll
for the beginning of an earthly record, nor a mere cohesion of atomic
forces into a brief personality soon to dissolve again into the
elements, but that it is inscribed with ancestral histories, some like
the present scene, most of them unlike it and stretching back into the
remotest past. These inscriptions are generally undecipherable, save as
revealed in their moulding influence upon the new career; but like the
invisible photographic images made by the sun of all it sees, when they
are properly developed in the laboratory of consciousness they will be
distinctly displayed. The current phase of life will also be stored away
in the secret vaults of memory, for its unconscious effect upon the
ensuing lives. All the qualities we now possess, in body, mind and soul,
result from our use of ancient opportunities. We are indeed “the heirs
of all the ages,” and are alone responsible for our inheritances. For
these conditions accrue from distant causes engendered by our older
selves, and the future flows by the divine law of cause and effect from
the gathered momentum of our past impetuses. There is no favoritism in
the universe, but all have the same everlasting facilities for growth.
Those who are now elevated in worldly station may be sunk in humble
surroundings in the future. Only the inner traits of the soul are
permanent companions. The wealthy sluggard may be the beggar of the next
life; and the industrious worker of the present is sowing the seeds of
future greatness. Suffering bravely endured now will produce a treasure
of patience and fortitude in another life; hardships will give rise to
strength; self-denial must develop the will; tastes cultivated in this
existence will somehow bear fruit in coming ones; and acquired energies
will assert themselves whenever they can by the _lex parsimoniæ_ upon
which the principles of physics are based. _Vice versa_, the unconscious
habits, the uncontrollable impulses, the peculiar tendencies, the
favorite pursuits, and the soul-stirring friendships of the present
descend from far-reaching previous activities.

Science explains the idiosyncrasies of plants and animals by the
environment of previous generations and calls instinct hereditary habit.
In the same way there is an evolution of individuality, by which the
child opens its new era with characteristics derived from anterior
lives, and adds the experience of a new personality to the sum total of
his treasured traits. In its passage through earthly personalities the
spiritual self, the essential _Ego_, accumulates a fund of individual
character which remains as the permanent thread stringing together the
separate lives. The soul is therefore an eternal water globule, which
sprang in the beginningless past from mother ocean, and is destined
after an unreckonable course of meanderings in cloud and rain, snow and
steam, spring and river, mud and vapor, to at last return with the
garnered experience of all lonely existences into the central Heart of
all. Or rather, it is the crystal stream running from a heavenly
fountain through one continuous current that often halts in favorite
corners, sunny pools, and shady nooks, muddy ponds and clearest lakes,
each delay shifting the direction and altering the complexion of the
next tide as it issues out by the path of least resistance.

That we have forgotten the causes producing the present sequence of
pleasures and pains, talents and defects, successes and failures, is no
disproof of them, and does not disturb the justice of the scheme. For
temporary oblivion is the anodyne by which the kindly physician is
bringing us through the darker wards of sorrow into perfect health.

We do not undertake to trace the details of our earlier stoppages
further than is indicated in the uncontrovertible principle, that as
long as the soul is governed by material desires it must find its homes
in physical realms, and when its inclination is purely spiritual it
certainly will inhabit the domain of spirit. The restless wandering of
all souls must at last conclude in the peace of God, but that will not
be possible until they have gone through all the rounds of experience
and learned that only in that Goal is satisfaction. That men ever dwell
in bodies of beasts, we deny as irrational, as such a retrogression
would contradict the fundamental maxims of nature. That philosophy is a
corruption of Reincarnation, in which the masses have coarsely masked
the truth.

Granting the permanence of the human spirit amid every change, the
doctrine of re-birth is the only one yielding a metaphysical explanation
of the phenomena of life. It is already accepted in the physical plane
as evolution, and holds a firm ethical value in applying the law of
justice to human experience. In confirmation of it there stands the
strongest weight of evidence, argumentary, empirical, and historic. It
untangles the knotty problem of life simply and grandly. It meets the
severest requirements of enlightened reason, and is in deepest harmony
with the spirit of Christianity.

II.
WESTERN EVIDENCES OF REINCARNATION.

The house of life hath many chambers.—ROSSETTI.

The soul is not born; it does not die; it was not produced from any
one; nor was any produced from it.—EMERSON.

For men to tell how human life began
Is hard: for who himself beginning knew.

MILTON.

There is surely a piece of divinity in us,—something that was before
the elements and owes no homage unto the sun.

Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end.—SIR THOMAS
BROWNE.

For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form and doth the body make.

SPENSER.

Secreted and hidden in the heart of the world and the heart of man is
the light which can illumine all life, the future and the past.

THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD.

The soul, if immortal, existed before our birth.

What is incorruptible must be ungenerable.

Metempsychosis is the only system of immortality that Philosophy can
hearken to.—HUME.

Nature is nothing less than the ladder of resurrection which, step by
step, leads upward,—or rather is carried from the abyss of eternal
death up to the apex of life.—SCHLEGEL.

Look nature through; ’tis revolution all,
All change; no death. Day follows night, and night
The dying day; stars rise and set, and set and rise.
Earth takes the example. All to reflourish fades
As in a wheel: all sinks to reascend;
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.

YOUNG.

The blending of mind and matter in the bodily structure of the
sentient and rational orders, we may be assured, is a method of
procedure which, if it be not absolutely indispensable to the final
purposes of the creation, subserves the most important ends and
carries with it consequences such as will make it the general, if not
the universal law of all finite natures, in all worlds.—ISAAC TAYLOR.

II.
WESTERN EVIDENCES OF REINCARNATION.

The old Saxon chronicler, Bede, records that at a banquet given by King
Edwin of Northumbria to his nobles, a discussion arose as to how they
should receive the Christian missionary Paulinus, who had just arrived
from the continent. Some urged the sufficiency of their own Druid and
Norse religions and advised the death of the invading heretic. Others
were in favor of hearing his message. At length the king asked the
opinion of his oldest counsellor. The sage arose and said: “O king and
lords. You all did remark the swallow which entered this festal hall to
escape the chilling winds without, fluttering near the fire for a few
moments and then vanishing through the opposite window. Such is the life
of man. Whence it came and whither it goes none can tell. Therefore if
this new religion brings light upon so great a mystery, it must be
diviner than ours and should be welcomed.” The old man’s advice was
adopted.

We are in the position of those old ancestors of ours. The religion of
the churches, called Christianity, is to many earnest souls a dry husk.
The germinant kernel of truth as it came from the founder of
Christianity, when it is discovered under all its barren wrappings, is
indeed sufficient to feed us with the bread of life. It answers all the
practical needs of most people even with the husks. But it leaves some
vital questions unanswered which impel us to desire something more than
Jesus taught—not for mere curiosity, but as food for larger growth. The
divine law which promises to fill every vacuum, and to gratify at last
every aspiration, has not left us without means of grasping a portion of
these grander truths.

The commonest idea of the soul throughout Christendom seems to be that
it is created specially for birth on this world, and after its lifetime
here it goes to a permanent spiritual realm of infinite continuance.
This is a very comfortable belief derived from the appearances of
things, and those holding it may very properly say, “My view agrees with
the phenomena, and if you think differently the burden of proof rests
upon you.” We accept this responsibility. But a careful observer knows
that the true explanation of facts is as a rule very different from the
appearance. Ptolemy thought he could account for all the heavenly
motions on his geocentric theory, and his teachings were at once
received by his contemporaries. But the deeper studies of Copernicus and
Galileo had to wait a century before they were accepted, although they
introduced an astronomy of immeasurably nobler scale. Is it not a relic
of the old confidence in appearances to consider the physical orbits of
human souls as limited to our little view of them?

The theologian seeks to explain life, with its inequalities, its
miseries and injustices, by a future condition rewarding and punishing
men for the deeds of earth. He concedes that benevolence and justice
cannot be proven in God by what is seen of His earthly administration.
The final law of creation is said to be Love, but the sin and suffering
bequeathed to most of the race through no apparent fault of theirs
annuls that dictum in the world’s real thought, and compels men to
regard life as a ceaseless struggle for existence in which the strongest
wins and the weakest fails, and the devil takes the hindermost. But even
if the future life will straighten out this by a just judgment, fairness
demands that all shall have an even chance here,—which only
reincarnation assures.

The materialist takes a more plausible ground. On the basis of the soul
beginning with the present existence, he regards all the developments of
life as results of blind natural forces. He says that the variety of
atomic qualities accounts for all the divergencies of life, physical,
mental, and moral. But he can give no reason why the same particles of
matter should accomplish such stupendous varieties. Moreover Science,
the materialist’s gospel, instead of disposing of psychic facts, is
studying and classifying them as a new branch of supersensuous
knowledge.[1] These investigations will ultimately initiate Science into
the surety of non-physical things. Already a strong advance in that
direction has been made by Isaac Taylor’s “Physical Theory of a Future
Life” and Stewart & Tait’s “Unseen Universe.” The conception of an
Infinite Personality overwhelms all the narrow groove-thinking of every
mechanical school, and rises supremely in the strongest scientific
philosophy of all time—that of Herbert Spencer. Strangest of all,
Evolution, the cornerstone of Spencerian philosophy, is merely a
paraphrase of reincarnation.

There are seven arguments for Reincarnation which seem conclusive.

1. That the idea of _immortality_ demands it.

2. That _analogy_ makes it the most probable.

3. That _science_ confirms it.

4. That the _nature of the soul_ requires it.

5. That it most completely _answers_ the _theological questions_ of
“original sin” and “future punishment.”

6. That it _explains_ many _mysterious experiences_.

7. That it alone _solves_ the problem of _injustice_ and _misery_ which
broods over our world.

* * * * *

1. Immortality demands it.

Only the positivists and some allied schools of thought, comprising a
very small proportion of Christendom, doubt the immortality of the soul.
But a conscious existence after death has no better proof than a
pre-natal existence. It is an old declaration that what begins in time
must end in time. We have no right to say that the soul is eternal on
one side of its earthly period without being so on the other. Far more
rational is the view of certain scientists who, believing that the soul
originates with this life, also declare that it ends with this life.
That is the logical outcome of their premise. If the soul sprang into
existence specially for this life, why should it continue afterward? It
is precisely as probable from all the grounds of reason that death is
the conclusion of the soul as that birth is the beginning of it. As
Cudworth points out, it was this argument which had special weight with
the Greek philosophers, whose reasonings upon immortality have led all
later generations. They asserted the eternity of the soul in order to
vindicate its immortality. For, they held, as nothing which has being
can have originated from nothingness, or can vanish into nothingness,
and as they were certain of their existence, it was impossible that they
could have had a temporal beginning. The present life must be only one
stage of a vast number, stretching backward and forward.

Our instinctive belief in immortality implies a subconscious acceptance
of this view. We are certain of a persevering life outlasting all the
changes of time and death. But birth, as well as death, is one of the
temporal shifts belonging to the transitory sphere which is foreign to
our spirits. It is only because our backs are toward the earlier change
and our faces to the later that we refuse to reason about one on the
principles used about the other. If we lived in the reversed world of
Fechner’s “Dr. Mises,” in which old things grow new and men begin life
by a reversed dying and end by a reversed birth, we would probably
devise arguments for preëxistence as zealously as we do now for future
existence, and that would lead to reincarnation. For all the indications
of immortality point as unfailingly to an eternity preceding this
existence: the love of prolonged life; the analogy of nature; the
prevailing belief of the most spiritual minds; the permanence of the ego
principle; the inconceivability of annihilation or of creation from
nothing; the promise of an extension of the present career; the
injustice of any other thought.

The ordinary Christian idea of special creation at birth involves the
correlative of annihilation at death. What the origin of the soul may
have been does not affect this subject, further than that it long
antedates the present life. Whether it be a spark from God himself, or a
divine emanation, or a cluster of independent energies, its eternal
destiny compels the inference that it is uncreated and indestructible.
Moreover, it is unthinkable that from an infinite history it enters this
world for its first and only physical experience and then shoots off to
an endless spiritual existence. The deduction is rather that it assumed
many forms before it appeared as we now see it, and is bound to pass
through many coming lives before it will be rounded into the full orb of
perfection and reach its ultimate goal.

2. Analogy is strongly in favor of reincarnation. Were Bishop Butler to
work out the problem of the career of the human soul in the light of
modern science, we doubt not that his masterpiece would advocate this
“pagan” thought. For many centuries the literature of nations has
discerned a standard simile of the soul’s deathlessness in the
transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly. But it is known
now that once all the caterpillars and butterflies were alike, and that
by repeated incarnations they have reached the bewildering differences.
When they started off from the procession of life on their own road from
one or a few similar species, the progeny scattered into various
circumstances, and the struggles and devices which they went through for
their own purposes, being repeated for thousands of years in millions of
lives, has developed the surprising heterogeneity of feather-winged
insects. And as each undergoes his rapid changes in rehearsal of his
long pedigree, we may trace the succession of his earlier lives.

The violent energy of the present condition argues a previous stage
leading up to it. It is contended with great force of analogy that death
is but another and higher birth. This life is a groping embryo plane
implying a more exalted one. Mysterious intimations reach us from a
diviner sphere,—

“Like hints and echoes of the world
To spirits folded in the womb.”

But subtle indications rearward argue that birth is the death of an
earlier existence. Even the embryo life necessitates a preparatory one
preceding it. So complete a structure must have a foundation. So swift a
momentum must have traveled far. As Emerson observes: “We wake and find
ourselves on a stair. There are other stairs below us which we seem to
have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward
and out of sight.”

The grand order of creation is everywhere proclaiming as the universal
word, “change.” Nothing is destroyed, but all is passing from one
existence to another. Not an atom but is dancing in lively march from
its present condition to a different form, running a ceaseless cycle
through mineral, vegetable, and animal existence, though never losing
its individuality, however diverse its apparent alterations. Not a
creature but is constantly progressing to something else. The tadpole
becomes a fish, the fish a frog, and some of the frogs have turned to
birds. It was the keen perception of this principle in nature which gave
their vital force to the Greek mythologies and other ancient stories
embodying the idea of transmutation of personality through many guises.
It was this which animated the metamorphoses of Ovid, whose philosophy
is contained in these lines from his poem on Pythagoras:—

“Death, so called, is but old matter dressed
In some new form. And in a varied vest
From tenement to tenement, though tossed,
The soul is still the same, the figure only lost:
And, as the softened wax new seals receives,
This face assumes, and that impression leaves,
Now called by one, now by another name,
The form is only changed, the wax is still the same.
Then, to be born is to begin to be
Some other thing we were not formerly.
That forms are changed, I grant; that nothing can
Continue in the figure it began.”[2]

Evolution has remoulded the thought of Christendom, expanding our
conception of physiology, astronomy and history. The more it is studied
the more universal is found its application. It seems to be the secret
of God’s life. Now that we know the evolution of the body, it is time
that we learned the evolution of the soul. The biologist shows that each
of us physically before birth runs through all the phases of animal
life—polyp, fish, reptile, dog, ape, and man—as a brief synopsis of how
the ages have prepared our tenements. The preponderance of special
animal traits in us is due, he says, to the emphasis of those particular
stages of our physical growth. So in infancy does the soul move through
an unconscious series of existences, recapitulating its long line of
descent, until it is fastened in maturity. And why is it not true that
our soul traits are the relics of former activities? Evolution proves
that the physical part of man is the product of a long series of
changes, in which each stage is both the effect of past influences and
the cause of succeeding issues. Does not the immaterial part of man
require a development equally vast? The fact of an intellectual and
moral evolution proceeding hand in hand with the physical can only be
explained under the economy of nature by a series of reincarnations.

3. Furthermore, the idea that the soul is specially created for
introduction into this world combats all the principles of science. All
nature proceeds on the strictest economic methods. Nothing is either
lost or added. There is no creation or destruction. Whatever appears to
spring suddenly into existence is derived from some sufficient
cause—although as unseen as the vapor currents which feed the clouds.
There is a growing consensus of opinion among spiritualists and
materialists alike, that the quantity both of force and of matter
remains constant. The law of conservation of energy holds in the
spiritual realm as in physics. The uniform stock of energy in the
universe neither declines nor increases, but incessantly changes. The
marvelous developments shown in the protean organisms continually
entering the procession of life indicate that the new manifestations
descend from some patriarchal line, uncreated and immortal, coming
through the hidden regions of previous existences. Science allows no
such miracle as the theological special resurrection, which is contrary
to all experience. But it recognizes the universality of resurrection
throughout all nature, which is a matter of common observation. The idea
of the soul as a phœnix, eternally continuing through myriad
embodiments, is adapted to the whole spirit of modern science.

Especially significant is the axiomatic law of cause and effect. There
is no other adequate explanation of the phenomena of life than the
purely scientific one, that causes similar to those now operating before
our eyes have produced the results we witness. The impelling
characteristics of each personality require some earlier experiences of
physical life to have generated them. All the sensuous proclivities of
human nature point to long earthly experience as their only origin. And
the unsatisfied physical inclinations of the soul necessitate a series
of material existences to work themselves out. The irrepressible
eagerness for all the range of experience seems to be a sufficient
reason for a course of incarnations which shall accomplish that result.

Physiologists contend that the wondrous human organism could not have
grown up out of mere matter, but implies a preëxistent personal idea,[3]
which grouped around itself the organic conditions of physical existence
and constrained the material elements to follow its plan. This dynamic
agent—or the soul—must have existed independent of the body before the
receptacle was prepared. Bouiller and the German scientists Müller,
Hartmann, and Stahl, have especially demonstrated in physiology this
idea of a preëxistent soul monad, whose plastic power unconsciously
constructs its own corporeal organism. The Greeks coiled this idea into
the word σϲἡμα, and the younger Fichte and Lotze have developed it. The
doctrine of modern physiology, as presented by the animists, is
precisely the ground taken by upholders of reincarnation,—that as the
lower animals fashion ingenious nests with incredible skill, so the
unwitting soul blindly frames the fabric of its body in keeping with the
laws of its own adaptation. The unconscious agency of the mind or
instinct in repairing the body, healing its hurts and guiding its
growth, is recognized by most scientists. Plato but expresses the same
idea when he says, “The soul always weaves her garment anew.” This
thought is well worded by Giordano Bruno when he says, “The soul is not
in the body locally, but as its intrinsic form and extrinsic mould, as
that which makes the members and shapes the whole within and without.
The body, then, is in the soul, the soul in the mind (spirit). The
Intellect (Spirit) is God.”

This conception gives the lie to the materialism which limits the forces
of the individual to the complications of a mechanism. A corollary of
this moulding power of the independent soul is Plato’s proposition that
“the soul has a natural strength which will hold out and be born many
times.” Since the ego is older than the body, the resident who builds
its dwelling according to its tastes and materials, and since the
purpose of its corporeal habitation cannot possibly be accomplished in a
single brief lifetime, it is necessary that it should repeat that
experience, always framing its receptacle to suit its growing character,
like the epochs of a lobster’s enlargement, until it has done with
physical life. The new apparitions of men upon the earth thus hail from
older scenes.

Evolution may fairly be claimed as a spiritual truth applying to all the
methods of life. The gradual development of the soul, by the school of
experience, demands a vaster arena of action than one earthly life
affords. If it takes ages of time and thousands of lives to form one
kind of an animal from another, the expansion of human souls from lower
to higher natures surely needs many and many a life for that growth.

Evolutionary science explains the instinctive acts of young animals as
inherited tendencies,—as past experiences transmitted into fresh forms.
Psychic science is learning that the earliest acts of human beings are
also derived from remote habits formed in anterior activities, and
stored away in the unconscious memory. Herbert Spencer, the philosopher
of evolution, speaks of a constant energy manifesting itself through all
transformations. This is the one life which runs eternally in protean
shapes.

The measure of our acquisition of conceptions from the outer universe
resides in the senses. There is no evidence that these have always been
five. Nature, never taking a leap, must have put us through all the
lower stages before she placed us at our present position. And since
nature contains many substances and powers which are partially or wholly
beyond these senses, some of which powers are known to other animals, we
must assume that our present ascending development will introduce us to
higher levels in which the soul shall have as many senses as correspond
with the powers of nature.[4]

4. A much more weighty argument is that the nature of the soul requires
reincarnation. The conscious soul cannot feel itself to have had any
beginning, any more than it can conceive of annihilation. The sense of
persistence overwhelms all the interruptions of forgetfulness and sleep,
and all the obstacles of matter. This incessant self-assurance suggests
the idea of the soul being independent of the changing body, its
temporary prison. Then follows the conception that, as the soul has once
appeared in human form, so it may reappear in many others. The eternity
of the soul, past and present, leads directly to an innumerable
succession of births and deaths, disembodiments and reembodiments.

The identity of the soul surely does not consist in a remembrance of all
its past. We are always forgetting ourselves and waking again to
recognition. But the sense of individuality bridges all the gaps. In the
same way it seems as if our present existence were a somnambulent
condition into which we have drowsed from an earlier life, being
sleepily oblivious of that former activity, and from which we may after
a while be roused into wakefulness.

The study of infant psychology confirms this. The nature and extent of
the mental furniture with which we begin life, apart from all experience
of this world, has obliged many thinkers to resort to preëxistence as
the necessary explanation.

A careful examination of the rarer facts of life, noticeably those found
in dreams, trances, and analogous phenomena, demonstrates that our
complete life is largely independent of the body, and consists in a
perpetual transfer of the sensuous experiences of self-consciousness
into a supersensuous unconsciousness. But this higher storehouse of
character might more truly be called our real consciousness, although we
are not ordinarily cognizant of it, for it comprises our habits,
instincts, and tendencies. This is the essential character of the soul
and must persist after death. Now, unless all our earthly possibilities
are exhausted in one life, these inherent material qualities of our
spiritual nature will find expression in a plurality of earthly
existences. And if the purpose of life be the acquisition of experience,
it would be unreasonable to suppose a final transfer elsewhere before a
full knowledge of earth has been gained. It is apparent that one life
cannot accomplish this, even in the longest and most diverse career,—to
say nothing of the short average, and the curtailed allowance given to
the majority. If one earth life answers for all, what a tiny experience
suffices for the immense masses who prematurely die as children! Men are
willing enough to believe in an eternity of spiritual development after
this world; but is it consistent with the thought of Omnipotence to
consider that the Divine plan is achieved in preparing for that by a few
swift years in one body? In devoting eternity to our education, the
infinite Teacher surely will not put us into the highest grade of all
until we have well mastered the lessons of all the lower classes.

The philosophy of “innate ideas” is an admission of earlier lives than
the present. The intuitionalists emphatically regard the concepts of
cause, substance, time, and space as existing in the mind independent of
experience. The sensationalists consider them entirely due to our
sensations. The Spencerian evolutionalists occupy a middle ground and
call them a mental heredity resulting from the experience of the race.
It has been well shown, as Edgar Fawcett says, by two impartial critics,
that this controversy cannot be solved by any agreement of Western
psychologists. Buckle inveighs against these discordant systems as
having “thrown the study of the mind into a confusion only to be
compared to that in which the study of religion has been thrown by the
controversies of the theologians.”[5] And George Henry Lewes, in his
“History of Philosophy,” deplores this perplexing condition of
metaphysics. The solution of the problem comes, along with
reincarnation, from the eastern students, who assert that a true
conception of the soul is discovered only by the culture of
supersensuous faculties. They concede a portion of truth to both extreme
schools, declaring that the _primary_ acquisition of such ideas was
gained by sensation, but that at present they are innate in the infant
mind. They are now the generalized experience of former existences
rising again into consciousness.

The restlessness of our spirits points to ancient habits of varied
action. And a still more forcible indication is the diversity of
character in the same person. These wavering uncertainties and
contraries in each one of us, which strive for the mastery and are never
crushed even by the sternest fixity of habit—rendering the best of us
amenable to temptations, and making the strongest vacillate, may well
result from meanderings in numerous characters. The main trend of our
natures is still often distracted into old forgotten ways.

5. Reincarnation provides a complete answer to the most perplexing
problem of theology,—original sin. Properly this point belongs to the
preceding section, but its importance justifies a separate mention. The
endless controversies centering upon this question show how Christian
metaphysics have vainly wrestled with a Gordian knot which cannot
possibly be untied from the standpoint considering this life the initial
and only earthly one,—a knot which reincarnation not simply cuts, but
reveals how it was made. Between the extreme dogmas of Pelagius, who
maintained that all men are born in a state of innocence and may
therefore live without sin, and of Augustine, who held the total
depravity of mankind, arising from their transgression in Adam and their
absolute bondage to the devil, there has raged a continual warfare,
which has divided Christendom into many sects of thought on this leading
doctrine. The modern church creeds still range themselves in conflicting
battalions, following the discussions during the Reformation between
Erasmus, who denied the power of hereditary sin over free will, and
Luther, who insisted that the race is completely in the devil’s power by
nature. By far the largest part of the Christian world professedly
adheres to the latter faith,—that men are born entirely corrupt. Even
the Arminians, Quakers, and liberal denominations who admit only a germ
of sin in humanity are at a loss to account it. The ordinary theological
explanation which derives our sin from the transgression of Adam, as
apparently taught by St. Paul, although tacitly held by most of the
churches and expressed in the majority of creeds, grates so severely on
the inner consciousness and common sense that it does not answer the
real difficulty. There is a general agreement among mankind, upon which
the codes of practical life are based, that Adam’s responsibility for
our sin is only a makeshift of the theologians: for every sensible man
knows that no one but the individual himself can be blamed for his
wrong-doing. Adam is accepted as a fable for our older selves.
Dismissing all the interminable arguments of theology, which only
obscure truth in a cloud of intellectual wranglings, the broad
foundation of ethics, grounded in our best instincts, attached sin
somehow, though inexplainably, to the sinner; and the only sufficient
explanation traces its beginning to earlier lives.

The moral character of children, especially the occurrence of evil in
them long before it could have been implanted by this existence, has
forced acute observers to assume that the human spirit has made choice
of evil in a pre-natal sphere similar to this. Every one who knows
children rejects the Pelagian theory of their immaculate innocence. As
soon as they have the power to do wrong, without any teaching the wrong
is done as a natural proceeding.

The germ of sin springs up from some old sowing. But the Augustinian
doctrine is equally untrue to human nature. The most incorrigible
tendency to evil in an uninfluenced child cannot conceal the good within
it, but merely indicates that former ill habits are working themselves
out. The depraved criminal at last sees his own folly when his course of
sin is run, and becomes so weary of it that the next lease of life must
be on a better plan. So evil is discovered to be good in the making, and
vice is virtue in the strengthening.

Every person at some stage of growth awakens to the recognition of sin
within him, and is certain that it is so radical as to reach back of all
his present life, although it is surely foreign to his true nature. We
all feel ourselves to have bounded into life like a stag carrying a
panther which must be shaken off. Theology attempts to account for this
by Adam’s sin entailing a hereditary depravity. But our inmost
consciousness agrees with the common sense of mankind in holding us
alone responsible for our tendency to wrong. Remorse seizes us for the
inexplicable evil in us. The only solution is that of the parasite in
the butterfly. The insect allowed the pest to enter when it was a worm.
This blighted condition cannot be the original state of man. It must be
the result of the human will resisting the divine, and choosing wrong in
old existences beyond recollection.

A masterly expression of this thought nourished the childhood of
Christianity in the teaching of Origen,[6] and flourished with wholesome
influence until it was forcibly crushed out of popularity by the Council
of Constantinople, to make room for the harsh dogmas which have since
darkened the rationale of Christianity. It never was intelligently met
and conquered, but was summarily ousted as incompatible with the weight
of prejudice. The same treatment of it appears in Dr. Hodge’s
“Systematic Theology” (under the section on Preëxistence). That it is in
harmony with Scripture has been shown by Henry More, Soame Jenyns,
Chevalier Ramsay, and Professor Bowen, from whom quotations are given in
chapter iv., and by other writers mentioned at the close of this book.
Julius Müller,[7] Lessing,[8] Edward Beecher,[9] Coleridge, and Kant[10]
also sustain it from a religio-philosophical ground. It is the only
rational explanation of the theological idea of sin.

The same is true regarding the church’s dogma of future punishments and
rewards. A reasonable consideration fails to understand how the jump can
be made from this condition of things to an eternity of either suffering
or bliss—as ordinary theology demands. The Roman Catholics recognized
this difficulty sufficiently to provide Purgatory, and in that tenet
they meet the sense of humanity. Reincarnation simply says that there
are many purgatories, and one is earth. The more rational Protestants
get around the incongruity by permitting many grades of existence in
heaven and hell, which approaches the same solution. Reincarnation says
also, there are infinite degrees of heaven and hell, and many of them
slope down through this life. It is inconceivable how earthly natures
(and most of human souls are such) can find their penalties and their
rewards elsewhere than on some kind of earth. The scheme of the universe
presents everywhere a simple and sublime habit of keeping affinities
together, and it certainly seems as if the same economy could apply to
souls as to atoms. This idea meets better than any other the principles
that punishment for sin cannot continue longer than the sin continues,
and that the everlasting mercy of the Supreme will provide some final
release for his erring children.

6. Reincarnation explains many curious experiences. Most of us have
known the touches of feeling and thought that seem to be reminders of
forgotten things. Sometimes as dim dreams of old scenes, sometimes as
vivid lightning flashes in the darkness recalling distant occurrences,
sometimes with unutterable depth of meaning. It appears as if nature’s
opiate which ushered us here had been so diluted that it did not quite
efface the old memories, and reason struggles to decipher the vestiges
of a former state. Almost every one has felt the sense of great age.
Thinking of some unwonted subject often an impression seizes us that
somewhere, long ago, we have had these reflections before. Learning a
fact, meeting a face for the first time, we are puzzled with an obscure
sense that it is familiar. Traveling newly in strange places we are
sometimes haunted with a consciousness of having been there already.
Music is specially apt to guide us into mystic depths, where we are
startled with the flashing reminiscences of unspeakable verities which
we have felt or seen ages since. Efforts of thought reveal the
half-obliterated inscriptions on the tablets of memory, passing before
the vision in a weird procession. Every one has some such experiences.
Most of them are blurred and obscure. But some are so remarkably
distinct that those who undergo them are convinced that their sensations
are actual recollections of events and places in former lives. It is
even possible for certain persons to trace thus quite fully and clearly
a part of their bygone history prior to this life.

Sir Walter Scott was so impressed by these experiences that they led him
to a belief in preëxistence. In his diary was entered this circumstance,
February 17, 1828: “I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking
down, that yesterday, at dinner time, I was strangely haunted by what I
would call the sense of preëxistence, viz. a confused idea that nothing
that passed was said for the first time; that the same topics had been
discussed and the same persons had stated the same opinions on them....
The sensation was so strong as to resemble what is called a _mirage_ in
the desert and a calenture on board ship.... It was very distressing
yesterday, and brought to my mind the fancies of Bishop Berkeley about
an ideal world. There was a vile sense of unreality in all I said or
did.”[11] That this was not due to the strain upon his later years is
evident from the fact that the same experience is referred to in one of
his earliest novels, where this “sentiment of preëxistence” was first
described. In “Guy Mannering,” Henry Bertram says: “Why is it that some
scenes awaken thoughts which belong, as it were, to dreams of early and
shadowy recollections, such as old Brahmin moonshine would have ascribed
to a state of previous existence. How often do we find ourselves in
society which we have never before met, and yet feel impressed with a
mysterious and ill-defined consciousness that neither the scene nor the
speakers nor the subject are entirely new; nay, feel as if we could
anticipate that part of the conversation which has not yet taken place.”

Bulwer-Lytton describes it as “that strange kind of inner and spiritual
memory which often recalls to us places and persons we have never seen
before, and which Platonists would resolve to be the unquenched and
struggling consciousness of a former life.” Again, in “Godolphin”
(chapter xv.), he writes: “How strange is it that at times a feeling
comes over us as we gaze upon certain places, which associates the scene
either with some dim-remembered and dreamlike images of the Past, or
with a prophetic and fearful omen of the Future.... Every one has known
a similar strange and indistinct feeling at certain times and places,
and with a similar inability to trace the cause.”

Edgar A. Poe writes (in “Eureka”): “We walk about, amid the destinies of
our world existence, accompanied by dim but ever present memories of a
Destiny more vast—very distant in the bygone time and infinitely
awful.... We live out a youth peculiarly haunted by such dreams, yet
never mistaking them for dreams. As _memories_ we know them. During our
youth the distinctness is too clear to deceive us even for a moment. But
the doubt of manhood dispels these feelings as illusions.”

Explicit occurrences of this class are found in the narratives of
Hawthorne, Willis, Coleridge, De Quincey, and many other writers. A
striking instance appears in a little memoir of the late William Hone,
the Parodist, upon whom the experience made such a profound effect that
it roused him from thirty years of materialistic atheism to a conviction
of the soul’s independence of matter. Being called in business to a
house in a part of London entirely new to him, he kept noticing that he
had never been that way before. “I was shown,” he says, “into a room to
wait. On looking around, to my astonishment everything appeared
perfectly familiar to me: I seemed to _recognize_ every object. I said
to myself, what is this? I was never here before and yet I have seen all
this, and if so, there is a very peculiar knot in the shutter.” He
opened the shutter, and there was the knot.

The experience of many persons supports this truth. The sacred Hindu
books contain many detailed histories of transmigration. Kapila is said
to have written out the Vedas from his recollection of them in a former
life. The Vishnu Purana furnishes some entertaining instances of memory
retained through successive lives. Pythagoras is related to have
remembered his former existences in the persons of a herald named
Æthalides, Euphorbus the Trojan, Hermotimus of Clazomenæ, and others. It
is stated that he pointed out in the temple of Juno, at Argos, the
shield with which, as Euphorbus, he attacked Patroclus in the Trojan
war. The life of Apollonius of Tyana gives some extraordinary examples
of his recognitions of persons he had known in preceding lives. All
these cases are considered fictions by most people, because they
trespass the limits of historical accuracy. But there are many facts in
our own time that point in the same direction. The Druses have no doubt
that this life follows many others. A Druse boy explained his terror at
the discharge of a gun by saying, “I was born murdered;” that is, the
soul of a man who had been shot entered into his body. A scholarly
friend of the writer is satisfied that he once lived among the mountains
before his present life, for, though born in a flat country destitute of
pines, his first young entrance to a wild pine-grown mountain district
roused the deepest sense of familiarity and homelikeness. And his last
life, he thinks, was as a woman, because of certain commanding feminine
traits which continually assert themselves. And this in spite of an
apparently strong masculine nature, which never excites a suspicion of
effeminacy.

Another friend of the writer says that his only child, a little girl now
deceased, often referred to a younger sister of whom he knew nothing.
When corrected with the assurance that she had no sister, she would
reply, “Oh, yes, I have! I have a little baby sister in heaven!” The
same gentleman tells this anecdote of a neighbor’s family where the
subject of reincarnation is never mentioned. A group of children was
playing in the house at a counting game while their mother watched them.
When they reached one hundred they started again at one and climbed up
the numbers once more. The brightest boy commented on the proceeding:
“We count ten, twenty, thirty, and so on to a hundred. Then we get
through and begin all over. Mamma! That’s the way people do. They go on
and on till they come to the end, and then they begin over again. I hope
I’ll have you for a mamma again the next time I begin.” Lawrence
Oliphant gives in “Blackwood’s Magazine” for January, 1881, a remarkable
account of a child who remembered experiences of previous lives.

A writer in “Notes and Queries,” second series, vol. iv. p. 157, says,
“A gentleman of high intellectual attainments, now deceased, once told
me that he had dreamed of being in a strange city, so vividly that he
remembered the streets, houses, and public buildings as distinctly as
those of any place he ever visited. A few weeks afterward he was induced
to visit a panorama in Leicester Square, when he was startled by seeing
the city of which he had dreamed. The likeness was perfect except that
one additional church appeared in the picture. He was so struck by the
circumstance that he spoke to the exhibitor, assuming for his purpose
the air of a traveler acquainted with the place. He was informed that
the additional church was a recent erection.” It is difficult to account
for such a fact by the hypothesis of the double structure of the brain,
or by clairvoyance.

In Lord Lindsay’s description of the valley of Kadisha (“Letters,” p.
351, ed. 1847) he says: “We saw the river Kadisha descending from
Lebanon. The whole scene bore that strange and shadowy resemblance to
the wondrous landscape in ‘Kubla Khan’ that one so often feels in actual
life, when the whole scene around you appears to be reacting after a
long interval. Your friends seated in the same juxtaposition, the
subjects of conversation the same, and shifting with the same dreamlike
ease, that you remember at some remote and indefinite period of
preëxistence; you always know what will come next, and sit spellbound,
as it were, in a sort of calm expectancy.”

Dickens, in his “Pictures from Italy,” mentions this instance, on his
first sight of Ferrara: “In the foreground was a group of silent peasant
girls, leaning over the parapet of the little bridge, looking now up at
the sky, now down into the water; in the distance a deep dell; the
shadow of an approaching night on everything. If I had been murdered
there in some former life I could not have seemed to remember the place
more thoroughly, or with more emphatic chilling of the blood; and the
real remembrance of it acquired in that minute is so strengthened by the
imaginary recollection that I hardly think I could forget it.”

A passage in the story of “The Wool-gatherer” shows that James Hogg, the
author, shared the same feeling and attributed it to an earlier life on
earth. N. P. Willis wrote a story of himself as the reincarnation of an
Austrian artist, narrating how he discovered his previous personality,
in “Dashes at Life,” under the title “A Revelation of a Previous
Existence.” D. G. Rossetti does the same in his story “St. Agnes of
Intercession.”

The well-known lecturer, Eugene Ashton, recently contributed to a
Cincinnati paper these two anecdotes:—

“At a dinner party in New York, recently, a lady, who is one of New
York’s most gifted singers, said to one of the guests: ‘In some
reincarnation I hope to perfect my voice, which I feel is now only
partially developed. So long as I do not attain the highest of which my
soul is capable I shall be returned to the flesh to work out what nature
intended me to do.’ ‘But, madam, if you expect incarnations, have you
any evidence of past ones?’ ‘Of that I cannot speak positively. I can
recall dimly things which seem to have happened to me when I was in the
flesh before. Often I go to places which are new to the present
personality, but they are not new to my soul; I am sure that I have been
there before.’

“A Southern literary woman, who now lives in Brooklyn, speaking of her
former incarnations, says: ‘I am sure that I have lived in some past
time; for instance, when I was at Heidelberg, Germany, attending a
convention of Mystics, in company with some friends I paid my first
visit to the ruined Heidelberg Castle. As I approached it I was
impressed with the existence of a peculiar room in an inaccessible
portion of the building. A paper and pencil were provided me, and I drew
a diagram of the room even to its peculiar floor. My diagram and
description were perfect, when we afterwards visited the room. In some
way not yet clear to me I have been connected with that apartment. Still
another impression came to me with regard to a book, which I was made to
feel was in the old library of the Heidelberg University. I not only
knew what the book was, but even felt that a certain name of an old
German professor would be found written in it. Communicating this
feeling to one of the Mystics at the convention, a search was made for
the volume, but it was not found. Still the impression clung to me, and
another effort was made to find the book; this time we were rewarded for
our pains. Sure enough, there on the margin of one of the leaves was the
very name I had been given in such a strange manner. Other things at the
same time went to convince me that I was in possession of the soul of a
person who had known Heidelberg two or three centuries ago.’”

The writer knows a gentleman who has repeatedly felt a vivid sense of
some one striking his skull with an axe, although nothing in his own
experience or in that of his family explains it. An extraordinary person
to whom he had never hinted the matter once surprised him by saying that
his previous life was closed by murder in that very way. Another
acquaintance is sure that some time ago he was a Hindu, and recollects
several remarkable incidents of that life.

Objectors ascribe these enigmas to a jumble of associations producing a
blurred vision,—like the drunkard’s experience of seeing double, a
discordant remembrance, snatches of forgotten dreams,—or to the double
structure of the brain. In one of the lobes, they say, the thought
flashes a moment in advance of the other, and the second half of the
thinking machine regards the first impression as a memory of something
long distant.[12] But this explanation is unsatisfactory, as it fails to
account for the wonderful vividness of some of these impressions in
well-balanced minds, or the long trains of thought which come
independent of any companions, or the prophetic glimpses which
anticipate actual occurrences. Far more credible is it that each soul is
a palimpsest inscribed again and again with one story upon another, and
whenever the all-wise Author is ready to write a grander page on us He
washes off the old ink and pens his latest word. But some of us can
trace here and there letters of the former manuscript not yet effaced.

A contributor to the “Penn Monthly,” of September, 1875, refers to the
hypothesis of double mental vision as supposed to account for most of
these instances, and then concludes: “Such would be my inference as
regards ordinary cases of this sort of reminiscence, especially when
they are observed to accompany any impaired health of the organs of
mental action. But there are more extraordinary instances of this mental
phenomenon, of which I can give no explanation. Three of these have
fallen within my own range of observation. A friend’s child of about
four years old was observed by her older sister to be talking to herself
about matters of which she could not be supposed to know anything. ‘Why,
W——,’ exclaimed the older sister, ‘what do you know about that? All that
happened before you were born!’ ‘I would have you know, L——, that I grew
old in heaven before I was born.’ I do not quote this as if it explained
what the child meant it to explain, but as a curious statement from the
mouth of one too young to have ever heard of preëxistence, or to have
inferred it from any ambiguous mental experiences of her own. The second
case is that of the presence of inexplicable reminiscences, or what seem
such in dreams. As everybody knows, the stuff which dreams are
ordinarily made of is the every-day experience of life, which we cast
into new and fantastic combinations, whose laws of arrangement and
succession are still unknown to us. In the list of my acquaintances is a
young married lady, a native of Philadelphia, who is repeatedly but not
habitually carried back in her dreams to English society of the
eighteenth century, seemingly of the times of George II., and to a
social circle somewhat above that in which she now lives. Her
acquaintance with literature is not such as to give her the least clue
to the matter, and the details she furnishes are not such as would be
gathered from books of any class. The dress, especially the lofty and
elaborate headdresses of the ladies, their slow and stately minuet
dancing, the deference of the servants to their superiors, the details
of the stiff, square brick houses, in one of which she was surprised to
find a family chapel with mural paintings and a fine organ—all these she
describes with the sort of detail possible to one who has actually seen
them, and not in the fashion in which book-makers write about them. Yet
another, a more wide-awake experience, is that of a friend, who
remembers having died in youth and in India. He sees the bronzed
attendants gathered about his cradle in their white dresses; they are
fanning him. And as they gaze he passes into unconsciousness. Much of
his description concerned points of which he knew nothing from any other
source, but all was true to the life, and enabled me to fix on India as
the scene which he recalled.”

7. The strongest support of reincarnation is its happy solution of the
problem of moral inequality and injustice and evil which otherwise
overwhelms us as we survey the world. The seeming chaos is marvelously
set in order by the idea of soul-wandering. Many a sublime intellect has
been so oppressed with the topsy-turviness of things here as to cry out,
“There is no God. All is blind chance.” An exclusive view of the
miseries of mankind, the prosperity of wickedness, the struggles of the
deserving, the oppression of the masses, or, on the other hand, the
talents and successes and happiness of the fortunate few, compels one to
call the world a sham without any moral law. But that consideration
yields to a majestic satisfaction when one is assured that the present
life is only one of a grand series in which every individual is
gradually going the round of infinite experience for a glorious
outcome,—that the hedging ills of to-day are a consequence of what we
did yesterday and a step toward the great things of to-morrow. Thus the
tangled snarls of earthly phenomena are straightened out as a vast and
beautiful scheme, and the total experience of humanity forms a
magnificent tapestry of perfect poetic justice.

The crucial test of any hypothesis is whether it meets all the facts
better than any other theory. No other view so admirably accounts for
the diversity of conditions on earth, and refutes the charge of
favoritism on the part of Providence. Hierocles said, and many a
philosopher before and since has agreed with him, “Without the doctrine
of metempsychosis it is not possible to justify the ways of God.” Some
of the theologians have found the idea of preëxistence necessary to a
reasonable explanation of the world, although it is considered foreign
to the Bible. Over thirty years ago, Dr. Edward Beecher published “The
Conflict of Ages,” in which the main argument is this thought. He
demonstrates that the facts of sin and depravity compel the acceptance
of this doctrine to exonerate God from the charge of maliciousness. His
book caused a lively controversy, and was soon followed by “The Concord
of Ages,” in which he answers the objections and strengthens his
position. The same truth is taught by Dr. Julius Müller, a German
theologian of prodigious influence among the clergy. Another prominent
leader of theological thought, Dr. Dorner, sustains it.

We conclude, therefore, that reincarnation is necessitated by
immortality, that analogy teaches it, that science upholds it, that the
nature of the soul needs it, that many strange sensations support it,
and that it alone grandly solves the problem of life. The fullness of
its meaning is majestic beyond appreciation, for it shows that every
soul, from the lowest animal to the highest archangel, belongs to the
infinite family of God and is eternal in its conscious essence,
perishing only in its temporary disguises; that every act of every
creature is followed by infallible reactions which constitute a perfect
law of retribution; and that these souls are intricately interlaced with
mutual relationships. The bewildering maze thus becomes a divine
harmony. No individual stands alone, but trails with him the unfinished
sequels of an ancestral career, and is so bound up with his race that
each is responsible for all and all for each. No one can be wholly saved
until all are redeemed. Every suffering we endure apparently for faults
not our own assumes a holy light and a sublime dignity. This thought
removes the littleness of petty selfish affairs and confirms in us the
vastest hopes for mankind.

III.
OBJECTIONS TO REINCARNATION.

Man has an Eternal Father who sent him to reside and gain experience
in the animal principles.—PARACELSUS.

God, who takes millions of years to form a soul that shall understand
Him, and be blessed; who never needs to be and never is, in haste; who
welcomes the simplest thought of truth or beauty as the return for
seed he has sown upon the old fallows of eternity.—GEORGE MACDONALD.

It may be doubted whether the strangeness and improbability of this
hypothesis (preëxistence ) among ourselves arises after all from
grounds on which our philosophy has reason to congratulate itself. It
may be questioned whether, if we examine ourselves candidly, we shall
not discover that the feeling of extravagance with which it affects us
has its secret source in materialistic or semi-materialistic
prejudices.—PROFESSOR WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER’S _Lectures on Platonic
Philosophy_.

Might not the human memory be compared to a field of sepulture,
thickly stocked with the remains of many generations? But of these
thousands whose dust heaves the surface, a few only are saved from
immediate oblivion, upon tablets and urns; while the many are, at
present, utterly lost to knowledge. Nevertheless each of the dead has
left in that soul an imperishable germ; and all, without distinction,
shall another day start up, and claim their dues.—ISAAC TAYLOR.

The absence of memory of any actions done in a previous state cannot
be a conclusive argument against our having lived through it.
Forgetfulness of the past may be one of the conditions of an entrance
upon a new stage of existence. The body which is the organ of
sense-perception may be quite as much a hindrance as a help to
remembrance. In that case casual gleams of memory, giving us sudden
abrupt and momentary revelations of the past, are precisely the
phenomena we would expect to meet with. If the soul has preëxisted,
what we would _a priori_ anticipate are only some faint traces of
recollection surviving in the crypts of memory.—PROFESSOR WILLIAM
KNIGHT.

III.
OBJECTIONS TO REINCARNATION.

There are four leading objections to the idea of re-births:—

1. That we have no memory of past lives.

2. That it is unjust for us to receive now the results of forgotten
deeds enacted long ago.

3. That heredity confutes it.

4. That it is an uncongenial doctrine.

1. Why do we not remember something of our previous lives, if we have
really been through them?

The reason why there is no universal conviction from this ground seems
to be that birth is so violent as to scatter all the details and leave
only the net spiritual result. As Plotinus said, “Body is the true river
of Lethe; for souls plunged into it forget all.” The real soul life is
so distinct from the material plane that we have difficulty in retaining
many experiences of this life. Who recalls all his childhood? And has
any one a memory of that most wonderful epoch—infancy?

Nature sometimes shows us what may be the initial condition of a man’s
next life in depriving him of his life’s experience, and returning him
to a second childhood, with only the character acquired during life for
his inseparable fortune. The great and good prelate Frederick Christian
von Oetingen of Würtemberg (1702–1782) became in his old age a devout
and innocent child, after a long life of usefulness. Gradually speech
died away, until for three years he was dumb. Leaving his study, where
he had written many edifying books, and his library, whose volumes were
now sealed to him, he would go to the streets and join the children in
their plays, and spend all his time sharing their delights. The profound
scholar was stripped of his intellect and became a venerable boy,
lovable and kind as in all his busy life. He had bathed in the river of
Lethe before his time. Similar cases might be produced, where the
spirits of strong men have been divested of a lifetime’s memory in aged
infancy, seeming to be a foretaste of the next existence. They show that
the loss of a life’s details does not appear strange to nature, and that
the nepenthic waters of Styx, which the ancients represented as imbibed
by souls about to reënter earthly life to dispel recollection of former
experiences, are not wholly fabulous.

“Memory of the details of the past is absolutely impossible. The power
of the conservative faculty though relatively great is extremely
limited. We forget the larger portion of experience soon after we have
passed through it, and we should be able to recall the particulars of
our past years, filling all the missing links of consciousness since we
entered on the present life, before we were in a position to remember
our ante-natal experience. Birth must necessarily be preceded by
crossing the river of oblivion, while the capacity for fresh acquisition
survives, and the garnered wealth of old experience determines the
amount and character of the new.”[13]

But it has been shown that there are traces of former existences
lingering in some memories. These and other exceptional departures from
the general rule furnish substantial evidence that the obliteration of
previous lives from our consciousness is only apparent. Sleep,
somnambulism, trance, and similar conditions open up a world of
supersensuous reality to illustrate how erroneous are our common notions
of memory. Experimental evidence demonstrates that we actually forget
nothing, though for long lapses we are unable to recall what is stored
away in the chambers of our soul; and that the Orientals may be right in
affirming that as a man’s lives become purer he is able to look backward
upon previous stages, and at last will view the long vista of the æons
by which he has ascended to God. Many cases reveal that the reach and
clearness of memory are greatly increased during sleep and still more
greatly during somnambulent trance; so much so that the memory of some
sleepings and of most trances is sufficiently distinct from the memory
of the same individual in waking consciousness, to seem the faculty of a
different person. And, while the memory of sensuous consciousness does
not retain the facts of the trance condition, the memory of the trance
state retains and includes all the facts of the sensuous
consciousness—exemplifying the superior and unsuspected powers of our
unconscious selves. Instances are frequent illustrating how the higher
consciousness faithfully stores away experiences which are thought to be
long forgotten until some vivid touch brings them forth in accurate
order.[14] The higher recollection and the lower sometimes conduct us
through a double life. Dreams that vanish during the day are resumed at
night in an unbroken course. There is an interesting class of cases on
record in which the memory which links our successive dual states of
consciousness into a united whole is so completely wanting that in
observing only the difference between the two phases of the same person
we describe it as “alternating consciousness.” These go far toward an
empirical proof that one individual can become two distinct persons in
succession, making a practical demonstration of reincarnation. Baron Du
Prel’s “Philosophie der Mystik” cites a number of such authentic
instances, of which the following is one, given by Dr. Mitchell in
“Archiv für thierischen Magnetismus,” IV.

“Miss R—— enjoyed naturally perfect health, and reached womanhood
without any serious illness. She was talented, and gifted with a
remarkably good memory, and learned with great ease. Without any
previous warning she fell one day into a deep sleep which lasted many
hours, and on awakening she had forgotten every bit of her former
knowledge, and her memory had become a complete _tabula rasa_. She again
learned to spell, read, write, and reckon, and made rapid progress. Some
few months afterward she again fell into a similarly prolonged slumber,
from which she awoke to her former consciousness, _i. e._, in the same
state as before her first long sleep, but without the faintest
recollection of the existence or events of the intervening period. This
double existence now continued, so that in a single subject there
occurred a regular alternation of two perfectly distinct personalities,
each being unconscious of the other, and possessing only the memories
and knowledge acquired in previous corresponding states.”

More singular still are cases in which one individual becomes two
interchanging persons, of whom one is wholly unconnected with the known
history of that individual, like that narrated in Mr. Stevenson’s story
of “The Adventures of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde,” and Julian Hawthorne’s
story of “Archibald Malmaison.” The newspapers recently published an
account of a Boston clergyman, who strangely disappeared from his city,
leaving no trace of his destination. Just before going away he drew some
money from the bank, and for weeks his family and friends heard nothing
of him, though he had previously been most faithful. Soon after his
departure a stranger turned up in a Pennsylvania town and bought out a
certain store, which he conducted very industriously for some time. At
length a delirious illness seized him. One day he awoke from it and
asked his nurse, “Where am I?” “You are in ——,” she said. “How did I get
here? I belong in Boston.” “You have lived here for three months and own
Mr. ——’s store,” replied his attendant. “You are mistaken, madam; I am
the Rev. ——, pastor of the —— church in Boston.” Three months were an
absolute blank. He had no memory of anything since drawing the money at
his bank. Returning home, he there resumed the broken line of his
ministerial life and continued in that character without further
interruption.

Numerous similar cases are recorded in the annals of psychological
medicine, and justify us in assuming, according to the law of
correspondences, that some such alternation of consciousness occurs
after the great change known as death. The attempt to explain them as
mental aberrations is wholly unsuccessful. Reincarnation shows them to
be exceptions proving the rule—the recall of former activities supposed
to be forgotten. In these examples of double identity the facts of each
state disappear when the other set come forward and are resumed again in
their turn. Where did they reside meanwhile? They must have been
preserved in a subtler organ than the brain, which is only the medium of
translation from that unconscious memory to the world of
sense-perception. This must be in the supersensuous part of the soul.
This provides that, as a slow and painful training leads to unconscious
habits of skill, so the experience of life is stored up in the higher
memory, and becomes, when assimilated, the reflex acts of the following
life,—those operations which we call instinctive and hereditary.

2. The question is raised, is it just that a man should suffer for what
he is not conscious of having done?

As just as that he should _enjoy_ the results of what he does not
remember causing. It is said that justice requires that the offender be
conscious of the fault for which he is punished. But the ideas of
justice between man and man cannot be applied to the all-wise operations
of the Infinite. In human attempts at justice that method is imperative
because of our liability to mistake. God’s justice is vindicated by the
undisturbed sway of the law of causation. If _I_ suffer it must be for
what _I_ have done. The faith in Providence demands this, and it is
because of unbelief in reincarnation that the seeming negligence on the
part of Providence has obliterated the idea of a Personal God from many
minds. Nature is the arena of infallible cause and effect, and there is
no such absurdity in the universe as an effect without a responsible
cause. A man may suffer from a disease in ignorance of the conditions
under which its germs were sown in his body, but the right sequence of
cause and effect is not imperiled by his ignorance. To doubt that the
experiences we now enjoy and endure properly belong to us by our own
choice is to abandon the idea of God. How and why they have come is
explained only by reincarnation. The universal Over-Soul makes no
mistakes. By veiling our memories the Mother Heart of all, mercifully
saves us the horror and burden of knowing all the myriad steps by which
we have become what we are. We would be staggered by the sight of all
our waywardness, and what we have done well is possessed more richly in
the grand total than would be possible in the infinite details. We are
in the hands of a generous omniscient banker, who says: “I will save you
all the trouble of the accounts. Whenever you are ready to start a new
folio, I will strike the balance and turn over your net proceeds with
all accrued interests. The itemized records of your deposits and
spendings are beyond your calculation.”

3. It may be claimed that the facts of heredity bear against
reincarnation. As the physical, mental, and moral peculiarities of
children come from the parents, how can it be possible that a man is
what he makes himself—the offspring of his own previous lives?

Science is certain of the tendency of every organism to transmit its own
qualities to its descendants, and the intricate web of ancestral
influences is assumed to account for all the aberrations of individual
life. But the forces producing this result are beyond the ken of
science. The mechanical theory of germ cells multiplying their kind is
inadequate: for the germs become more complex and energetic with growth,
and exceed the limitations of molecular physics. The facts of heredity
demand the existence in nature of supersensuous forces escaping our
observation and cognizable only through their effects on the plane of
sensuous consciousness. These forces residing in the inaccessible
regions of the soul mould all individual aptitudes and faculties and
character. Reincarnation includes the facts of heredity, by showing that
the tendency of every organism to reproduce its own likeness groups
together similar causes producing similar effects, in the same lines of
physical relation. Instead of being content with the statement that
heredity causes the resemblances of child to parent, reincarnation
teaches that a similarity of ante-natal development has brought about
the similarity of embodied characteristics. The individual soul seeking
another birth finds the path of least resistance in the channels best
adapted to its qualities. The Ego selects its material body by a choice
more wise than any voluntary selection, by the inherent tendencies of
its nature, in fitness for its need, not only in the particular physique
best suited for its purpose, but in the larger physical casements of
family and nationality. The relation of child and parent is required by
the similarity of organisms. This view accounts also for the differences
invariably accompanying the resemblances. Identity of character is
impossible, and the conditions which made it easy for an individual to
be born in a certain family, because of the adaptation of circumstances
there to the expression of portions of his nature, would not prevent a
strong contrast between him and his relatives in some respects. The
facts observed in the life history of twins show that two individuals
born under precisely identical conditions, and having exactly the same
heredity, sometimes differ completely in physique, in intellect, and in
character. The birth of geniuses in humble and commonplace circumstances
furnishes abundant evidence that the individual soul outstrips all the
trammels of physical birth; and the unremarkable children of great
parents exhibit the inefficiency of merely hereditary influences. These
conspicuous violations of the laws of heredity confirm reincarnation.

4. At the first impression the idea of re-births is unwelcome, because—

a. It is interlaced with the theory of transmigration through animals;

b. It destroys the hope of recognizing friends in the coming existence;

c. It seems a cold, irreligious notion.

a. As will be fully shown in chapter xii., the conceit of a
transmigration of human souls through animal bodies, although it has
been and is cherished by most of the believers in reincarnation, is only
a gross metaphor of the germinal truth, and never was received by the
enlightened advocates of plural existences.

b. The most thoughtful adherents of a future life agree that there must
be there some subtler mode of recognition between friends than physical
appearances, for these outer signs cannot endure in the world of spirit.
The conviction that “whether there be prophecies they shall fail,
whether there be tongues they shall cease, whether there be knowledge it
shall vanish away,” but “love never faileth,” and only character shall
remain as the means of identification, is precisely the view entertained
by believers in reincarnation. The most intimate ties of this life
cannot be explained otherwise than as renewals of old intimacies, drawn
together by the spiritual gravitation of love, and enjoying often the
sense of a previous similar experience. (A further reference to this
point will be found later. See page 295.)

c. The strongest religious natures have been nourished from time
immemorial with the feeling that life is a pilgrimage through which we
tread our darkened way back to God. The Scriptures are full of it, and
the spiritual manhood of every age has found it a source of
invigoration. From Abraham, who reckoned his lifetime as “the days of
the years of his pilgrimage,” through all the phases of Christian
thought to the mightiest book of modern Christendom, “The Pilgrim’s
Progress,” this idea has been universally cherished. A typical
expression of it may be seen in the mediæval churchyard of St. Martin at
Canterbury, upon a stone over the remains of Dean Alford bearing these
words in Latin, which were inscribed by his own direction: “The inn of a
traveler journeying to Jerusalem.” Now this pilgrimage philosophy is
only a simpler phrasing of reincarnation. Our theory extends the journey
in just proportion to the supernal destination, providing many a station
by the way, wherein abiding a few days we may more profitably traverse
the upward road, gathering so much experience that there will be no
occasion to wander again. Instead of being a cold philosophic
hypothesis, reincarnation is a living unfoldment of that Christian germ,
enlarged to a fullness commensurate with the needs of men and the
character of God. It throbs with the warmth of deepest piety combined
with noblest intelligence, providing as no other supposition does, for
the grandest development of mankind.

IV.
WESTERN PROSE WRITERS ON REINCARNATION.

I seem often clearly to remember in my soul a presentiment which I
have not seen with my present, but with some other eye.—J. E. VON
SCHUBERT.

I produced the golden key of preëxistence only at a dead lift, when no
other method could satisfy me touching the ways of God, that by this
hypothesis I might keep my heart from sinking.—HENRY MORE.

The essences of our souls can never cease to be because they never
began to be, and nothing can live eternally but that which hath lived
from eternity. The essences of our souls were a breath in God before
they became living souls; they lived in God before they lived in the
created souls, and therefore the soul is a partaker of the eternity of
God.—WILLIAM LAW.

If there be no reasons to suppose that we have existed before that
period at which our existence apparently commences, then there are no
grounds for supposing that we shall continue to exist after our
existence has apparently ceased.—SHELLEY.

The ancient doctrine of transmigration seems the most rational and
most consistent with God’s wisdom and goodness; as by it all the
unequal dispensations of things so necessary in one life may be set
right in another, and all creatures serve the highest and lowest, the
most eligible and most burdensome offices of life by an equitable
rotation; by which means their rewards and punishments may not only be
proportioned to their behavior, but also carry on the business of the
universe, and thus at the same time answer the purposes both of
justice and utility.—SOAME JENYNS.

IV.
WESTERN PROSE WRITERS ON REINCARNATION.

There is a larger endorsement of reincarnation among western thinkers
than the world knows. In many of them it springs up spontaneously, while
others embrace it as a luminous ray from the East which is confirmed by
all the candid tests of philosophy. When Christianity first swept over
Europe the inner thought of its leaders was deeply tinctured with this
truth. The Church tried ineffectually to eradicate it, and in various
sects it kept sprouting forth beyond the time of Erigena and
Bonaventura, its mediæval advocates. Every great intuitional soul, as
Paracelsus, Boehme, and Swedenborg, has adhered to it. The Italian
luminaries, Giordano Bruno and Campanella, embraced it. The best of
German philosophy is enriched by it. In Schopenhauer, Lessing, Hegel,
Leibnitz, Herder, and Fichte the younger, it is earnestly advocated. The
anthropological systems of Kant and Schelling furnish points of contact
with it. The younger Helmont, in “De Revolutione Animarum,” adduces in
two hundred problems all the arguments which may be urged in favor of
the return of souls into human bodies, according to Jewish ideas. Of
English thinkers the Cambridge Platonists defended it with much learning
and acuteness, most conspicuously Henry More; and in Cudworth and Hume
it ranks as the most rational theory of immortality. Glanvil’s “Lux
Orientalis” devotes a curious treatise to it. It captivated the minds of
Fourier and Leroux. André Pezzani’s book on “The Plurality of the Soul’s
Lives” works out the system on the Roman Catholic idea of expiation.
Modern astronomy has furnished material for the elaborate speculations
of a reincarnation extending through many worlds, as published in
Fontenelle’s volume “The Plurality of Worlds,” Huygens’s “Cosmotheoros,”
Brewster’s “More Worlds than One; the Philosopher’s Faith and the
Christian’s Hope,” Jean Reynaud’s “Earth and Heaven,” Flammarion’s
“Stories of Infinity” and “The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds,” and
Figuier’s “The To-morrow of Death.” With various degrees of fancy and
probability these writers trace the soul’s progress among the heavenly
bodies. The astronomer Bode wrote that we start from the coldest planet
of our solar system and advance from planet to planet, nearer the sun,
where the most perfect beings, he thinks, will live. Emmanuel Kant, in
his “General History of Nature,” says that souls start imperfect from
the sun, and travel by planet stages, farther and farther away to a
paradise in the coldest and remotest star of our system. Between these
opposites many _savans_ have formulated other theories. In theology
reincarnation has retained a firm influence from the days of Origen and
Porphyry, through the scholastics, to the present day. In Soame Jenyns’s
works, which long thrived as the best published argument for
Christianity, it is noticeable. Chevalier Ramsay and William Law have
also written in its defense. Julius Müller warmly upholds it in his
profound work on “The Christian Doctrine of Sin,” as well as Dr. Dorner.
Another means of its dissemination through a good portion of the
ministry is Dr. Edward Beecher’s espousal of it, in the form of
preëxistence, in “The Conflict of Ages” and “The Concord of Ages.”
English and Irish bishops[15] have not hesitated to promulgate it. Henry
Ward Beecher and Phillips Brooks have dared to preach it. James Freeman
Clarke speaks strongly in its favor. Professor William Knight, the
Scotch metaphysician of St. Andrews, and Professor Francis Bowen of
Harvard University, clearly show the logical probabilities in which
reincarnation compares favorably with any other philosophy.[16]

The following extracts from the most interesting of these and other
Western authors who refer to the matter may represent the unsuspected
prevalence of this thought in our own midst.

1. Schopenhauer’s powerful philosophy includes reincarnation as one of
its main principles, as these extracts show, from his chapter on “Death”
in “The World as Will and Idea”:—[17]

“What sleep is for the individual, death is for the will [character]. It
would not endure to continue the same actions and sufferings throughout
an eternity, without true gain, if memory and individuality remained to
it. It flings them off, and this is lethe; and through this sleep of
death it reappears refreshed and fitted out with another intellect, as a
new being—‘a new day tempts to new shores.’”

“These constant new births, then, constitute the succession of the
life-dreams of a will which in itself is indestructible, until,
instructed and improved by so much and such various successive knowledge
in a constantly new form, it abolishes or abrogates itself”—[becomes in
perfect harmony with the Infinite].

“It must not be neglected that even empirical grounds support a
palingenesis of this kind. As a matter of fact, there does exist a
connection between the birth of the newly appearing beings and the death
of those that are worn out. It shows itself in the great fruitfulness of
the human race which appears as a consequence of devastating diseases.
When in the fourteenth century the Black Death had for the most part
depopulated the old world, a quite abnormal fruitfulness appeared among
the human race, and twin-births were very frequent. The circumstance was
also remarkable that none of the children born at this time obtained
their full number of teeth; thus nature, exerting itself to the utmost,
was niggardly in details. This is related by F. Schnurrer, ‘Chronik der
Seuchen,’ 1825. Casper also, ‘Ueber die Wahrscheinliche Lebensdauer des
Menschen,’ 1835, confirms the principle that the number of births in a
given population has the most decided influence upon the length of life
and mortality in it, as this always keeps pace with the mortality: so
that always and everywhere the deaths and the births increase and
decrease in like proportion; which he places beyond doubt by an
accumulation of evidence collected from many lands and their various
provinces. And yet it is impossible that there can be a _physical_
causal connection between my early death and the fruitfulness of a
marriage with which I have nothing to do, or conversely. Thus here the
metaphysical appears undeniable and in a stupendous manner as the
immediate ground of explanation of the physical. Every new-born being
comes fresh and blithe into the new existence, and enjoys it as a free
gift: but there is, and can be, nothing freely given. Its fresh
existence is paid for by the old age and death of a worn-out existence
which has perished, but which contained the indestructible seed out of
which the new existence has arisen: they are _one_ being. To show the
bridge between the two would certainly be the solution of a great
riddle.

“The great truth which is expressed here has never been entirely
unacknowledged, although it could not be reduced to the exact and
correct meaning, which is only possible through the doctrine of the
primary and metaphysical nature of the will, and the secondary, merely
organic nature of the intellect. We find the doctrine of metempsychosis,
springing from the earliest and noblest ages of the human race, always
spread abroad in the earth as the belief of the great majority of
mankind; nay, really as the teaching of all religions, with the
exception of that of the Jews and the two which have proceeded from it:
in the most subtle form however, and coming nearest to the truth in
Buddhism. Accordingly, while Christians console themselves with the
thought of meeting again in another world, in which one regains one’s
complete personality and knows one’s self at once, in those other
religions the meeting again is going on now, only incognito. In the
succession of births, and by virtue of metempsychosis or palingenesis,
the persons who now stand in close connection or contact with us will
also be born again with us at the next birth, and will have the same or
analogous relations and sentiments towards us as now, whether these are
of a friendly or a hostile description. Recognition is certainly here
limited to an obscure intimation,—a reminiscence, which cannot be
brought to distinct consciousness, and refers to an infinitely distant
time; with the exception, however, of Buddha himself, who has the
prerogative of distinctly knowing his own earlier births and those of
others,—as this is described in the ‘Jâtaka.’ But in fact, if at a
favorable moment one contemplates, in a purely objective manner, the
action of men in reality, the intuitive conviction is forced upon one
that it not only is and remains constantly the same, according to the
[Platonic] Idea, but also that the present generation, in its true inner
nature, is precisely and substantially identical with every generation
that has been before it. The question simply is, in what this true being
consists. The answer which my doctrine gives to this question is well
known. The intuitive conviction referred to may be conceived as arising
from the fact that the multiplying-glasses, time and space, lose for a
moment their effect. With reference to the universality of the belief in
metempsychosis, Obry says rightly in his excellent book ‘Du Nirvana
Indien,’ p. 13, ‘Cette vielle croyance a fait le tour du monde, et
tellement répandue dans la haute antiquité qu’un docte Anglican l’avait
jugée sans père, sans mère, et sans généalogie.’ Taught already in the
‘Vedas’ as in all the sacred books of India, metempsychosis is well
known to be the kernel of Brahmanism and Buddhism. It accordingly
prevails at the present day in the whole of non-Mohammedan Asia, thus
among more than half the whole human race, as the firmest conviction,
and with an incredibly strong practical influence. It was also the
belief of the Egyptians, from whom it was received with enthusiasm by
Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato. The Pythagoreans, however, specially
retained it. That it was also taught in the mysteries of the Greeks
undeniably follows from the ninth book of Plato’s Laws. The ‘Edda’ also,
especially in the ‘Voluspa,’ teaches metempsychosis. Not less was it the
foundation of the religion of the Druids. Even a Mohammedan sect in
Hindustan, the Bohrahs, of which Colebrooke gives a full account in the
‘Asiatic Researches,’ believes in metempsychosis, and accordingly
refrains from all animal food. Also among American Indians and negro
tribes, nay, even among the natives of Australia, traces of this belief
are found.... According to all this the belief in metempsychosis
presents itself as the natural conviction of man whenever he reflects at
all in an unprejudiced manner. It would really seem to be that which
Kant falsely asserts of his three pretended ideas of the reason, a
philosopheme natural to human reason, which proceeds from its forms; and
when it is not found it must have been displaced by positive religious
doctrines coming from a different source. I have also remarked that it
is at once obvious to every one who hears of it for the first time. Let
any one only observe how earnestly Lessing defends it in the last seven
paragraphs of his ‘Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts.’[18] Lichtenberg
also says in his ‘Selbstcharacteristik’: ‘I cannot get rid of the
thought that I died before I was born.’ Even the excessively empirical
Hume says in his skeptical essay on immortality, ‘The metempsychosis is
therefore the only system of this kind that philosophy can hearken to.’
What resists this belief is Judaism, together with the two religions
which have sprung from it, because they teach the creation of man out of
nothing, and they have the hard task of linking on to this belief an
endless existence _a parte post_. They certainly have succeeded, with
fire and sword, in driving out of Europe and part of Asia that consoling
primitive belief of mankind; it is still doubtful for how long. Yet how
difficult this was is shown by the oldest church histories. Most of the
heretics were attached to this belief; for example, Simonists,
Basilidians, Valentinians, Marcionists, Gnostics, and Manicheans. The
Jews themselves have in part fallen into it, as Tertullian and Justinus
inform us. In the Talmud it is related that Abel’s soul passed into the
body of Seth, and then into that of Moses. Even the passage of the
Bible, Matt. xvi, 13–15, only obtains a rational meaning if we
understand it as spoken under the assumption of the dogma of
metempsychosis.... In Christianity, however, the doctrine of original
sin, _i. e._, the doctrine of punishment for the sins of another
individual, has taken the place of the transmigration of souls, and the
expiation in this way of all the sins committed in an earlier life. Both
identify the existing man with one who has existed before: the
transmigration of souls does so directly, original sin indirectly.”

2. In the remarkable little treatise on “The Divine Education of the
Human Race,” by Lessing, the German philosopher, a book so sublimely
simple in its profound insight that it has had enormous influence and
was translated into English as a labor of love by the Rev. Frederick W.
Robertson, the author outlines the gradual instruction of mankind and
shows how the enlightenment is still progressing through many important
lessons. His thought mounts to a climax in suggesting the stupendous
programme by which God is developing the individual just as he has been
educating the race:—

“The very same way by which the race reaches its perfection must every
individual man—one sooner, another later—have traveled over. Have
traveled over in one and the same life? Can he have been in one and the
selfsame life a sensual Jew and a spiritual Christian? Can he in the
selfsame life have overtaken both?

“Surely not that: but why should not every individual man have existed
more than once upon this world?

“Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest?
Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the schools
had dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once?

“Why may not even I have already performed those steps of my perfecting
which bring to men only temporal punishments and rewards? And once more,
why not another time all those steps to perform which, the views of
eternal rewards so powerfully assist us?

“Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh
knowledge, fresh expertness? Do I bring away so much from once that
there is nothing to repay the trouble of coming back?

“Is this a reason against it? Or, because I forget that I have been here
already? Happy is it for me that I do forget. The recollection of my
former condition would permit me to make only a bad use of the present.
And that which even I must forget _now_, is that necessarily forgotten
forever?

“Or is it a reason against the hypothesis that so much time would have
been lost to me? Lost? And how much then should I miss? Is not a whole
eternity mine?”

3. “The Destiny of Man,” by J. G. Fichte, whose great thoughts still
heave the heart of Germany and grandly mould the world, contains these
paragraphs:

“These two systems, the purely spiritual and the sensuous,—which last
may consist of an immeasurable series of particular lives,—exist in me
from the moment when my active reason is developed, and pursue their
parallel course. The former alone gives to the latter meaning and
purpose and value. I _am_ immortal, imperishable, eternal, so soon as I
form the resolution to obey the law of reason. After an existence of
myriad lives the supersensuous world cannot be more present than at this
moment. Other conditions of my sensuous existence are to come, but these
are no more the true life than the present condition is.

“Man is not a product of the world of sense; and the end of his
existence can never be attained in that world. His destination lies
beyond time and space and all that pertains to sense.

“Mine eye discerns this eternal life and motion in all the veins of
sensible and spiritual nature, through what seems to others a dead mass.
And it sees this life forever ascend and grow and transfigure itself
into a more spiritual expression of its own nature. The sun rises and
sets, the stars vanish and return again, and all the spheres hold their
cycle dance. But they never return precisely such as they disappeared;
and in the shining fountains of life there is also life and progress.

“All death in nature is birth; and precisely in dying, the sublimation
of life appears most conspicuous. There is no death-bringing principle
in nature, for nature is only life, throughout. Not death kills, but the
more living life, which is hidden behind the old, begins and unfolds
itself. Death and birth are only the struggles of life with itself to
manifest itself in ever more transfigured form, more like itself.

“Even because Nature puts me to death she must quicken me anew. It can
only be my higher life, unfolding itself in her, before which my present
life disappears; and that which mortals call death is the visible
appearing of another vivification.”

4. Among the wealth of German geniuses, there is none more lofty and
broad than Herder, whom Jean Paul admiringly pronounced, “a Poem made by
some purest Deity,—combining the boldest freedom of philosophy
concerning nature and God with a most pious faith.” One of the most
suggestive of this master’s works is a series of “Dialogues on
Metempsychosis,” in which two friends discuss the theme together. As the
outcome of their colloquy is a stanch vindication of that hypothesis, it
is not unfair to group together a few of the paragraphs on one side of
the conversation:—

“Do you not know great and rare men who cannot have become what they are
at once, in a single human existence? who must have often existed before
in order to have attained that purity of feeling, that instinctive
impulse for all that is true, beautiful, and good, in short, that
elevation and natural supremacy over all around them?

“Do not these great characters appear, for the most part, all at once?
Like a cloud of celestial spirits, descended from on high; like men
risen from the dead born again, who brought back the old time?

“Have you never had remembrances of a former state, which you could find
no place for in this life? In that beautiful period when the soul is yet
a half-closed bud, have you not seen persons, been in places, of which
you were ready to swear that you had seen those persons, or had been in
those places before? And yet it could not have been in this life? The
most blessed moments, the grandest thoughts, are from that source. In
our more ordinary seasons, we look back with astonishment on ourselves,
we do not comprehend ourselves. And such are _we_; we who, from a
hundred causes, have sunk so deep and are so wedded to matter, that but
few reminiscences of so pure a character remain to us. The nobler class
of men who, separated from wine and meat, lived in perfect simplicity
according to the order of nature, carried it further, no doubt, than
others, as we learn from the example of Pythagoras, of Iarchas, of
Apollonius, and others, who remembered distinctly what and how many
times they had been in the world before. If we are blind, or can see but
two steps beyond our noses, ought we therefore to deny that others may
see a hundred or a thousand degrees farther, even to the bottom of time,
into the deep, cool well of the foreworld, and there discern everything
plain and bright and clear?”

To this last strain the listener responds: “I will freely confess to you
that those sweet dreams of memory are known to me also, among the
experiences of my childhood and youth. I have been in places and
circumstances of which I could have sworn that I had been in them
before. I have seen persons with whom I seemed to have lived before;
with whom I was, as it were, on the footing of an old acquaintance.” He
then attempts to explain them as returned dreams, which his interlocutor
answers with more wonderful impressions necessarily requiring a former
life.

“Have you never observed that children will sometimes, on a sudden, give
utterance to ideas which make us wonder how they got possession of them;
which presuppose a long series of other ideas and secret
self-communings; which break forth like a full stream out of the earth,
an infallible sign that the stream was not produced in a moment from a
few raindrops, but had long been flowing concealed beneath the ground,
and, it may be, had broken through many a rock, and contracted many
defilements?

“You know the law of economy which rules throughout nature. Is it not
probable that the Deity is guided by it in the propagation and progress
of human souls? He who has not become ripe in one form of humanity is
put into the experience again, and, some time or other, must be
perfected.

“I am not ashamed of my half-brothers the brutes; on the contrary, as
far as they are concerned, I am a great advocate of metempsychosis. I
believe, for a certainty, that they will ascend to a higher grade of
being, and am unable to understand how any one can object to this
hypothesis, which seems to have the analogy of the whole creation in its
favor.

“All the life of nature, all the tribes and species of animated
creation,—what are they but sparks of the Godhead, a harvest of
incarnate stars, among which the two human sexes stand forth like sun
and moon? We overshine, we dim the other figures, but, doubtless, we
lead them onward in a chorus invisible to ourselves. Oh, that an eye
were given us to trace the shining course of this divine spark; to see
how life flows to life, and ever refining, impelled through all the
veins of creation, wells up into a purer, higher life.

“And yet Pythagoras, too, spoke of a Tartarus and an Elysium. When you
stand before the statue of a high-hearted Apollo, do you not feel what
you lack of being that form? Can you ever attain to it here below,
though you should return ten times? And yet that was only the idea of an
artist—a dream which our narrow breast also inclosed. Has the almighty
Father no nobler forms for us than those in which our heart now heaves
and groans? The soul lies captive in its dungeon, bound as with a
seven-fold chain, and only through a strong grating, and only through a
pair of light and air-holes, can it breathe and see, and always it sees
the world on one side only, while there are a million other sides before
us and in us, had we but more and other senses, and could we but
exchange this narrow hut of our body for a freer prospect. That restless
discontent shall some time finally release us from our repeated sojourns
on earth, through which the Father is training us for a complete divorce
from sense life. When even at the sweetest fountains of friendship and
love, we so often pine, thirsty and sick, seeking union and finding it
not, what noble soul does not lift itself up and despise tabernacles and
wanderings in the circle of earthly deserts.

“Purification of the heart, the ennobling of the soul, with all its
propensities and cravings, this, it seems to me, is the true
palingenesis of this life, after which, I doubt not, a happy, more
exalted, but yet unknown metempsychosis awaits us.”

5. Dr. Henry More, the learned and lovable Platonist of the seventeenth
century, wrote a charming treatise on the “Immortality of the Soul,” in
which (chapter xii.) he argues for preëxistence as follows:—

“If it be good for the souls of men to be at all, the sooner they are,
the better. But we are most certain that the wisdom and goodness of God
will do that which is the best; and therefore if they can enjoy
themselves before they come to these terrestrial bodies, they must be
before they come into these bodies. For nothing hinders but that they
may live before they come into the body, as well as they may after going
out of it. Wherefore the preëxistence of souls is a necessary result of
the wisdom and goodness of God.

“Again, the face of Providence in the work seems very much to suit with
this opinion, there being not any so natural and easy account to be
given of those things that seem the most harsh in the affairs of men, as
from this hypothesis: that these souls did once subsist in some other
state; where, in several manners and degrees, they forfeited the favor
of their Creator, and so, according to that just Nemesis that He has
interwoven in the constitution of the universe and of their own natures,
they undergo several calamities and asperities of fortune and sad
drudgeries of fate, as a punishment inflicted, or a disease contracted
from the several obliquities of their _apostasy_. Which key is not only
able to unlock that recondite mystery of some particular men’s almost
fatal averseness from all religion and virtue, their stupidity and
dullness and even invincible slowness to these things from their very
childhood, and their incorrigible propension to all manner of vice; but
also of that squalid forlornness and brutish barbarity that whole
nations for many ages have lain under, and many do still lie under at
this very day: which sad scene of things must needs exceedingly cloud
and obscure the ways of Divine Providence, and make them utterly
unintelligible; unless some light be let in from the present hypothesis.

“And as this hypothesis is rational in itself, so has it also gained the
suffrage of all philosophers of all ages, of any note, that have held
the soul of man incorporeal and immortal. I shall add, for the better
countenance of the business, some few instances herein, as a pledge of
the truth of my general conclusion. Let us cast our eye, therefore, into
what corner of the world we will, that has been famous for wisdom and
literature, and the wisest of those nations you shall find the asserters
of this opinion.

“In Egypt, that ancient nurse of all hidden sciences, that this opinion
was in vogue amongst the wisest men there, the fragments of Trismegist
do sufficiently witness: of which opinion, not only the Gymnosophists,
and other wise men of Egypt, were, but also the Brachmans of India, and
the Magi of Babylon and Persia. To these you may add the abstruse
philosophy of the Jews, which they call their Cabbala, of which the
soul’s preëxistence makes a considerable part, as all the learned of the
Jews do confess.

“And if I should particularize in persons of this opinion, truly they
are such of so great fame for depth of understanding, and abstrusest
science, that their testimony alone might seem sufficient to bear down
any ordinary modest man into an assent to their doctrine. And, in the
first place, if we believe the Cabbala of the Jews, we must assign it to
Moses, the greatest philosopher certainly that ever was in the world; to
whom you may add Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicharmus, Cebes, Euripides,
Plato, Euclid, Philo, Virgil, Marcus Cicero, Plotinus, Iamblichus,
Proclus, Boethius, Pfellus, and several others, which it would be too
long to recite. And if it were fit to add fathers to philosophers, we
might enter into the same list Synesius and Origen; the latter of whom
was surely the greatest light and bulwark that ancient Christianity had.
But I have not yet ended my catalogue; that admirable physician Johannes
Fernelius is also of this persuasion, and is not to be so himself only,
but discovers those two grand-masters of medicine, Hippocrates and
Galen, to be so, too. Cardan, also, that famous philosopher of his age,
expressly concludes that the rational soul is both a distinct being from
the soul of the world, and that it does preexist before it comes into
the body; and lastly, Pomponatius, no friend to the soul’s immortality,
yet cannot but confess that the safest way to hold it is also therewith
to acknowledge her preëxistence.

“And we shall evince that Aristotle, that has the luck to be believed
more than most authors, was of the same opinion, in his treatise ‘De
Anima,’ where he says, ‘for every art must use its proper instruments,
and every soul its body.’ He speaks something more plainly in his ‘De
Generatione Animæ.’ ‘There are generated,’ saith he, ‘in the earth, and
in the moisture thereof, plants and living creatures, and in the whole
universe an animal heat; insomuch that in a manner all places are full
of souls.’ We will add a third place still more clear, out of the same
treatise, where he starts that very question of the preëxistency of
souls, of the sensitive and rational especially, and he concludes thus:
‘It remains that the rational or intellectual soul only enters from
without, as being only of a nature purely divine; with whose actions the
actions of this gross body have no communication.’ Concerning which
point he concludes like an orthodox scholar of his excellent master
Plato; to whose footsteps the closer he keeps, the less he ever wanders
from the truth. For in this very place he does plainly profess what many
would not have him so apertly guilty of, that the soul of man is
immortal, and can perform her proper functions without the help of this
terrestrial body.”

6. Sir Thomas Browne explains and defends his own heresies, by
suggesting the added heresy of reincarnation:—

“For, indeed, heresies perish not with their authors: but like the river
Arethusa, though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up
again in another. One general council is not able to extirpate one
single heresy: it may be canceled for the present: but revolution of
time and the like aspects from heaven will restore it, when it will
flourish till it be condemned again. For, as though there were a
metempsychosis, and the soul of one man passed into another, opinions do
find, after certain revolutions, men and minds like those that first
begat them. To see ourselves again, we need not look for Plato’s year;
every man is not only himself: there have been many Diogeneses, and as
many Timons, though but few of that name; men are lived over again; the
world is now as it was in ages past; there was none then, but there hath
been some one since, that parallels him, and is, as it were, his revived
self.”[19]

7. One of the rare volumes of the early eighteenth century is Chevalier
Ramsay’s remarkable work entitled “The Philosophical Principles of
Natural and Revealed Religion,” in which he elaborates the idea that
“the sacred mysteries of our holy faith are not new fictions unheard of
by the philosophers of all nations,” but that “on the contrary
Christianity is as old as the creation.” In this “History of the human
mind in all ages, nations, and religions, concerning the most divine
truths,” he shows that reincarnation is the common possession of
Christianity and of all the other great systems of sacred thought:—

“The holy oracles always represent Paradise as our native country, and
our present life as an exile. How can we be said to have been banished
from a place in which we never were? This argument alone would suffice
to convince us of preëxistence, if the prejudice of infancy inspired by
the schoolmen had not accustomed us to look upon these expressions as
metaphorical, and to believe, contrary to Scripture and to reason, that
we were exiled from a happy state, only for the fault of our first
parents. Atrocious maxim that sullies all the conduct of Providence, and
that shocks the understandings of the most intelligent children of all
nations. The answers ordinarily made to them throw into their tender
minds the seeds of a lasting incredulity.

“In Scripture, the wise man says, speaking of the eternal Logos, and his
preëxistent humanity: ‘The Lord possessed me from the beginning of his
ways, before his works of old; I was set up from everlasting, from the
beginning or ever the earth was!’ All this can be said only of the
eternal Logos. But what follows may be applied to the preëxistent
humanity of the Messiah: ‘When he prepared the heavens I was there, when
he encircled the force of the deep, when he established the clouds
above, when he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by
him, as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing
always before him, rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and my
delights were with the sons of men.’ It is visible that Solomon speaks
here of a time soon after the creation of the world, of a time when the
earth was inhabited only by a pure, innocent race. Can this be said
after the fall, when the earth was cursed? It is only a profound
ignorance of the ancient, primitive tradition of preëxistence that can
make men mistake the true sense of this sublime text.

“Our Saviour seems to approve the doctrine of pre-existence in his
answer to his disciples when they interrogate him thus about the man
born blind: ‘Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind?’[20] It is clear that this question would have been
ridiculous and impertinent, if the disciples had not believed that the
man born blind had sinned before his corporeal birth, and, consequently,
that he had preëxisted in another state. Our Saviour’s answer is
remarkable: ‘Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the
works of God should be made manifest in him!’ Jesus Christ could not
mean that neither this man nor his parents had ever sinned, for this can
be said of no mortal; but the meaning is, that it was neither for the
sins committed by this man in a state of preëxistence, nor for those of
his parents, that he was born blind, but in order to manifest one day
the power of God. Our Lord, therefore, far from blaming and redressing
this error in his disciples, answers in a way that seems to confirm them
in the doctrine of preëxistence. If he had looked upon this opinion as a
capital error, would it have been compatible with his wisdom to pass it
over so slightly, and taciturnly authorize it? On the contrary, does not
his silence indicate that he looked upon this doctrine, which was a
received maxim of the Jewish church, as the true explication of original
sin?

“St. Paul says, in speaking of the origin of mortal and physical evil,
‘By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.’[21] If all have sinned,
then all have voluntarily coöperated with Adam in the breach of the
eternal law: for where there is no deliberate act of will, there can be
no sin. The Apostle does not say that Adam’s sin was imputed to all. The
doctrine of imputation, by which God attributes Adam’s sin to his
innocent posterity, cannot be the meaning of St. Paul, for, besides that
this doctrine is incompatible with the divine perfection, the Apostle
adds: ‘For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall all be made righteous.’[22] Now it is certain
that men can only be made righteous by their personal, deliberate, and
voluntary coöperation with the spirit of grace, or the second Adam. The
Apostle assures us in the same passage that ‘all did not sin after the
similitude of Adam’s transgression.’ This sin was really committed in a
preëxistent state by the individuals of the present human race. The
meaning is that one pair gave the bad example, and all the human race
co-existent with them in Paradise soon imitated this crime of
disobedience against the eternal law, by the false love of natural
knowledge and sensible pleasure. St. Paul seems to confirm this when he
says: ‘For the children being not yet born, having neither done good nor
evil, it was said unto Rebecca, ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated.’ God’s love and hatred depend upon the moral dispositions of the
creature. Since God says that he loved Jacob and hated Esau ere they
were born, and before they had done good or evil in this mortal life, it
follows clearly that they must have preëxisted in another state. This
would have appeared to be the natural sense of the text, if prejudices
imbibed from our infancy, more or less, had not blinded the mind of
Christian doctors to the same degree as Judaical prejudices darkened
those of the ancient Pharisees.

“If it be said that these texts are obscure; that preëxistence is only
drawn from them by induction, and that this opinion is not revealed in
Scripture by express words, I answer, that the doctrines of the
immortality of the soul are nowhere revealed expressly in the sacred
oracles of the Old or New Testament, but because all their morals and
doctrines are founded upon these great truths. We may say the same of
preëxistence. The doctrine is nowhere expressly revealed, but it is
evidently supposed, as without it original sin becomes not only
inexplicable, but absurd, repugnant, and impossible.

“There is nothing in the fathers nor councils that contradicts this
doctrine; yea, while the fifth general council and all the fathers after
the sixth century condemn a false idea of preëxistence in which the
ancient tradition was adulterated by the Origenists and Priscillianists,
the true doctrine of preëxistence was not condemned by the church. This
supposes that all the individuals of the human species composed of soul
and body were created in Paradise, that they all coöperated in Adam’s
disobedience, partook of his crime, and so were justly punished. This
was the constant tradition of the Jewish church, and confirmed by the
Scriptures. This opinion of preëxistence was also very ancient in the
Christian church, ere the Origenists spoiled it with the Pythagorean and
Platonic fictions.

“It is against the impious degradation of transmigration [through animal
bodies] that the fathers declaim, and not the true Scripture doctrine of
degraded [human] intelligences. This the schoolmen confound with the
false disguises—mixtures of the pagans. This great principle is the true
key by which we can understand the meaning of several passages of
Scripture, and the sense of many sublime articles of faith. Thus only
can we shelter Christianity from the railleries of the incredulous.”

8. Among Soame Jenyns’s “Disquisitions on Several Subjects” is a
“Disquisition on a Præexistent State,” from which we quote the
following:—

“That mankind had existed in some state previous to the present was the
opinion of the wisest sages of the most remote antiquity. It was held by
the Gymnosophists of Egypt, the Brachmans of India, the Magi of Persia,
and the greatest philosophers of Greece and Rome; it was likewise
adopted by the fathers of the Christian Church, and frequently enforced
by her primitive writers. Why it has been so little noticed, so much
overlooked rather than rejected, by the divines and metaphysicians of
later ages, I am at a loss to account for, as it is undoubtedly
confirmed by reason, by all the appearances of nature, and the doctrines
of revelation.

“In the first place, then, it is confirmed by reason, which teaches us
that it is impossible that the conjunction of a male and female can
create, or bring into being, an immortal soul: they may prepare a
material habitation for it, but there must be an immaterial preëxistent
inhabitant ready to take possession. Reason assures us that an immortal
soul, which will eternally exist after the dissolution of the body, must
have eternally existed before the formation of it; for whatever has no
end can never have had any beginning, but must exist in some manner
which bears no relation to time, to us totally incomprehensible; if,
therefore, the soul will continue to exist in a future life, it must
have existed in a former. Reason likewise tells us that an omnipotent
and benevolent Creator would never have formed such a world as this, and
filled it with inhabitants, if the present was the only, or even the
first, state of their existence, a state which, if unconnected with the
past and the future, seems calculated for no one purpose intelligible to
our understandings; neither of good or evil, of happiness or misery, of
virtue or vice, of reward or punishment, but a confused jumble of them
all together, proceeding from no visible cause and tending to no end.
But, as we are certain that infinite power cannot be employed without
effect, nor infinite wisdom without design, we may rationally conclude
that this world could be designed as nothing more than a prison, in
which we are awhile confined to receive punishment for the offenses
committed in a former, and an opportunity of preparing ourselves for the
enjoyment of happiness in a future, life.

“Secondly, these conclusions of reason are sufficiently confirmed by the
force of nature and the appearance of things. This world is evidently
formed for a place of punishment as well as probation,—a prison, or
house of correction, to which we are committed, some for a longer, and
some for a shorter time; some to the severest labor, others to more
indulgent tasks; and if we consider it under this character, we shall
perceive it admirably fitted for the end for which it was intended. It
is a spacious, beautiful, and durable structure; it contains many
various apartments, a few very comfortable, many tolerable, and some
extremely wretched; it is inclosed with a fence so impassable that none
can surmount it but with the loss of life. Its inhabitants likewise
exactly resemble those of other prisons: they come in with malignant
dispositions and unruly passions, from whence, like other confined
criminals, they receive great part of their punishment by abusing and
injuring each other. As we may suppose that they have not all been
equally guilty, so they are not all equally miserable; the majority are
permitted to procure a tolerable subsistence by their labor, and pass
through their confinement without any extraordinary penalties, except
from paying their fees at their discharge by death. Others, who perhaps
stand in need of more severe chastisement, receive it by a variety of
methods, some by the most tedious pains and diseases; some by
disappointments, and many by success in their favorite pursuits; some by
being condemned to situations peculiarly unfortunate, as to those of
extreme poverty or superabundant riches, of despicable manners or
painful preëminence, of galley-slaves in a despotic, or ministers in a
free, country.

“Lastly, the opinion of preëxistence is no less confirmed by revelation
than by reason and the appearance of things; for although, perhaps, it
is nowhere in the New Testament explicitly enforced, yet throughout the
whole tenor of those writings it is everywhere implied. In them mankind
are constantly represented as coming into the world under a load of
guilt,—as condemned criminals, the children of wrath, and objects of
divine indignation, placed in it for a time by the mercies of God, to
give them an opportunity of expiating their guilt by sufferings, and
regaining by a pious and virtuous conduct their lost estate of happiness
and innocence; this is styled working out their salvation, not
preventing their condemnation, for that is already past, and their only
hope now is redemption, that is, being rescued from a state of captivity
and sin, in which they are universally involved. This is the very
essence of the Christian dispensation, and the grand principle in which
it differs from the religion of nature; in every other respect they are
nearly similar. They both enjoin the same moral duties and prohibit the
same vices; but Christianity acquaints us that we are admitted into this
life oppressed by guilt and depravity, which we must atone for by
suffering its usual calamities, and work off by acts of positive virtue,
before we can hope for happiness in another. Now, if by all this a
preëxistent state is not constantly supposed, in which this guilt was
incurred and this depravity contracted, there can be no meaning at all,
or such a meaning as contradicts every principle of common sense,—that
guilt can be contracted without acting, or that we can act without
existing. So undeniable is this inference that it renders any positive
assertion of a preëxistent state totally useless; as, if a man at the
moment of his entrance into a new country was declared a criminal, it
would surely be unnecessary to assert that he had lived in some other
before he came there.

“In all our researches into abstruse subjects there is a certain clue,
without which, the further we proceed the more we are bewildered; but
which, being fortunately discovered, leads us at once through the whole
labyrinth, puts an end to our difficulties, and opens a system perfectly
clear, consistent, and intelligible. The doctrine of preëxistence, or
the acknowledgment of some past state of disobedience, I take to be this
very clue; which, if we constantly carry along with us, we shall proceed
unembarrassed through all the intricate mysteries both of nature and
revelation, and at last arrive at so clear a prospect of the wise and
just dispensations of our Creator, as cannot fail to afford complete
satisfaction to the most inquisitive skeptic.

“Thus is a preëxistent state, I think, clearly demonstrated by the
principles of reason, the appearance of things, and the sense of
revelation; all which agree that this world is intended for a place of
punishment, as well as probation, and must therefore refer to some
former period. For as probation implies a future life, for which it is
preparatory, so punishment must imply a former state, in which offenses
were committed for which it is due; and indeed there is not a single
argument drawn from the justice of God, and the seemingly undeserved
sufferings of many in the present state, which can be urged in proof of
a future life, which proves not with superior force the existence of
another which is already past.”

9. One of the chapters in Joseph Glanvil’s “Lux Orientalis,” a treatise
attempting to demonstrate the truth of Platonic preëxistence, and
strengthened by the elaborate annotations of Dr. Henry More, is an
extension of the following—

“Seven Pillars on which the Hypothesis of Preëxistence stands.

“1. All the divine designs and actions are carried on by pure and
infinite goodness.

“2. There is an exact geometrical justice that runs through the
universe, and is interwoven in the contexture of things.

“3. Things are carried to their proper place and state by the congruity
of their natures; where this fails we may suppose some arbitrary
management.

“4. The souls of men are capable of living in other bodies besides
terrestrial; and never act but in some body or other.

“5. The soul in every state hath such a body as is fittest to those
faculties and operations that it is most inclined to exercise.

“6. The powers and faculties of the soul are either spiritual or
intellectual, or sensitive or plastic.

“7. By the same degrees that the higher powers are invigorated, the
lower are abated, as to their proper exercise.”

10. In Dowden’s “Life of Shelley” (vol. i. p. 80), the following
anecdote of the poet is quoted from his friend Hogg: “One morning we had
been reading Plato together so diligently that the usual hour of
exercise passed away unperceived. We sallied forth hastily to take the
air for half an hour before dinner. In the middle of Magdalen Bridge we
met a woman with a child in her arms. Shelley was more attentive at that
instant to our conduct in a life that was past or to come than to a
decorous regulation of his behavior according to the established usages
of society. With abrupt dexterity he caught hold of the child. The
mother, who well might fear that it was about to be thrown over the
parapet of the bridge into the sedgy waters below, held it fast by its
long train. ‘Will your baby tell us anything about preëxistence, madam?’
he asked in a piercing voice and with a wistful look. The mother made no
answer, but perceiving that Shelley’s object was not murderous, but
altogether harmless, she dismissed her apprehension and relaxed her
hold. ‘Will your baby tell us anything about preëxistence, madam?’ he
repeated, with unabated earnestness. ‘He cannot speak, sir,’ said the
mother seriously. ‘Worse, worse,’ cried Shelley with an air of
disappointment, shaking his long hair most pathetically about his young
face. ‘But surely the babe can speak if he will, for he is only a few
weeks old. He may fancy that he cannot, but it is only a silly whim. He
cannot have forgotten the use of speech in so short a time. The thing is
absolutely impossible.’ ‘It is not for me to dispute with you,
gentlemen,’ the woman meekly replied, ‘but I can safely declare I never
heard him speak, nor any child of his age.’ It was a fine placid boy. So
far from being disturbed by the interruption, he looked up and smiled.
Shelley pressed his fat cheeks with his fingers. We commended his
healthy appearance and his equanimity, and the mother was allowed to
proceed, probably to her satisfaction, for she would doubtless prefer a
less speculative nurse. Shelley sighed as we walked on. ‘How provokingly
close are these new-born babes!’ he ejaculated; ‘but it is not the less
certain, notwithstanding the cunning attempts to conceal the truth, that
all knowledge is reminiscence. The doctrine is far more ancient than the
times of Plato, and as old as the venerable allegory that the muses are
the daughters of memory; not one of the muses was ever said to be the
child of invention.’”

11. Hume’s skeptical essay on “The Immortality of the Soul” argues
thus:—

“Reasoning from the common course of nature, and without supposing any
new interposition of the supreme cause, which ought always to be
excluded from philosophy, what is incorruptible must also be
ungenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth,
and if the former existence noways concerns us, neither will the
latter....

“The metempsychosis is, therefore, the only system of this kind that
philosophy can hearken to.”

12. Southey says in his published “Letters”: “I have a strong and lively
faith in a state of continued consciousness from this stage of
existence, and that we shall recover the consciousness of some lower
stages through which we may previously have passed seems to me not
impossible....

“The system of progressive existence seems, of all others, the most
benevolent; and all that we do understand is so wise and so good, and
all we do or do not, so perfectly and overwhelmingly wonderful, that the
most benevolent system is the most probable.”

13. From a letter written by that curious genius William Blake (the
artist) to his friend John Flaxman (the sculptor):[23]—

“In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and pictures of
old which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity before my mortal life;
and these works are the delight and study of archangels.

“You, O dear Flaxman, are a sublime archangel, my friend and companion
from eternity. I look back into the regions of reminiscence and behold
our ancient days before this earth appeared and its vegetative mortality
to my mortal vegetated eyes. I see our houses of eternity which can
never be separated, though our mortal vehicles should stand at the
remotest corners of heaven from each other.”

14. In the “Fortnightly Review” for September, 1878, Professor William
Knight writes: “It seems surprising that in the discussions of
contemporary philosophy on the origin and destiny of the soul there has
been no explicit revival of the doctrines of Pre-existence and
Metempsychosis. Whatever may be their intrinsic worth or evidential
value, their title to rank on the roll of philosophical hypotheses is
undoubted. They offer quite as remarkable a solution of the mystery
which all admit as the rival theories of Creation, Traduction, and
Extinction.”

“If we reject the doctrine of Preëxistence, we must either believe in
non-existence or fall back in one or other of the two opposing theories
of Creation and Traduction; and as we reject Extinction, we may find
Preëxistence has fewer difficulties to face than the rival hypotheses.
Creation is the theory that every moment of time multitudes of souls are
simultaneously born,—not sent down from a celestial source, but freshly
made out of nothing and placed in bodies prepared for them by natural
growth. To the Platonist the theory of Traduction seemed even worse, as
it implied the derivation of the soul from at least two sources,—from
both parents,—and a substance thus derived was apparently composite and
quasi-material.

“Stripped of all extravagance and expressed in the modest terms of
probability, the theory has immense speculative interest and great
ethical value. It is much to have the puzzle of the origin of evil
thrown back for an indefinite number of cycles of lives; to have a
workable explanation of _Nemesis_, and of what we are accustomed to call
the moral tragedies and the untoward birth of a multitude of men and
women. It is much also to have the doctrine of immortality lightened of
its difficulties; to have our immediate outlook relieved by the doctrine
that in the soul’s eternity its preëxistence and its future existence
are one. The retrospect may assuredly help the prospect.”

“Whether we make use of it or not, we ought to realize its alternatives.
They are these. Either all life is extinguished and resolved through an
absorption and reassumption of the vital principle everywhere, or a
perpetual miracle goes on in the incessant and rapid increase in the
amount of spiritual existence within the universe; and while human life
survives, the intelligence and the affection of the lower animals perish
everlastingly.”

15. Professor W. A. Butler’s celebrated lectures upon “The History of
Ancient Philosophy” lean strongly toward an endorsement of Plato’s
philosophy of reincarnation:—

“It must be allowed that there is much in the hypothesis of preëxistence
(at least) which might attract a speculator busied with the endeavor to
reduce the moral system of the world under intelligible laws. The
solution which it at once furnishes of the state and fortunes of each
individual, as arising in some unknown but direct process from his own
voluntary acts, though it throws, of course, no light on the ultimate
question of the existence of moral evil (which it only removes a single
step), does yet contribute to satisfy the mind as to the equity of that
immediate manifestation of it, and of its physical attendants, which we
unhappily witness. There is internally no greater improbability that the
present may be the result of a former state now almost wholly forgotten,
than that the present should be followed by a future form of existence
in which, perhaps, or in some departments of which, the oblivion may be
as complete. And if to that future state there are already discernible
faint longings and impulses which to many men have seemed to involve a
direct proof of its reality, hopes that will not be bounded by the
grave, and desires that grasp eternity, others have found within them,
it would seem, faint intimations scarcely less impressive of the past,
as if the soul vibrated the echoes of a harmony not of this world.
Wordsworth has told us that such convictions seem to be a part, though a
neglected part, of the heritage of our race.”

16. The novelist Bulwer thus expresses his opinion of this truth:
“Eternity may be but an endless series of those migrations which men
call deaths, abandonments of home after home, even to fairer scenes and
loftier heights. Age after age the spirit may shift its tent, fated not
to rest in the dull Elysium of the heathen, but carrying with it
evermore its two elements, activity and desire.”[24]

17. Pezzani, the author of “The Plurality of the Soul’s Lives,”[25]
writes: “The earthly sojourn is only a new probation, as was said by
Dupont de Nemours, that great writer who, in the eighteenth century,
outstripped all modern thought. Now, if this be so, is it not plain that
the recollection of former lives would seriously hinder probations, by
removing most of their difficulties, and consequently of their deserts,
as well as of their spontaneity? We live in a world where free will is
all-powerful, the inviolable law of advancement and progress among men.
If past lives were remembered, the soul would know the significance and
import of the trials which are reserved for it here below: indolent and
careless, it would harden itself against the purposes of Providence, and
become paralyzed by the hopelessness of mastering them, or even, if of a
better quality and more manly, it would accept and work them out without
fail. Well, neither of these suppositions is necessary; the struggle
must be free, voluntary, safe from the influences of the past; the field
of combat must seem new, so that the athlete may exhibit and practice
his virtues upon it. The experience he has already acquired, the forces
he has learned how to conquer, serve him in the new strife; but in such
a manner that he does not suspect it, for the imperfect soul undergoes
reincarnations in order to develop the qualities that it has already
manifested, to free itself from the vices and faults which are in
opposition to the ascensional law. What would happen if all men
remembered their former lives? The order of the earth would be
overthrown; at least, it is not now established on such conditions.
Lethe, as well as free will, is a law of the actual world.”

18. One of Emerson’s earliest essays (“The Method of Nature”) contains
this paragraph: “We cannot describe the natural history of the soul, but
we know that it is divine. I cannot tell if these wonderful qualities
which house to-day in this mortal frame shall ever reassemble in equal
activity in a similar frame, or whether they have before had a natural
history like that of this body you see before you; but this one thing I
know, that these qualities did not now begin to exist, cannot be sick
with my sickness nor buried in my grave; but that they circulate through
the universe: before the world was, they were. Nothing can bar them out,
or shut them in, but they penetrate the ocean and land, space and time,
form and essence, and hold the key to universal nature.”

Again, in one of his latest works (on “Immortality”) he says: “The fable
of the Wandering Jew is agreeable to men, because they want more time
and land in which to execute their thoughts. But a higher poetic use
must be made of the legend. Take us as we are, with our experience, and
transfer us to a new planet, and let us digest for its inhabitants what
we can of the wisdom of this. After we have found our depth there, and
assimilated what we can of the new experience, transfer us to a new
scene. In each transfer we shall have acquired, by seeing them at a
distance, a new mastery of the old thoughts, in which we were too much
immersed.”[26]

19. James Freeman Clarke writes (in “Ten Great Religions,” ii. 190):
“That man has come up to his present state of development by passing
through lower forms is the popular doctrine of science to-day. What is
called evolution teaches that we have reached our present state by a
very long and gradual ascent from the lowest animal organizations. It is
true that the Darwinian theory takes no notice of the evolution of the
soul, but only of the body. But it appears to me that a combination of
the two views would remove many difficulties which still attach to the
theory of natural selection and the survival of the fittest. If we are
to believe in evolution, let us have the assistance of the soul itself
in this development of new species. Thus science and philosophy will
coöperate, nor will poetry hesitate to lend her aid.”

20. The noblest work of modern times, and probably of all time, upon
immortality, is a large volume by the Rev. William R. Alger, entitled “A
Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life.” It was published in
1860, and still remains the standard authority upon that topic
throughout Christendom. This little book is substantially indebted to
it. The author is a Unitarian minister, who devoted half his lifetime to
the work, undermining his health thereby. In the first edition (1860)
the writer characterizes reincarnation as a plausible delusion, unworthy
of credence. For fifteen years more he continued studying the subject,
and the last edition (1878) gives the final result of his ripest
investigations in heartily endorsing and advocating reincarnation. No
more striking argument for the doctrine could be advanced than this
fact. That a Christian clergyman, making the problem of the soul’s
destiny his life’s study, should become so overpowered by the force of
this pagan idea as to adopt it for the climax of his scholarship is
extremely significant. And the result is reached by such a sincere
course of reasoning that the seminaries in all denominations are
compelled to accept his book as the masterpiece. From one of the
supplemental chapters we quote the following by his permission:—

“Besides the various distinctive arguments of its own, every reason for
the resurrection holds with at least equal force for transmigration. The
argument from analogy is especially strong. It is natural to argue from
the universal spectacle of incarnated life that this is the eternal
scheme everywhere, the variety of souls finding in the variety of worlds
an everlasting series of adventures in appropriate organisms; there
being, as Paul said, one kind of flesh of birds, another of beasts,
another of men, another of angels, and so on. Our present lack of
recollection of past lives is no disproof of their actuality. Every
night we lose all knowledge of the past, but every day we reawaken to a
memory of the whole series of days and nights. So in one life we may
forget or dream, and in another recover the whole thread of experience
from the beginning.

“In every event, it must be confessed that of all the thoughtful and
refined forms of the belief in a future life none has had so extensive
and prolonged a prevalence as this. It has the vote of the majority,
having for ages on ages been held by half the human race with an
intensity of conviction almost without a parallel. Indeed, the most
striking fact about the doctrine of the repeated incarnations of the
soul, its form and experience in each successive embodiment being
determined by its merits and demerits in the preceding ones, is the
constant reappearance of that faith in all parts of the world, and its
permanent hold on certain great nations.

“Another striking fact connected with this doctrine is that it seems to
be a native and ineradicable growth of the oriental world; but appears
in the western world only in scattered instances, and rather as an
exotic form of thought. In the growing freedom and liberality of
thought, which, no less than its doubt and denial, now characterize
Christendom, it seems as if the full time had come for a greater mental
and æsthetic hospitality on the part of Christians towards Hindus. The
advocates of the resurrection should not confine their attention to the
repellant or the ludicrous aspects of metempsychosis, but do justice to
its claim and its charm.”

After reviewing and strengthening the evidences in favor of plural
births, Mr. Alger continues: “The above translation of the
ecclesiastical doctrine of the resurrection into a form scientifically
credible, and reconciled with the immemorial tenet of transmigration,
may seem to some a fanciful speculation, a mere intellectual toy.
Perhaps it is so. It is not propounded with the slightest dogmatic
animus. It is advanced solely as an illustration of what may possibly be
true, as suggested by the general evidence of the phenomena of history
and the facts of experience. The thoughts embodied in it are so
wonderful, the method of it so rational, the region of contemplation
into which it lifts the mind is so grand, the prospects it opens are of
such universal reach and import, that the study of it brings us into
full sympathy with the sublime scope of the idea of immortality, and of
a cosmopolitan vindication of Providence uncovered to every eye. It
takes us out of the littleness of petty themes and selfish affairs, and
makes it easier for us to believe in the vastest hopes mankind have ever
known. It causes the most magnificent conceptions of human destiny to
seem simply proportional to the native magnitude and beauty of the
powers of the mind which can conceive such things. After traversing the
grounds here set forth, we feel that if the view based on them be not
the truth, it must be because God has in reserve for us a sequel greater
and lovelier, not meaner, than our brightest dream hitherto.”

21. In the “Princeton Review” for May, 1881, Professor Francis Bowen (of
Harvard University) publishes a very interesting article on “Christian
Metempsychosis,” in which he urges the Christian acceptance of
reincarnation. By his consent we quote a large portion of it, because it
is so able an appeal for the adoption of this truth, from both a
metaphysical and a Christian standpoint:—

“Our life upon earth is rightly held to be a discipline and a
preparation for a higher and eternal life hereafter. But if limited to
the duration of a single mortal body, it is so brief as to seem hardly
sufficient for so grand a purpose. Threescore years and ten must surely
be an inadequate preparation for eternity. But what assurance have we
that the probation of the soul is confined within so narrow limits? Why
may it not be continued, or repeated, through a long series of
successive generations, the same personality animating one after another
an indefinite number of tenements of flesh, and carrying forward into
each the training it has received, the character it has formed, the
temper and dispositions it has indulged, in the stage of existence
immediately preceding? It need not remember its past history, even while
bearing the fruits and the consequences of that history deeply ingrained
into its present nature. How many long passages of any one life are now
completely lost to memory, though they may have contributed largely to
build up the heart and the intellect which distinguish one man from
another! Our responsibility surely is not lessened by such
forgetfulness. We are still accountable for the misuse of time, though
we have forgotten how or on what we wasted it. We are even now reaping
the bitter fruits, through enfeebled health and vitiated desires and
capacities, of many forgotten acts of self-indulgence, willfulness, and
sin—forgotten just because they were so numerous. Then a future life
even in another frail body upon this earth may well be a state of just
and fearful retribution.

“Why should it be thought incredible that the same soul should inhabit
in succession an indefinite number of mortal bodies, and thus prolong
its experience and its probation till it has become in every sense ripe
for heaven or the final judgment? Even during this one life our bodies
are perpetually changing, though by a process of decay and restoration
which is so gradual that it escapes our notice. Every human being thus
dwells successively in many bodies, even daring one short life. This
physiological fact seems to have been known by Plato, as in a well-known
passage of the Phædo, a clear statement of it is put into the mouth of
Cebes, who argues, however, that this fact affords no sufficient proof
of the immortality of the soul. ‘You may say with reason,’ Cebes is made
to argue, ‘that the soul is lasting, and the body weak and short-lived
in comparison. And every soul may be said to wear out many bodies,
especially in the course of a long life. For if, while the man is alive,
the body deliquesces and decays, and yet the soul always weaves her
garment anew and repairs the waste, then of course, when the soul
perishes, she must have on her last garment, and this only will survive
her; but then, again, when the soul is dead, the body will at last show
its native weakness and soon pass into decay.’ And again: ‘Suppose we
admit also that, after death, the souls of some are existing still, and
will exist, and will be born and die again and again, and that there is
a natural strength in the soul which will hold out and be born many
times,—for all this, we may still be inclined to think that she will be
weary in the labors of successive births, and may at last succumb in one
of her deaths and utterly perish.’[27]

“If every birth were an act of absolute creation, the introduction to
life of an entirely new creature, we might reasonably ask why different
souls are so variously constituted at the outset. We do not all start
fair in the race that is set before us, and therefore all cannot be
expected, at the close of one brief mortal pilgrimage, to reach the same
goal, and to be equally well fitted for the blessings or the penalties
of a fixed state hereafter. The commonest observation assures us that
one child is born with limited capacities and perhaps a wayward
disposition, strong passions, and a sullen temper; that he has
tendencies to evil which are almost sure to be soon developed. Another,
on the contrary, seems happily endowed from the start; he is not only
amiable, tractable, and kind, but quick-witted and precocious, a child
of many hopes. The one seems a perverse goblin, while the other has the
early promise of a Cowley or a Pascal. The differences of external
condition also are so vast and obvious that they seem to detract much
from the merit of a well-spent life and from the guilt of vice and
crime. One is so happily nurtured in a Christian home, and under so many
protecting influences, that the path of virtue lies straight and open
before him,—so plain, indeed, that even the blind could safely walk
therein; while another seems born to a heritage of misery, exposure, and
crime. The birthplace of one is in Central Africa, and of another in the
heart of civilized and Christian Europe. Where lingers eternal justice
then? How can such frightful inequalities be made to appear consistent
with the infinite wisdom and goodness of God?

“If metempsychosis is included in the scheme of the divine government of
the world, this difficulty disappears altogether. Considered from this
point of view, every one is born into the state which he has fairly
earned by his own previous history. He carries with him from one stage
of existence to another the habits or tendencies which he has formed,
the dispositions which he has indulged, the passions which he has not
chastised, but has voluntarily allowed to lead him into vice and crime.
No active interference of retributive justice is needed, except in
selecting for the place of his new birth a home with appropriate
surroundings—perhaps such a home as through his evil passions he has
made for others. The doctrine of inherited sin and its consequences is a
hard lesson to be learned. We submit with enforced resignation to the
stern decree, corroborated as it is by every day’s observation of the
ordinary course of this world’s affairs, that the iniquity of the
fathers shall be visited upon the children even to the third and fourth
generation. But no one can complain of the dispositions and endowments
which he has inherited, so to speak, from himself; that is, from his
former self in a previous stage of existence. If, for instance, he has
neglected his opportunities and fostered his lower appetites in his
childhood, if he was then wayward and self-indulgent, indolent,
deceitful, and vicious, it is right and just that, in his manhood and
old age, he should experience the bitter consequences of his youthful
follies. If he has voluntarily made himself a brute, a brute he must
remain. The child is father of the man, who often inherits from him a
sad patrimony. There is an awful meaning, if we will but take it to
heart, in the solemn announcement of the angel in the apocalyptic
vision: ‘He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is
filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be
righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still!’ And it
matters not, so far as the justice of the sentence is concerned, whether
the former self, from whom we receive this heritage, was the child who,
not many years ago, bore the same name with our present self, or one who
bore a different name, who was born in another age and perhaps another
hemisphere, and of whose sad history we have not now the faintest
remembrance. We know that our personal identity actually extends farther
back, and links together more passages of our life, than what is now
present to consciousness; though it is true that we have no direct
evidence of this continuity and sameness of being beyond what is
attested by memory. But we may have indirect evidence of it from the
testimony of others in the case of our own infancy, or from revelation,
or through reasoning from analogy and from the similarity of cases and
characters. The soul, said the Hindoos, is in the body like a bird in a
cage, or like a pilot who steers a ship, and seeks a new vessel when the
old one is worn out.

“Nothing prevents us, however, from believing that the probation of any
one soul extends continuously through a long series of successive
existences upon earth, each successive act in the whole life history
being retributive for what went before. For this is the universal law of
being, whether of matter or mind; everything changes, nothing dies in
the sense of being annihilated. What we call death is only the
resolution of a complex body into its constituent parts, nothing that is
truly one and indivisible being lost or destroyed in the process. In
combustion or any other rapid chemical change, according to the
admission of the materialists themselves, not an atom of matter is ever
generated or ever ceases to be; it only escapes from one combination to
enter upon another. Then the human soul, which, as we know from
consciousness, is absolutely one and indivisible, only passes on after
the dissolution of what was once its home to animate another body. In
this sense we can easily accept the doctrine of the resurrection of the
body. Our future life is not, at any rate not while the present
administration of this world’s affairs continues, to be some
inconceivable form of merely spiritual being. It will be clothed again
with a body, which may or may not be in part the same with the one which
it has just left. Leibnitz held that the soul is never entirely divorced
from matter, but carries on some portion of what was its earthly
covering into a subsequent stage of existence.... We can easily imagine
and believe that every person now living is a _re_presentation of some
one who lived perhaps centuries ago under another name, in another
country, it may be not with the same line of ancestry, and yet one and
the same with him in his inmost being and essential character. His
surroundings are changed; the old house of flesh has been torn down and
rebuilt; but the tenant is still the same. He has come down from some
former generation, bringing with him what may be either a help or a
hindrance; namely, the character and tendencies which he there formed
and nurtured. And herein is retribution; he has entered upon a new stage
of probation, and in it he has now to learn what the character which he
there formed naturally leads to when tried upon a new and perhaps
broader theatre. If this be not so, tell me why men are born with
characters so unlike and with tendencies so depraved. In a sense far
more literal than was intended by the poet, it may be true of every
country churchyard, that

‘Some mute inglorious Milton there may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.’

They bring with them no recollection of the incidents of their former
life, as such memory would unfit them for the new part which they have
to play. But they are still the same in the principles and modes of
conduct, in the inmost springs of action, which the forgotten incidents
of their former life have developed and strengthened. They are the same
in all the essential points which made them formerly a blessing or a
curse to all with whom they came immediately in contact, and through
which they will again become sources of weal or woe to their
environment. Of course, these inborn tendencies may be either
exaggerated or chastised by the lessons of a new experience, by the
exercise of reflection, and by habitually heeding or neglecting the
monitions of conscience. But they still exist as original tendencies,
and as such they must make either the upward or the downward path more
easy, more natural, and more likely to reach a goal so remote that it
would otherwise be unattainable.

“To make this more clear, let me refer to the pregnant distinction so
admirably illustrated by Kant between what he calls the Intelligible
Character and the Empirical or acquired Character. The former is the
primitive foundation on which the latter, which directly determines our
conduct for the time being, is built. To a great extent, though not
entirely, we are what we are through the influence of what have been our
surroundings—through our education, our companions, our habits, and our
associations. But these influences must have had a primitive basis to
work upon, and can only modify the operation of the native germs, not
change their nature; and they will modify these more or less profoundly
according as they are more or less amenable to outside influences and
manifest more or less decidedly a bias in one direction or another. What
the future plant will be depends much more on the specific nature of the
seed which is sown than on the fertility or barrenness of the soil into
which it is cast. The latter only determine whether it shall be a
vigorous plant or a weak one, whether in fact it shall grow at all or
only rot in the ground; but they do not determine the specific direction
of its development, whether it shall be an oak, a willow, or an
ivy-bush. The Empirical or acquired Character, as it is open to
observation, is a phenomenon; it is what the man _appears_ to be, or
what he has become under the shaping influence of the circumstances to
which he has been exposed. But the Intelligible Character, the inmost
kernel of his real being, is a noumenon, and escapes external
observation; we can judge of its nature only indirectly from its
effects; that is to say, from the conduct which it has coöperated to
produce. A change taking place in any substance must be the joint result
of two factors; namely, its proper cause operating upon it from without,
and the thing’s own nature or internal constitution. Thus the same
degree of heat acts very differently upon different substances, say, on
wax, iron, water, clay, or powder. In like manner, a given motive, say,
the desire of wealth, when acting on different persons, though with the
same strength or intensity, may lead to very dissimilar results; it
makes one man a thief and another a miser, renders one envious and
another energetic and industrious. If frequently indulged, it forms a
fixed habit, and thus becomes an element in the acquired or empirical
character.

“Now Kant, with the bias of a necessitarian, places our freedom and our
responsibility in the realm of noumena, attributing them exclusively to
our Intelligible Character. As to the acquired character when once
formed, he says we _must_ act in accordance with it, and therefore we
are not accountable for the particular act to which it led, since that
we could not help. After I have once formed a habit of lying or
stealing, should an opportunity and temptation recur, I _must_ repeat
the offense. But our inborn character, which expresses what we really
are, as a noumenon, lies outside of time, space, and causality, and
therefore cannot be led astray by temptation or external circumstances,
but is entirely free. Herein solely consists our merit or our guilt.
Hence Kant would make us responsible not for the particular crime, which
we could not help committing, but for being such a person as to be
capable of that crime. We are accountable not for what we do, but for
what we are. We are to be punished not for stealing this horse, but for
being a rogue, or thief in grain, for being naturally inclined to
stealing....

“I know not how it may seem to others, but to me there is something
inexpressibly consolatory and inspiring in the thought that the great
and good of other days have not finally accomplished their earthly
career, have not left us desolate, but that they are still with us, in
the flesh, though we know them not, and though in one sense they do not
really know themselves, because they have no remembrance of a former
life in which they were trained for the work which they are now doing.
But they are essentially the same beings, for they have the same
intellect and character as before, and sameness in these two respects is
all that constitutes our notion of personal identity. We are unwilling
to believe that their beneficent activity was limited to one short life
on earth, at the close of which there opened to them an eternity without
change, without farther trial or action, and seemingly having no other
purpose than unlimited enjoyment. Such a conception of immortality is
exposed to Schopenhauer’s sarcasm, that if effort and progress are
possible only in the present life, and no want or suffering can be
endured except as the penalties of sin, there remains for heaven only
the weariness of nothing to do. An eternity either of reward or
punishment would seem to be inadequately earned by one brief period of
probation. It is far more reasonable to believe that the future life
which we are taught to expect will be similar to the present one, and
will be spent in this world, though we shall carry forward to it the
burden or the blessing entailed upon us by our past career. Besides the
spiritual meaning of the doctrine of regeneration, besides the new birth
which is ‘of water and of the Spirit,’ there may be a literal meaning in
the solemn words of the Saviour, ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God.’...

“I should be sorry to believe that that remarkable group of excellent
scholars, thinkers, and divines, the Port-Royalists, who upheld the
cause of Jansenism for three quarters of a century, have finally passed
away from earth. On the contrary, if anywhere in these later times the
model of a Christian scholar and historian could be found, we might well
say that the spirit of Tillemont lives again in him. If we could find
one who united in himself all the best qualities of a Christian teacher,
stainless in heart and life, we might well believe that it was Lancelot
in another earthly form. For either Pascal or Arnauld, it must be
admitted that we should not know where to look; if their spirits are yet
in this world, they must be in the obscurity of some lowly station.[28]

“All this speculation, I repeat, is completely fanciful, and can serve
no other purpose than to show, even if the doctrine of metempsychosis
were true, that we should not be able to identify one person in any two
of his successive appearances upon earth. We surely could not know of
him in this respect any more than he knows of himself; and, as already
said, the total break in memory at the beginning of every successive
life must prevent the newly born from recognizing the oneness of his own
being with any former existence in an earthly shape.

“Curiously enough this want of self-knowledge is confessed in the only
case in which we have a direct assertion in Scripture (if language is to
be interpreted in its ordinary literal meaning and not strained into a
figurative sense), that one of the heroes of the olden time had
reappeared upon earth under a new name, as the forerunner of a new
dispensation. At the time of the Saviour there appears to have been a
general expectation among the Jews that the coming of the Messiah was to
be heralded by the reappearance upon earth of the prophet Elijah, this
expectation being founded upon the text in Malachi: ‘Behold, I will send
you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day
of the Lord.’ Early in the public ministry of John the Baptist, we read
that the belief prevailed among his hearers that this prophecy was
fulfilled in him. But when directly asked, ‘Art thou Elias?’ he replied,
‘I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.’ He had no memory
of his former life under that name; and though he must have been aware
of the popular belief upon the subject, and of the many points of
similarity between his own career and that of the great restorer of the
worship of the true God at an earlier period, he was too honest to claim
an authority which he did not positively know to belong to him.

“Yet we learn that our Lord subsequently twice declared, in very
distinct language, that Elijah and John the Baptist were really one and
the same person. Once, while John was still alive but in prison, Jesus
told the multitude who thronged around him, ‘Among them that are born of
women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist;’ and he
directly goes on to assert, ‘If ye will receive it, _this is Elias_,
which was for to come.’ (Matt. xi. 14.) And again, after John was
beheaded, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Elias is come already and they
knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.’ ‘Then the
disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.’
(Matt. xvii. 12, 13.) Still again, in the scene on the mount of
Transfiguration. ‘Behold there talked with him two men, which were Moses
and Elias;’ and it is said of the three disciples who were then in
company with Jesus that, ‘When they were awake, they saw his glory and
the two men that stood with him.’ (Luke ix. 30, 32.) That the
commentators have not been willing to receive, in their obvious and
literal meaning, assertions so direct and so frequently repeated as
these, but have attempted to explain them away in a non-natural and
metaphorical sense, is a fact which proves nothing but the existence of
an invincible prejudice against the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls....

“Assuming the doctrine to be well founded, it is for every person to
determine with what character he will leave the world at the close of
one stage of his earthly being, believing that with this same character
thus trained for weal or woe he is inevitably at once to begin a new
life, and thus either to rise or fall farther than ever. It seems to me
that the dogma of a future life, so prolonged through a countless
succession of other lives on earth until it becomes an immortality, is
thus brought home to one with a force, a vividness and certainty, of
which in no other form it is susceptible. It has been said that no
prudent man, if the election were offered to him, would choose to live
his present live over again; and as he whom the world calls _prudent_
does not usually cherish any lofty aspirations, the saying is probably
true. We are all so conscious of the many errors and sins that we have
committed that the retrospect is a saddening one; and worldly wisdom
would probably whisper, ‘It is best to stop here, and not try such a
career over again.’ But every one would ardently desire a renewal of his
earthly experience if assured that he could enter upon it under better
auspices, if he believed that what we call death is not the end of all
things even here below, but that the soul is then standing upon the
threshold of a new stage of earthly existence, which is to be brighter
or darker than the one it is just quitting, according as there is
carried forward into it a higher or lower purpose....

“This doctrine also suggests, as it seems to me, a clearer and more
satisfactory explanation than would otherwise be possible of the fall of
man through disobedience and its consequences, as narrated in Genesis
and interpreted by St. Paul. Certainly the primeval man, the Adam of
each one of us, when he first through the inspiration of Deity ‘became a
living soul,’ was born into a paradise, an Eden, of entire purity and
innocence, and in that state he talked directly with God. There was also
given to him through his conscience the revelation of a divine law, an
absolute command, to preserve this blessed state through restraining his
appetites and lower impulses to action, and making the love of holiness
superior even to the love of knowledge. But man was tempted by his
appetites to transgress this law; he aspired after a knowledge of good
and evil, which can be attained only through experience of evil, and he
thereby fell from innocence into a state of sin, which necessarily
corrupted his whole future being. The habit of disobedience once formed,
sin in the same person has a self-continuing and self-multiplying power.
The stain carried down from a former life becomes darker and more
inveterate in the life that follows. We have no reason to complain of
the corruption of human nature, for the world is what we have made it to
be by our own act. The burden has not been transmitted to us by others,
but has been inherited from ourselves; that is, from our former selves.
Redemption from it by man’s own effort thus became impossible. This is
death, moral death, the only death of which a human soul is capable.

“Thus far we have considered metempsychosis as a means of retribution;
that is, of awarding to each soul in the next future life upon which it
is entering that compensation either of weal or woe which it has earned
for itself,—has in fact necessarily entailed upon itself by its conduct
in the life which it has just completed. But the transmigration of souls
may be regarded also in another light, as that portion of the divine
government of this world’s affairs which maintains distributive justice,
since, through its agency, in the long run, all inequalities of
condition and favoring or unfavoring circumstances may be compensated,
and each person may have his or her equitable share of opportunities for
good and of the requisite means for discipline and improvement. If our
view be confined within the limits of a single earthly life, it must be
confessed that the inequality is glaring enough, so that it seems to
justify the honest doubts of the trembling inquirer, while it has
offered a broad mark for the scoffs and declamation of the confirmed
unbeliever.

“This hypothesis—and I do not claim for it any other character than that
of a highly probable and consolatory hypothesis—also throws a new and
welcome light upon the deep and dark problem of the origin of evil. In
the first place, according to the views which have now been taken, the
sufferings which are the immediate consequence and punishment of sin are
properly left out of the account, since these evince the goodness of God
no less than the happiness resulting from virtue, the purpose in both
cases being to advance man’s highest interests by the improvement of his
moral character; just as the affectionate parent rewards the obedience
and punishes the faults of his child, love equally constraining him to
adopt either course. And how many of the evils borne both by individuals
and by communities are attributable directly to their own misconduct, to
their willful disregard of the monitions of conscience! The body which
is now languid from inaction through sloth, and enfeebled or racked by
disease, might have been active, vigorous, and sound, prompt to second
every wish of its owner, and ministering to his enjoyment through every
sense and limb. And could we know all, could we extend our vision over
the whole history of our former self, how would our estimate of this
purely retributive character of our present suffering be enlarged and
confirmed! It would then be evident that no portion of it is gratuitous
or purposeless. And the community which is now torn with civil
dissension, desolated by war, or prostrated in an unequal strife with
its rivals, might have been peaceful, affluent, and flourishing, if
rulers and ruled had heeded the stern calls of duty, instead of blindly
following their own tumultuous passions. And as nations, too, have a
continuous life, like that of a river, through a constant change of
their constituent parts, many of their woes are clearly attributable to
the misdeeds of their former selves. Once admit the great truth that
virtue, not happiness, is man’s highest interest, and most of the pains
of this life indicate the goodness and justice of God quite as much as
its pleasures.

“But according to the theory which we are now considering, a still
larger deduction must be made from the amount of apparent evil at any
one time visible in the world. All the inequalities in the lot of
mankind, which have prompted what are perhaps the bitterest of all
complaints, and have served skeptics like Hume and J. S. Mill as a
reason for the darkest imputations upon divine justice in the government
of the world, disappear from the picture altogether. Excepting only what
we have just considered, the retributive consequences of more or less
sin, there are no inequalities. All start from the same point, and
journey through the same vicissitudes of existence, exhausting sooner or
later all varieties of condition. Prince and peasant, bond and free,
barbarian and cultured, all share alike whatever weal or woe there is in
the world, because all must at some future time change places with each
other. But after these two large deductions from the amount complained
of, what remains? Very little, certainly, which we cannot even now see
through; that is, which we cannot assign an adequate reason for; and to
the eye of faith nothing remains. The world becomes a mirror which
reflects without blot or shadow the infinite goodness of its Creator and
Governor. Death remains; but that is no evil, for what we call death is
only the introduction to another life on earth, and if this be not a
higher and better life than the one just ended, it is our own fault. Our
life is really continuous, and the fact that the subsequent stages of it
lie beyond our present range of immediate vision is of no more
importance, and no more an evil, than the corresponding fact that we do
not now remember our previous existence in antecedent ages. Death alone,
or in itself considered, apart from the antecedent dread of it which is
irrational, and apart from the injury to the feelings of the survivors,
which is a necessary consequence of that attachment to each other from
which, so much of our happiness springs, is not even an apparent evil;
it is mere change and development, like the passage from the embryonic
to the adult condition, from the blossom to the fruit.”

22. In “Ways of the Spirit, and other Essays,” by Professor Frederick
Henry Hedge, the twelfth chapter, upon “The Human Soul,” strongly
advocates reincarnation. By the publishers’ consent we reprint the pages
referring to it:—

“We reach back with our recollection and find no beginning of existence.
Who of us knows anything except by report of the first two years of
earthly life? No one remembers the time when he first said ‘I,’ or
thought ‘I.’ We began to exist for others before we began to exist for
ourselves. Our experience is not co-extensive with our being, and memory
does not comprehend it. We bear not the root, but the root us.

“What is the root? We call it soul. _Our_ soul, we call it; properly
speaking, it is not ours, but we are its. It is not a part of us, but we
are a part of it. It is not one article in an inventory of articles
which together make up our individuality, but the root of that
individuality. It is larger than we are, and other than we are—that is,
than our conscious self. The conscious self does not begin until some
time after the birth of the individual. It is not aboriginal, but a
product,—as it were, the blossoming of an individuality. We may suppose
countless souls which never bear this product, which never blossom into
self. And the soul which does so blossom exists before that blossom
unfolds.

“How long before, it is impossible to say; whether the birth, for
example, of a human individual is the soul’s beginning to be; whether a
new soul is furnished to each new body, or the body given to a
preexisting soul. It is a question on which theology throws no light,
and which psychology but faintly illustrates. But so far as that faint
illustration reaches it favors the supposition of preëxistence. That
supposition seems best to match the supposed continued existence of the
soul hereafter. Whatever had a beginning in time, it should seem must
end in time. The eternal destination which faith ascribes to the soul
presupposes an eternal origin. On the other hand, if the preëxistence of
the soul were assured it would carry the assurance of immortality.

An obvious objection, and one often urged against this hypothesis, is
the absence of any recollection of a previous life. If the soul existed
before its union with this present organization, why does it never
recall any circumstance, scene, or experience of its former state? There
have been those who professed to remember a past existence; but without
regarding those pretended reminiscences, or regarding them only as
illusions, I answer that the previous existence may not have been a
conscious existence. In that case there would have been no recorded
experience, and consequently nothing to recall. But suppose a conscious
existence antecedent to the present, the soul could not preserve the
record of a former organization. The new organization with its new
entries must necessarily efface the record of the old. For memory
depends on the continuity of association. When the thread of that
continuity is broken, the knowledge of the past is gone. If, in a state
of unconsciousness, one were taken entirely out of his present
surroundings; if falling asleep in one set of circumstances, like
Christopher Sly in that play, he were to wake in another, were to wake
to entirely new conditions; especially if during that sleep his body
were to undergo a change,—he would lose on waking all knowledge of the
former life for want of a connecting link between it and the new. And
this, according to the supposition, is precisely what has happened to
the soul at birth. The birth into the present was the death of the
old,—‘a sleep and a forgetting.’ The soul went to sleep in one body, it
woke in a new. The sleep is a gulf of oblivion between the two.

And a happy thing, if the soul preëxisted, it is for us that we remember
nothing of its former life. The memory of a past existence would be a
drag on the present, engrossing our attention much to the prejudice of
this life’s interests and claims. The backward-looking soul would dwell
in the past instead of the present, and miss the best uses of life.

But though on the supposition of a former existence the soul would not
be likely to preserve the record of that existence, it would
nevertheless retain the effect. It would not, on assuming its present
conditions, be as though it had never before been. Its past experience
would essentially modify it; it would take a character from its former
state. If a moral and intellectual being, it would bring into the world
of its present destination certain tendencies and dispositions, the
growth of a previous life. And thus the moral law and the moral nature
of the soul would assert themselves with retributions transcending the
limits of a single existence, and reaching on from life to life of the
pilgrim soul.

It is commonly conceded that there are native differences of character
in men,—different propensities, tempers, not wholly explained by
difference of circumstances or education. They show themselves where
circumstances and education have been the same; they seem to be innate.
These are sometimes ascribed to organization. But organization is not
final. That, again, requires to be explained. According to my thinking,
it is the soul that makes organization, not organization the soul. The
supposition of a previous existence would best explain these differences
as something carried over from life to life,—the harvest of seed that
was sown in other states, and whose fruit remains, although the sowing
is remembered no more.

“This was the theory of the most learned and acute of the Christian
Fathers (Origen), and though never adopted and sanctioned by the church,
has been occasionally revived in later time. Of all the theories
respecting the origin of the soul it seems to me the most plausible, and
therefore the one most likely to throw light on the question of a life
to come.”

V.
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION IN WESTERN LITERATURE.

Poets, the first instructors of mankind.—HORACE.

Poets are the truest diviners of nature.—BULWER-LYTTON.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves
understand.—PLATO.

Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration
should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead.—EMERSON.

We call those poets who are first to mark
Through earth’s dull mist the coming of the dawn,
Who see in twilight’s gloom the first pale spark
While others only note that day is gone.
HOLMES.

O brave poets, keep back nothing,
Nor mix falsehood with the whole.
Look up Godward! Speak the truth in
Worthy song from earnest soul!
Hold, in high poetic duty
Truest Truth, the fairest beauty.
MRS. BROWNING.

The spirit of the Poets came at morn
To Sinai, summoned by the Lord’s command,
Singers and Seers; those born and those unborn
The chosen souls of men, a solemn band.

The noble army ranged, in viewless might
Around that mountain peak which pierces heaven;
Greater and lesser teachers, sons of light,
Their number was ten thousand score and seven.

Then Allah took a covenant with his own,
Saying, “My wisdom and my word receive.
Speak of me unto men, known or unknown,
Heard or unheard: bid such as will believe.”

“Bear witness then,” spake Allah, “souls most dear,
I am your Lord, and ye heralds of mine.”
Thenceforward through all lands his Poets bear
The message of the mystery divine.
EDWIN ARNOLD.

V.
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION IN WESTERN LITERATURE.

The poets are the seers of the race. Their best work comes from the
intuitional heights where they dwell, conveying truths beyond reason,
not understood even by themselves, but merely transmitted through them.
They are the few tall pines towering above the common forest to an
extraordinary exaltation, where they catch the earliest and latest
sunbeams which prolong their day far beyond the limits below, and
penetrating into the rare upper currents whose whisperings seldom
descend to the crowd.

However diverse the forms of their expression, the heart of it is
thoroughly harmonious. They are always prophets voicing a divine message
received in the mount, and in these modern days they are almost the only
prophets we have. Therefore it is not a mere pleasantry to collect their
testimony upon an unusual theme. When it is found that, though working
independently, they are in deep accord upon reincarnation, the
inevitable conclusion is that their common inspiration means
something—namely, that their gospel is worth receiving.

It may be objected that these poems are merely dreamy effusions along
the same line of lunacy, with no real attachment to the solid
foundations upon which all wholesome poetry is based; that they are
kinks in the intellects of genius displaying the weakness of men
otherwise strong. But so universal a feeling cannot be disposed of in
that way, especially when it is found to contribute to the solution of
life’s mystery. All the poets believe in immortality, though unaided
reason and observation cannot demonstrate it. Some inexperienced people
deride the fact that nearly all poetry centres upon the theme of
Love—the most illogical and airy of sentiments. But the deepest sense of
the world is nourished by the certainty of these “vague” truths. So the
presence of reincarnation in the creed of the poets may give us courage
to confide in our own impressions, for “all men are poets at heart.”
What they have dared publish we may venture to believe and will find a
source of strength.

It is well known that the idea of reincarnation abounds in oriental
poetry. But as our purpose is to demonstrate the prevalence of the same
thought among our own poets, most of whom are wholly independent of
eastern influence, we shall here confine our attention to the
spontaneous utterances of American and European poets. We shall find
that the great majority of the highest occidental poets lean toward this
thought, and many of them unhesitatingly avow it. For convenience we
divide our study into four parts, comprising forty-two authors.

Part I. American Poets, (twelve.)

II. British Poets, (seventeen.)

III. Continental Poets, (six.)

IV. Platonic Poets, (seven.)

PART I. AMERICAN POETRY.

PREËXISTENCE.

BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

While sauntering through the crowded street
Some half-remembered face I meet,
Albeit upon no mortal shore
That face, methinks, hath smiled before.
Lost in a gay and festal throng
I tremble at some tender song
Set to an air whose golden bars
I must have heard in other stars.
In sacred aisles I pause to share
The blessing of a priestly prayer,
When the whole scene which greets mine eyes
In some strange mode I recognize,
As one whose every mystic part
I feel prefigured in my heart.
At sunset as I calmly stand
A stranger on an alien strand
Familiar as my childhood’s home
Seems the long stretch of wave and foam.
A ship sails toward me o’er the bay
And what she comes to do and say
I can foretell. A prescient lore
Springs from some life outlived of yore.
O swift, instructive, startling gleams
Of deep soul-knowledge: not as dreams
For aye ye vaguely dawn and die,
But oft with lightning certainty
Pierce through the dark oblivious brain
To make old thoughts and memories plain:
Thoughts which perchance must travel back
Across the wild bewildering track
Of countless æons; memories far
High reaching as yon pallid star,
Unknown, scarce seen, whose flickering grace
Faints on the outmost rings of space.

A MYSTERY.

BY J. G. WHITTIER.

The river hemmed with leaving trees
Wound through the meadows green,
A low blue line of mountain showed
The open pines between.

One sharp tall peak above them all
Clear into sunlight sprang,
I saw the river of my dreams,
The mountain that I sang.

No clue of memory led me on,
But well the ways I knew,
A feeling of familiar things
With every footstep grew.

Yet ne’er before that river’s rim
Was pressed by feet of mine,
Never before mine eyes had crossed
That broken mountain line.

A presence strange at once and known
Walked with me as my guide,
The skirts of some forgotten life
Trailed noiseless at my side.

Was it a dim-remembered dream
Or glimpse through æons old?
The secret which the mountains kept
The river never told.

THE METEMPSYCHOSIS OF THE PINE.

BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

As when the haze of some wan moonlight makes
Familiar fields a land of mystery,
Where, chill and strange, a ghostly presence wakes
In flower or bush or tree,

Another life, the life of day o’erwhelms,
The past from present consciousness takes hue
As we remember vast and cloudy realms
Our feet have wandered through:

So, oft, some moonlight of the mind makes dumb
The stir of outer thought: wide open seems
The gate where through strange sympathies have come
The secret of our dreams:

The source of fine impressions, shooting deep
Below the falling plummet of the sense
Which strike beyond all Time and backward sweep
Through all intelligence.

We touch the lower life of beast and clod
And the long progress of the ages see
From blind old Chaos, ere the breath of God
Moved it to harmony.

All outward vision yields to that within
Whereof nor creed nor canon holds the key;
We only feel that we have ever been
And evermore shall be.

And thus I know, by memories unfurled
In rarer moods, and many a nameless sign
That once in Time and somewhere in the world
I was a towering pine.

Rooted upon a cape that once o’erhung
The entrance to a mountain gorge
The wintry shadow of a peak was flung
Long after rise of sun.

There did I clutch the granite with firm feet,
There shake my boughs above the roaring gulf,
When mountain whirlwinds through the passes beat
And howled the mountain wolf.

· · · · ·

Some blind harmonic instinct pierced the rind
Of that slow life which made me straight and high,
And I became a harp for every wind,
A voice for every sky.

And thus for centuries my rhythmic chant
Rolled down the gorge or surged about the hill,
Gentle or stern or sad or jubilant,
At every season’s will.

No longer memory whispers whence arose
The doom that tore me from my place of pride,
Whether by storms that load the peak with snows,
Or hands of men I died.

All sense departed with the boughs I wore,
And though I moved with mighty gales at strife
A mast upon the seas, I sang no more,
And music was my life.

Yet still that life awakens, brings again
Its airy anthems, resonant and long,
Till earth and sky transfigured fill my brain
With rhythmic sweeps of song.

Thence am I made a poet; thence are sprung
Those shadowy motions of the soul that reach
Beyond all grasp of art,—for which the soul
Is ignorant of speech.

And if some wild full-gathered harmony
Rolls its unbroken music through my line,
There lives and murmurs, faintly though it be,
The spirit of the pine.

THE POET IN THE EAST.

BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

The poet came to the land of the East
When spring was in the air,
The East was dressed for a wedding feast
So young she seemed and fair,
And the poet knew the land of the East
His soul was native there.

All things to him were the visible forms
Of early and precious dreams,
Familiar visions that mocked his quest
Beside the western streams,
Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds unrolled
In the sunset’s dying beams.

THE METEMPSYCHOSIS.

BY T. B. ALDRICH.

I know my own creation was divine.
Strewn on the breezy continents I see
The veinéd shells and burnished scales which once
Enclosed my being,—husks that had their use;
I brood on all the shapes I must attain
Before I reach the Perfect, which is God,
And dream my dream, and let the rabble go;
For I am of the mountains and the sea,
The deserts, and the caverns in the earth,
The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.
I was a spirit on the mountain-tops,
A perfume in the valleys, a simoom
On arid deserts, a nomadic wind
Roaming the universe, a tireless Voice.
I was ere Romulus and Remus were;
I was ere Nineveh and Babylon;
I was, and am, and evermore shall be,
Progressing, never reaching to the end.
A hundred years I trembled in the grass,
The delicate trefoil that muffled warm
A slope on Ida; for a hundred years
Moved in the purple gyre of those dark flowers
The Grecian women strew upon the dead.
Under the earth, in fragrant glooms, I dwelt;
Then in the veins and sinews of a pine
On a lone isle, where, from the Cyclades,
A mighty wind, like a leviathan,
Ploughed through the brine, and from those solitudes
Sent Silence, frightened. To and fro I swayed,
Drawing the sunshine from the stooping clouds.
Suns came and went, and many a mystic moon,
Orbing and waning, and fierce meteors,
Leaving their lurid ghosts to haunt the night.
I heard loud voices by the sounding shore,
The stormy sea-gods, and from fluted conchs
Wild music, and strange shadows floated by,
Some moaning and some singing. So the years
Clustered about me, till the hand of God
Let down the lightning from a sultry sky,
Splintered the pine and split the iron rock;
And from my odorous prison-house a bird,
I in its bosom, darted: so we flew,
Turning the brittle edge of one high wave,
Island and tree and sea-gods left behind!
Free as the air from zone to zone I flew,
Far from the tumult to the quiet gates
Of daybreak; and beneath me I beheld
Vineyards, and rivers that like silver threads
Ran through the green and gold of pasture-lands,
And here and there a hamlet, a white rose,
And here and there a city, whose slim spires
And palace-roofs and swollen domes uprose
Like scintillant stalagmites in the sun;
I saw huge navies battling with a storm
By ragged reefs along the desolate coasts,—
And lazy merchantmen, that crawled, like flies,
Over the blue enamel of the sea
To India or the icy Labradors.
A century was as a single day.
What is a day to an immortal soul?
A breath, no more. And yet I hold one hour
Beyond all price,—that hour when from the sky
I circled near and nearer to the earth,
Nearer and nearer, till I brushed my wings
Against the pointed chestnuts, where a stream,
That foamed and chattered over pebbly shoals,
Fled through the briony, and with a shout
Leapt headlong down a precipice; and there,
Gathering wild-flowers in the cool ravine,
Wandered a woman more divinely shaped
Than any of the creatures of the air,
Or river-goddesses, or restless shades
Of noble matrons marvellous in their time
For beauty and great suffering; and I sung,
I charmed her thought, I gave her dreams, and then
Down from the dewy atmosphere I stole
And nestled in her bosom. There I slept
From moon to moon, while in her eyes a thought
Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn—
A mystical forewarning! When the stream,
Breaking through leafless brambles and dead leaves,
Piped shriller treble, and from chestnut-boughs
The fruit dropt noiseless through the autumn night,
I gave a quick, low cry, as infants do:
We weep when we are born, not when we die!
So was it destined; and thus came I here,
To walk the earth and wear the form of Man,
To suffer bravely as becomes my state,
One step, one grade, one cycle nearer God.

IDENTITY.

BY T. B. ALDRICH.

Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space—
In twilight-land,—in no-man’s land,
Two hurrying shapes met face to face
And bade each other stand.

“And who are you?” cried one agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light.
“I know not,” said the other shape,
“I only died last night.”

ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO.

BY CHARLES G. LELAND.

Thou and I in spirit land
One thousand years ago,
Watched the waves beat on the strand,
Ceaseless ebb and flow,
Vowed to love and ever love,
One thousand years ago.

Thou and I in greenwood shade
Nine hundred years ago
Heard the wild dove in the glade
Murmuring soft and low,
Vowed to love for evermore
Nine hundred years ago.

Thou and I in yonder star
Eight hundred years ago
Saw strange forms of light afar
In wildest beauty glow.
All things change, but love endures
Now as long ago.

Thou and I in Norman halls
Seven hundred years ago
Heard the warden on the walls
Loud his trumpets blow,
“Ton amors sera tojors,”
Seven hundred years ago.

Thou and I in Germany,
Six hundred years ago.
Then I bound the red cross on,
“True love, I must go,
But we part to meet again
In the endless flow.”

Thou and I in Syrian plains
Five hundred years ago
Felt the wild fire in our veins
To a fever glow.
All things die, but love lives on
Now as long ago.

Thou and I in shadow land
Four hundred years ago
Saw strange flowers bloom on the strand,
Heard strange breezes blow.
In the ideal, love is real,
This alone I know.

Thou and I in Italy
Three hundred years ago
Lived in faith and died for God,
Felt the fagots glow,
Ever new and ever true,
Three hundred years ago.

Thou and I on Southern seas
Two hundred years ago
Felt the perfumed even-breeze,
Spoke in Spanish by the trees,
Had no care or woe.
Life went dreamily in song,
Two hundred years ago.

Thou and I ’mid Northern snows
One hundred years ago
Led an iron silent life
And were glad to flow
Onward into changing death,
One hundred years ago.

Thou and I but yesterday
Met in fashion’s show.
Love, did you remember me,
Love of long ago?
Yes: we kept the fond oath sworn
One thousand years ago.

THE FINAL THOUGHT.

BY MAURICE THOMPSON.

What is the grandest thought
Toward which the soul has wrought?
Has it the spirit form,
And the power of a storm?
Comes it of prophecy
(That borrows light of uncreated fires)
Or of transmitted strains of memory
Sent down through countless sires?

· · · · ·

Which way are my feet set?
Through infinite changes yet
Shall I go on,
Nearer and nearer drawn
To thee,
God of eternity?
How shall the Human grow,
By changes fine and slow,
To thy perfection from the life-dawn sought?
What is the highest thought?

Ah! these dim memories,
Of when thy voice spake lovingly to me,
Under the Eden trees,
Saying, “Lord of all creation thou shalt be,”—
How they haunt me and elude—
How they hover, how they brood
On the horizon, fading yet dying not!
What is the final thought?

What if I once did dwell
In the lowest dust germ-cell,
A faint fore-hint of life called forth of God,
Waxing and struggling on,
Through the long flickering dawn,
The awful while His feet earth’s bosom trod?
What if He shaped me so,
And caused my life to blow
Into the full soul-flower in Eden-air?
Lo! now I am not good,
And I stand in solitude,
Calling to Him (and yet He answers not):
What is the final thought?

What myriads of years up from the germ!
What countless ages back from man to worm!
And yet from man to God,—oh, help me now!
A cold despair is beading on my brow!
I may see Him, and seeing know Him not!
What is the highest thought?

· · · · ·

So comes, at last,
The answer from the Vast....
Not so, there is a rush of wings—
Earth feels the presence of invisible things,
Closer and closer drawn
In rosy mists of dawn!
One dies to conquer Death
And to burst the awful tomb—
Lo, with his dying breath
He blows love into bloom!
Love! Faith is born of it!
Death is the scorn of it!
It fills the earth and thrills the heavens above:
And God is love,
And life is love, and, though we heed it not,
Love is the final thought.

FROM “A POEM READ AT BROWN UNIVERSITY.”

BY N. P. WILLIS.

But what a mystery this erring mind?
It wakes within a frame of various powers
A stranger in a new and wondrous world.
It brings an instinct from some other sphere,
For its fine senses are familiar all,
And with the unconscious habit of a dream
It calls and they obey. The priceless sight
Springs to its curious organ, and the ear
Learns strangely to detect the articulate air
In its unseen divisions, and the tongue
Gets its miraculous lesson with the rest,
And in the midst of an obedient throng
Of well trained ministers, the mind goes forth
To search the secrets of its new found home.

FROM “BEYOND.”

BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE.

From her own fair dominions
Long since, with shorn pinions
My spirit was banished.
But above her still hover in vigils and dreams
Ethereal visitants, voices and gleams
That forever remind her
Of something behind her
Long vanished.
Through the listening night
With mysterious flight
Pass winged intimations;
Like stars shot from heaven, their still voices call to me—
Far and departing they signal and call to me,
Strangely beseeching me,
Chiding yet teaching me
Patience.

FROM “RAIN IN SUMMER.”

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

Thus the seer, with vision clear,
Sees forms appear and disappear
In the perpetual round of strange
Mysterious change
From birth to death, from death to birth,
From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,
Till glimpses more sublime
Of things unseen before
Unto his wondering eyes reveal
The universe, as an immeasurable wheel
Turning for evermore
In the rapid rushing river of time.

FROM “THE TWILIGHT.”

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

Sometimes a breath floats by me,
And odor from Dreamland sent,
Which makes the ghost seem nigh me
Of a something that came and went,
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
In what diviner sphere:
Of mem’ries that come not and go not;
Like music once heard by an ear
That cannot forget or reclaim it;
A something so shy, it would shame it
To make it a show.
A something too vague, could I name it,
For others to know:
As though I had lived it and dreamed it,
As though I had acted and schemed it
Long ago.

And yet, could I live it over,
This Life which stirs in my brain;
Could I be both maiden and lover,
Moon and tide, bee and clover,
As I seem to have been, once again,—
Could I but speak and show it,
This pleasure more sharp than pain,
Which baffles and lures me so,—
The world would not lack a poet,
Such as it had
In the ages glad,
Long ago.

FROM “FACING WEST FROM CALIFORNIA’S SHORES.”

BY WALT WHITMAN.

Facing west from California’s shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the
land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled:
For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,

From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,
From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands,
Long having wander’d since, round the earth having wander’d,
Now I face home again, very pleas’d and joyous.
(But where is what I started for so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?)

FROM “LEAVES OF GRASS.”

BY WALT WHITMAN.

I know I am deathless.
I know that this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass;
And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand or ten million
years,
I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

· · · · ·

As to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths.
No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.

· · · · ·

Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years.

· · · · ·

Births have brought us richness and variety, and other births have
brought us richness and variety.

STANZAS.

BY THOMAS W. PARSONS.

“_We are such stuff as dreams are made of._”

We have forgot what we have been,
And what we are we little know;
We fancy new events begin,
But all has happened long ago.

Through many a verse life’s poem flows,
But still, though seldom marked by men,
At times returns the constant close,
Still the old chorus comes again.

The childish grief—the boyish fear—
The hope in manhood’s breast that burns;
The doubt—the transport, and the tear—
Each mood, each impulse, oft returns.

Before mine infant eyes had hailed
The new-born glory of the day,
When the first wondrous morn unveiled
The breathing world that round me lay;

The same strange darkness o’er my brain
Folded its close mysterious wings,
The ignorance of joy or pain,
That each recurring midnight brings.

Full oft my feelings make me start,
Like footprints on a desert shore,
As if the chambers of my heart
Had heard their shadowy step before.

So looking into thy fond eyes,
Strange memories come to me, as though
Somewhere—perchance in Paradise—
I had adored thee long ago.

PART II. BRITISH POETRY.

FROM “INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.”

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness
And not in utter nakedness
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy;
Shades of the prison house begin to close
Upon the growing boy;
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows
He sees it in his joy.
The youth who daily farther from the East
Must travel, still is nature’s priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended.
At length the man perceives it die away
And fade into the light of common day.

Edmund W. Gosse treats the idea of Wordsworth’s “Intimations” in a way
directly opposite to the older poet, acknowledging the previous life,
but rejoicing in the speedy forgetting of it, in these verses:—

TO MY DAUGHTER.

BY EDMUND W. GOSSE.

Thou hast the colors of the Spring,
The gold of king cups triumphing,
The blue of wood-bells wild;
But winter thoughts thy spirit fill,
And thou art wandering from us still,
Too young to be our child.

Yet have thy fleeting smiles confessed,
Thou dear and much desired guest,
That home is near at hand.
Long lost in high mysterious lands,
Close by our door thy spirit stands,
In journey wellnigh past.

Oh, sweet bewildered soul, I watch
The fountains of thine eyes, to catch
New fancies bubbling there;
To feel one common light, and lose
The flood of strange ethereal hues
Too dire for us to share!

Fade, cold immortal lights, and make
This creature human for my sake,
Since I am nought but clay;
An angel is too fine a thing
To sit behind my chair and sing
And cheer my passing day.

I smile, who could not smile, unless
The air of rapt unconsciousness
Passed with the fading hours;
I joy in every childish sign
That proves the stranger less divine
And much more meekly ours.

A REMEMBRANCE.

BY DEAN ALFORD.

Methinks I can remember when a shade
All soft and flowery was my couch, and I
A little naked child, with fair white flesh
And wings all gold bedropt, and o’er my head
Bright fruits were hanging and tall balmy shrines
Shed odorous gums around me, and I lay
Sleeping and waking in that wondrous air
Which seemed infused with glory, and each breeze
Bore as it wandered by, sweet melodies;
But whence, I knew not. One delight was there,
Whether of feeling or of sight or touch
I know not now—which is not in this earth,
Something all-glorious and all-beautiful,
Of which our language speaketh not, and which
Flies from the eager grasping of my thought
As doth the shade of a forgotten dream.
All knowledge had I, but I cared not then
To search into my soul and draw it thence.
The blessed creatures that around me played
I knew them all, and where their resting was,
And all their hidden symmetry I knew,
And how the form is linked into the soul,—
I knew it all, but thought not on it then,
I was so happy.

And once upon a time
I saw an army of bright beaming shapes
Fair-faced and rosy-cinctured and gold-winged
Approach upon the air. They came to me
And from a crystal chalice silver brimmed
Put sparkling potion to my lips and stood
All around me, in the many blooming shades,
Shedding into the centre where I lay
A mingling of soft light; and then they sang
Songs of the land they dwelt in; and the last
Lingereth even till now upon mine ear:

Holy and blest
Be the calm of thy rest,
For thy chamber of sleep
Shall be dark and deep;
They shall dig thee a tomb
In the dark deep womb,
In the warm dark womb.
Spread ye, spread the dewy mist around him,
Spread ye, spread till the thick dark night surround him,
Till the dark long night has bound him
Which bindeth all before their birth
Down upon the nether earth.
The first cloud is beaming and bright,
The next cloud is mellowed in light,
The third cloud is dim to sight,
And it stretches away into gloomy night.
Twine ye, twine the mystic threads around him,
Twine ye, twine, till the fast firm fate surround him,
Till the firm cold fate hath bound him
Which bindeth all before their birth
Down upon the nether earth.
The first thread is beaming and bright,
The next thread is mellowed in light,
The third thread is dim to sight,
And it stretches away into gloomy night.
Sing ye, sing the fairy songs around him,
Sing ye, sing, till the dull warm sleep surround him,
Till the warm damp sleep hath bound him
Which bindeth all before their birth
Down upon the nether earth.
The first dream is beaming and bright,
The next dream is mellowed in light,
The third dream is dim to sight,
And it stretches away into gloomy night.

Then dimness passed upon me, and that song
Was sounding o’er me when I woke
To be a pilgrim on the nether earth.

RETURNING DREAMS.

BY R. M. MILNES (LORD HOUGHTON).

As in that world of Dream whose mystic shades
Are cast by still more mystic substances,
We ofttimes have an unreflecting sense,
A silent consciousness of some things past,
So clear that we can wholly comprehend
Others of which they are a part, and even
Continue them in action, though no stress
Of after memory can recognize
That we have had experience of those things
Or sleeping or awake:
Thus in the dream,
Our universal Dream, of Mortal Life,
The incidents of an anterior dream,
Or it may be, Existence, noiselessly intrude
Into the daily flow of earthly things,
Instincts of good—immediate sympathies,
Places come at by chance, that claim at once
An old acquaintance—single random looks
That bare a stranger’s bosom to our eyes;
We _know_ these things are so, we ask not why,
But act and follow as the Dream goes on.

FROM “DE PROFUNDIS.”
BIRTH.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Where all that was to be, in all that was,
Whirled for a million æons thro’ the vast
Waste dawn of multitudinous eddying light—
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Thro’ all this changing world of changeless law,
And every phase of ever heightening life,
And nine long months of ante-natal gloom,
Thou comest.

Tennyson also writes in “The Two Voices”:—

For how should I for certain hold
Because my memory is so cold,
That I _first_ was in human mould?

It may be that no life is found
Which only to one engine bound
Falls off, but cycles always round.

But, if I lapsed from nobler place,
Some legend of a fallen race
Alone might hint of my disgrace.

Or, if through lower lives I came came—
Tho’ all experience past became
Consolidate in mind and frame—

I might forget my weaker lot;
For is not our first year forgot?
The haunts of memory echo not.

Some draughts of Lethe doth await,
As old mythologies relate,
The slipping through from state to state.

Moreover, something is or seems,
That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams—

Of something felt, like something here;
Of something done, I know not where;
Such as no language may declare.

More interesting still, from Tennyson, is an early sonnet which has been
omitted from the later editions of his collected poetry:—

As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood
And ebb into a former life, or seem
To lapse far back in a confused dream
To states of mystical similitude,
If one but speaks or hems or stirs a chair
Ever the wonder waxeth more and more,
So that we say, all this hath been before,
All this _hath_ been, I know not when or where;
So, friend, when first I looked upon your face
Our thoughts gave answer each to each, so true,
Opposed mirrors each reflecting each—
Although I knew not in what time or place,
Methought that I had often met with you,
And each had lived in other’s mind and speech.

SUDDEN LIGHT.

BY D. G. ROSSETTI.

‘I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell;
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,—
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow’s soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.

Then, now, perchance again!
O round mine eyes your tresses shake!
Shall we not lie as we have lain
Thus for Love’s sake,
And sleep, and wake, yet never break the chain?’

FROM “CATO’S SOLILOQUY ON THE SOUL.”

BY JOSEPH ADDISON.

Eternity—thou pleasing, dreadful thought,
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and dangers must we pass?
The wide, th’ unbounded prospect lies before me,
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.

FROM “THE MYSTIC.”

BY PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.

Who dreams not life more yearful than the hours
Since first into this world he wept his way
Erreth much, may be. Called of God, man’s soul
In patriarchal periods, comet-like,
Ranges, perchance, all spheres successive, and in each
With nobler powers endowed and senses new
Set season bideth.

FROM “A RECORD.”

BY WILLIAM SHARP.

None sees the slow and upward sweep
By which the soul from life-depths deep
Ascends,—unless, mayhap, when free,
With each new death we backward see
The long perspective of our race
Our multitudinous past lives trace.

The following occurs in Tupper’s “Proverbial Philosophy”:—

OF MEMORY.

Be ye my judges, imaginative minds, full-fledged to soar into the sun,
Whose grosser natural thoughts the chemistry of wisdom hath sublimed,
Have ye not confessed to a feeling, a consciousness strange and vague,
That ye have gone this way before, and walk again your daily life,
Tracking an old routine, and on some foreign strand,
Where bodily ye have never stood, finding your own footsteps?
Hath not at times some recent friend looked out an old familiar,
Some newest circumstance or place teemed as with ancient memories?
A startling sudden flash lighteth up all for an instant,
And then it is quenched, as in darkness, and leaveth the cold spirit
trembling.

Throughout Browning the truth of reincarnation finds frequent utterance,
though not always so distinctly as in these three extracts.

FROM “PARACELSUS.”

At times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages’ way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
An age ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by Death,
That life was blotted out—not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories; as now, when seems once more
The goal in sight again.

FROM “ONE WORD MORE.”

I shall never, in the years remaining,
Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues.
This of verse alone one life allows me;
Other heights in other lives, God willing.

FROM “CHRISTINA.”

There are flashes struck from midnights, there are fireflames noondays
kindle,
Whereby piled-up honors perish, whereby swollen ambitions dwindle;
While just this or that poor impulse which for once had play unstifled,
Seems the sole work of a lifetime that away the rest have trifled.

Doubt you if, in some such moment, as she fixed me, she felt clearly,
Ages past the soul existed, here an age ’tis resting merely,
And hence fleets again for ages; while the true end, sole and single,
It stops here for is, this lone way, with some other soul to mingle.

In Dr. Leyden’s beautiful “Ode to Scottish Music” is this stanza:—

Ah, sure, as Hindoo legends tell,
When music’s tones the bosom swell
The scenes of former life return,
Ere sunk beneath the morning star,
We left our parent climes afar,
Immured in mortal forms to mourn.

Coleridge confesses his fondness for the same idea in the sonnet which
he composed “On a homeward journey upon hearing of the birth of a son”:—

Oft in my brain does that strange fancy roll
Which makes the present (while the flash does last)
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul
Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said
We lived, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.
O my sweet baby! when I reach my door
If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead
(As sometimes through excess of hope I fear),
I think that I should struggle to believe
Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere
Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve;
Didst scream, then spring to meet Heaven’s quick reprieve,
While we wept idly o’er thy little bier.

The following poem has a peculiar history. Though one of the most
beautiful of the entire group, it is the work of a seventeen-year-old
girl. In 1846 this child, Emma Tatham, attracted the attention of a
London clergyman as a poetic genius, and she read to him, at his
frequent visits, her phenomenal compositions, with playful frankness
devoid of all affectation or consciousness of brilliancy. She was very
delicate, but of ruddy countenance, and her bright winning simplicity
carried no suggestion of a sickly prodigy. But she was an intimate
friend of the best poets through their books, and her critical judgment
of their works was surprisingly mature and keen. From the age of sixteen
to that of seventeen and a half, she rapidly wrote an abundance of
exquisite poems. Her extreme modesty would not permit their publication
until 1854—seven years later. Issued in the quietest way by a provincial
publisher, they met with a singular unanimity of applause, though the
extreme youth of their author was unknown. Her rich religious experience
directed most of them into the vein of lofty piety, but the general
press, and even “The Athenæum,” that severest censor of new writers,
spoke commendingly of them. The first edition sold in a few weeks. An
exceptionally brilliant career was predicted for the young poet, but in
less than a year from the announcement of her book, she died.

“The Dream of Pythagoras,” the initial poem of the volume, from which
the collection is named, is given here entire (from the fifth edition,
1872), as it is familiar to few Americans.

THE DREAM OF PYTHAGORAS.

BY EMMA TATHAM.

“The soul was not then imprisoned in a gross mortal body, as it is
now: it was united to a luminous, heavenly, ethereal body, which
served it as a vehicle to fly through the air, rise to the stars, and
wander over all the regions of immensity.”

PYTHAGORAS, in _Travels of Cyrus_.

Pythagoras, amidst Crotona’s groves,
One summer eve, sat; whilst the sacred few
And favour’d at his feet reclin’d, entranc’d,
List’ning to his great teachings. O’er their heads
A lofty oak spread out his hundred hands
Umbrageous, and a thousand slant sunbeams
Play’d o’er them; but beneath all was obscure
And solemn, save that, as the sun went down,
One pale and tremulous sunbeam, stealing in
Through the unconscious leaves her silent way,
Fell on the forehead of Pythagoras
Like spiritual radiance; all else wrapt
In gloom delicious; while the murmuring wind,
Oft moving through the forest as in dreams,
Made melancholy music. Then the sage
Thus spoke: “My children, listen; let the soul
Hear her mysterious origin, and trace
Her backward path to heaven. ’Twas but a dream;
And yet from shadows may we learn the shape
And substance of undying truth. Methought
In vision I beheld the first beginning
And after-changes of my soul. O joy!
She is of no mean origin, but sprang
From loftier source than stars or sunbeams know.
Yea, like a small and feeble rill that bursts
From everlasting mountain’s coronet,
And, winding through a thousand labyrinths
Of darkness, deserts, and drear solitudes,
Yet never dies, but, gaining depth and power,
Leaps forth at last with uncontrollable might
Into immortal sunshine and the breast
Of boundless ocean,—so is this my soul.
I felt myself spring like a sunbeam out
From the Eternal, and my first abode
Was a pure particle of light, wherein,
Shrined like a beam in crystal, I did ride
Gloriously through the firmament on wings
Of floating flowers, ethereal gems, and wreaths
Of vernal rainbows. I did paint a rose
With blush of day-dawn, and a lily-bell
With mine own essence; every morn I dipt
My robe in the full sun, then all day long
Shook out its dew on earth, and was content
To be unmark’d, unworshipp’d, and unknown,
And only lov’d of heaven. Thus did my soul
Live spotless like her Source. ’Twas mine to illume
The palaces of nature, and explore
Her hidden cabinets, and, raptur’d, read
Her joyous secrets. O return, thou life
Of purity! I flew from mountain-top
To mountain, building rainbow-bridges up—
From hill to hill, and over boundless seas:
Ecstasy was such life, and on the verge
Of ripe perfection. But, alas! I saw
And envied the bold lightning, who could blind
And startle nations, and I long’d to be
A conqueror and destroyer, like to him.
Methought it was a glorious joy, indeed,
To shut and open heaven as he did,
And have the thunders for my retinue,
And tear the clouds, and blacken palaces,
And in a moment whiten sky, and sea,
And earth: therefore I murmur’d at my lot,
Beautiful as it was, and that one murmur
Despoil’d me of my glory. I became
A dark and tyrant cloud driven by the storm,
Too earthly to be bright, too hard of heart
To drop in mercy on the thirsty land;
And so no creature lov’d me. I was felt
A blot where’er I came. Fair Summer scorn’d
And spurn’d me from her blueness, for, she said,
I would not wear her golden fringe, and so
She could not rank me in her sparkling train.
Soft spring refused me, for she could not paint
Her rainbows on a nature cold as mine,
Incapable of tears. Autumn despised
One who could do no good. Dark Winter frown’d,
And number’d me among his ruffian host
Of racers. Then unceasingly I fled
Despairing through the murky firmament,
Like a lone wreck athwart a midnight sea,
Chased by the howling spirits of the storm,
And without rest. At last, one day I saw
In my continual flight, a desert blank
And broad beneath me, where no water was;
And there I mark’d a weary antelope,
Dying for thirst, all stretched out on the sand,
With her poor trembling lips in agony
Press’d to a scorch’d-up spring; then, then, at last
My hard heart broke, and I could weep. At once
My terrible race was stopp’d, and I did melt
Into the desert’s heart, and with my tears
I quench’d the thirst of the poor antelope.
So having pour’d myself into the dry
And desolate waste, I sprang up a wild flower
In solitary beauty. There I grew
Alone and feverish, for the hot sun burn’d
And parch’d my tender leaves, and not a sigh
Came from the winds. I seem’d to breathe an air
Of fire, and had resign’d myself to death,
When lo! a solitary dewdrop fell
Into my burning bosom; then, for joy,
My spirit rush’d into my lovely guest,
And I became a dewdrop. Then, once more,
My life was joyous, for the kingly sun
Carried me up into the firmament,
And hung me in a rainbow, and my soul
Was robed in seven bright colors, and became
A jewel in the sky. So did I learn
The first great lessons; mark ye them, my sons.
Obedience is nobility; and meek
Humility is glory; self alone
Is base; and pride is pain; patience is power;
Beneficence is bliss. And now first brought
To know myself and feel my littleness,
I was to learn what greatness is prepar’d
For virtuous souls, what mighty war they wage,
What vast impossibilities o’ercome,
What kingdoms, and infinitude of love,
And harmony, and never-ending joy,
And converse, and communion with the great
And glorious Mind unknown,—are given to high
And godlike souls.

“Therefore the winds arose,
And shook me from the rainbow where I hung,
Into the depths of ocean; then I dived
Down to the coral citadels, and roved
Through crystal mazes, among pearls and gems,
And lovely buried creatures, who had sunk
To find the jewel of eternal life.
Sweet babes I saw clasp’d in their mothers’ arms;
Kings of the north, each with his oozy crown;
Pale maidens, with their golden streaming hair
Floating in solemn beauty, calm and still,
In the deep, silent, tideless wave; I saw
Young beauteous boys wash’d down from reeling masts
By sudden storm; and brothers sleeping soft,
Lock’d in each other’s arms; and countless wealth,
And curling weed, and treasur’d knots of hair,
And mouldering masts, and giant hulls that sank
With thunder sobbing; and blue palaces
Where moonbeams, hand in hand, did dance with me
To the soft music of the surging shells,
Where all else was at rest. Calm, calm, and hush’d,
And stormless, were those hidden deeps, and clear
And pure as crystal. There I wander’d long
In speechless dreamings, and wellnigh forgot
My corporal nature, for it seem’d
Melting into the silent infinite
Around me, and I peacefully began
To feel the mighty universe commune
And converse with me; and my soul became
One note in nature’s harmony. So sweet
And soothing was that dream-like ecstasy,
I could have slept into a wave, and roll’d
Away through the blue mysteries forever,
Dreaming my soul to nothing; I could well
Have drown’d my spark of immortality
In drunkenness of peace; I knew not yet
The warrior life of virtue, and the high
And honourable strife and storm that cleanse
And exercise her pinions. I was now
To learn the rapture of the struggle made
For immortality and truth; therefore
The ocean toss’d me to his mountain chains,
Bidding me front the tempest; fires of heaven
Were dancing o’er his cataracts, and scared
His sounding billows; glorious thunders roll’d
Beneath, above, around; the strong winds fought,
Lifting up pyramids of tortur’d waves,
Then dashing them to foam. I saw great ships
As feathers on the opening sepulchres
And starting monuments,
And the gaunt waves leap’d up like fountains fierce,
And snatch’d down frighten’d clouds, then shouting—fell,
And rose again. I, whirling on their tops,
Dizzy flew over masts of staggering ships,
Then plunged into black night. My soul grew mad
Ravish’d with the intense magnificence
Of the harmonious chaos, for I heard
Music amidst the thunders, and I saw
Measure in all the madness of the waves
And whirlpools; yea, I lifted up my voice
In praise of the Eternal, for I felt
Rock’d in His hand, as in a cradling couch;
Rejoicing in His strength; yea, I found rest
In the unbounded roar, and fearless sang
Glad echo to the thunder, and flash’d back
The bright look of the lightning, and did fly
On the dark pinions of the hurricane spirit
In rapturous repose; till suddenly
My soul expanded, and I sprang aloft
Into the lightning flame, leaping for joy
From cloud to cloud. Then, first I felt my wings
Wave into immortality, and flew
Across the ocean with a shouting host
Of thunders at my heels, and lit up heaven,
And earth and sea, with one quick lamp, and crown’d
The mountains with a momentary gold,
Then cover’d them with blackness. Then I glanced
Upon the mighty city in her sleep,
Pierced all her mysteries with one swift look,
Then bade my thunders shout. The city trembled;
And charm’d with the sublime outcry, I paus’d
And listen’d. Yet had I to rise and learn
A loftier lesson. I was lifted high
Into the heavens, and there became a star,
And on my new-form’d orb two angels sat.
The one thus spoke: ‘O spirit, young and pure!
Say, wilt thou be my shrine? I am of old,
The first of all things, and of all the greatest;
I am the Sovereign Majesty, to whom
The universe is given, though for a while
I war with rebels strong; my name is Truth.
I am the Spirit of wisdom, love, and power,
And come to claim thee; and if thou obey
My guiding, I will give thee thy desire,
Even eternal life.’ He ceas’d, and then
The second angel spoke. ‘Ask not, O soul!
My name; I bid thee free thyself, and know
Thou hast the fount of life in thy own breast,
And need’st no guiding: be a child no longer;
Throw off thy fetters, and with me enjoy
Thy native independence, and assert
Thy innate majesty; Truth binds not me,
And yet I am immortal; be thou, too,
A god unto thyself.’
“But I had learn’d
My own deep insufficiency, and gazed
Indignant on th’ unholy angel’s face,
And pierced its false refulgence, knowing well
Obedience only is true liberty
For spirits form’d to obey; so best they reign.
Straight the base rebel fled, and, ruled by Truth,
I roll’d unerring on my shining road
Around a glorious centre; free, though bound,
Because love bound me, and my law became
My life and nature; and my lustrous orb
Pure spirits visited: I wore a light
That shone across infinitude, and serv’d
To guide returning wanderers. I sang
With all my starry sisters, and we danced
Around the throne of Time, and wash’d the base
Of high Eternity like golden sands.
There first my soul drank music, and was taught
That melody is part of heaven, and lives
In every heaven-born spirit like her breath;
There did I learn, that music without end
Breathes, murmurs, swells, echoes, and floats, and peals,
And thunders through creation, and in truth
Is the celestial language, and the voice
Of love; and now my soul began to speak
The speech of immortality. But yet
I was to learn a lesson more severe—
To shine alone in darkness, and the deeps
Of sordid earth. So did I fall from heaven
Far into night, beneath the mountains’ roots,
There, as a diamond burning amidst things
Too base for utterance. Then, alas! I felt
The stirrings of impatience, pining sore
For freedom, and communion with the fires
And majesties of heaven, with whom erewhile
I walk’d, their equal. I had not yet learn’d
That our appointed place is loftiest,
However lowly. I was made to feel
The dignity of suffering. O, my sons!
Sorrow and joy are but the spirit’s life;
Without these she is scarcely animate;
Anguish and bliss ennoble: either proves
The greatness of its subject, and expands
Her nature into power; her every pulse
Beats into new-born force, urging her on
To conquering energy.—Then was I cast
Into hot fires and flaming furnaces,
Deep in the hollow globe; there did I burn
Deathless in agony, without murmur,
Longing to die, until my patient soul
Fainted into perfection: at that hour,
Being victorious, I was snatch’d away
To yet another lesson. I became
A date-tree in the desert, to pour out
My life in dumb benevolence, and full
Obedience to each wind of heaven that blew.
The traveller came—I gave him all my shade,
Asking for no reward; the lost bird flew
For shelter to my branches, and I hid
Her nest among my leaves; the sunbeams ask’d
To rest their hot and weary feet awhile
On me, and I spread out my every arm
T’ embrace them, fanning them with all my plumes.
Beneath my shade the dying pilgrim fell
Praying for water; I cool dewdrops caught
And shook them on his lip; I gave my fruit
To strengthen the faint stranger, and I sang
Soft echoes to the winds, living in nought
For self; but in all things for others’ good.
The storm arose, and patiently I bore
And yielded to his tyranny; I bow’d
My tenderest foliage to his angry blast,
And suffer’d him to tear it without sigh,
And scatter on the waste my all of wealth.
The billowing sands o’erwhelm’d me, yet I stood
Silent beneath them; so they roll’d away,
And rending up my roots, left me a wreck
Upon the wilderness.
“’Twas thus, my sons,
I dream’d my spirit wander’d, till at length,
As desolate I mourn’d my helpless woe,
My guardian angel took me to his heart,
And thus he said: ‘Spirit, well tried and true!
Conqueror I have made thee, and prepar’d
For human life; behold! I wave the palm
Of immortality before thine eyes:
’Tis thine; it shall be thine, if thou aright
Acquit thee of the part which yet remains,
And teach what thou hast learn’d.’
“This said, he smil’d,
And gently laid me in my mother’s arms.
Thus far the vision brought me—then it fled,
And all was silence. Ah! ’twas but a dream;
This soul in vain struggles for purity;
This self-tormenting essence may exist
For ever; but what joy can being give
Without perfection! vainly do I seek
That bliss for which I languish. Surely yet
The Day-spring of our nature is to come;
Mournful we wait that dawning; until then
We grovel in the dust—in midnight grope,
For ever seeking, never satisfied.”

Thus spake the solemn seer, then pausing, sigh’d,
For all was darkness.

Dr. Donne, in a long poem called “The Progress of the Soul,” traces the
Pythagorean course of an immortal being through an apple (by which Eve
was tempted), a plant, a sparrow, a fish, a mouse (which climbed an
elephant’s proboscis to the brain,

“the soul’s bedchamber,
And gnawed the life-cords there like a whole town
Till, undermined, the slain beast tumbled down;
With him the murderer dies, whom envy sent to kill.”

Then the soul enters a wolf, an ape, and at last a woman—Themech, the
sister and wife of Cain.

Mortimer Collins’s poem, “The Inn of Strange Meetings,” is an
interesting expression of reincarnation, but it is too long to reprint
here. Similar glimpses of this thought occur in Byron, Pope, Southey,
Swinburne, and others, but it is difficult to select from them a
distinct and continuous wording of it.

* * * * *

Though not necessarily meaning reincarnation, the following poem upon
the great Rugby educator, by his son, so aptly fits the idea that it may
well conclude this section:—

DR. ARNOLD.

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.

O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left in vain;
Somewhere, surely, afar,
In the sounding labor-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm!

Yes, in some far-shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the word
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live,
Prompt, unwearied, as here!
Still thou upraisest with zeal
The humble good from the ground.

PART III. CONTINENTAL POETRY.

Ever since the time of Virgil, whose sixth Æneid (verses 724-) contains
a sublime version of reincarnation, and of Ovid, whose Metamorphoses
beautifully present the old Greek mythologies of metempsychosis, this
theme has attracted many European poets beside those of England. While
the Latin poets obtained their inspiration from the East, through
Pythagoras and Plato, the Northern singers seem to express it
independently, unless it came to them with the Teutonic migration from
the Aryan cradle of the race, and shifted its form with all their
people’s wanderings so that it has lost all traces of connection with
its Indian source. The old Norse legends teem with many guises of
soul-journeying. In sublime and lovely stories, ballads, and epics,
these vikings and their kindred perpetuated their belief that the human
individuality travels through a great series of embodiments, which
physically reveal the spiritual character. The Icelandic Sagas also
delight in these fables of transmigration, and still fire the heart of
Scandinavia and Denmark. It permeated the Welsh triads, and among the
early Saxons this thought animated their Druid ceremonies and their
noblest literature. The scriptures of those magnificent races whom
Tacitus found in the German forests, whose intrepid manliness conquered
the mistress of the world, and from whom are descended the modern ruling
race, were inspired with this same doctrine. The treasures of these
ancient writings are buried away from our sight, but a suggestion of
their grandeur is found in the heroic qualities of the nations who were
bred upon them. A beautiful German version of Giordano Bruno’s
Pythagorean Latin verses on the relation of the soul to the body is
contained in Professor Carrière’s Weltanschauung (p. 452). Björnsen has
written a superb Danish poem on transmigration called “Salme,” but it
has never been translated. The following selections are representative
of the chief branches of Continental Europeans. Boyesen, although an
American citizen, is really a modernized Norwegian. Goethe stands for
the Teutonic race, and Schiller keeps him good company. Victor Hugo and
Béranger speak for France, and Campanella represents Italy.

TRANSMIGRATION.

BY HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN.

My spirit wrestles in anguish
With fancies that will not depart;
A ghost who borrowed my semblance
Has hid in the depth of my heart.

A dim, resistless possession
Impels me forever to do
The phantom deeds of this phantom
That lived ages ago.

The thoughts that I think seem hoary
And laden with dust and gloom;
My voice sounds strange, as if echoed
From centuries long in the tomb.

Methinks that e’en through my laughter
Oft trembles a strain of dread;
A shivering ghost of laughter
That is loth to rise from the dead.

My tear has its fount in dead ages,
And choked with their dust is my sigh;
I weep for the pale, dead sorrows
Of the wraith that once was I.

Ah, Earth! thou art old and weary,
With weight of centuries bent;
Thy pristine creative gladness
In youthful æons was spent.

Perchance, in the distant ages,
My soul, from Nirvana’s frost,
Will gather its scattered life-germs
And quicken the life I lost.

And then, like a song forgotten
That haunts, yet eludes the ear,
Or cry that chills the darkness
With a vague, swift breath of fear,

A faint remembrance shall visit
That sun of earth and sky
In whom the flame shall rekindle
Of the soul which once was I.

From Victor Hugo’s poem, “À celle qui est voilée.”

“TO THE INVISIBLE ONE.”

I am the drift of a thousand tides,
The captive of destiny;
The weight of all darkness upon me abides,
But it cannot bury me.

My spirit endures like a rocky isle
Amid the ocean of fate,
The thunderstorm is my domicile,
The hurricane is my mate.

I am the fugitive who far
From home has taken flight;
Along with the owl and evening star
I moan the song of night.

Art thou not, too, like unto me
A torch to light earth’s gloom,
A soul, therefore a mystery,
A wanderer bound to roam?

Seek for me in the sea bird’s home,
Descend to my release!
My depths of cavernous shadows dumb
Illume, angel of peace!

As night brings forth the rosy morn,
Perhaps ’tis heaven’s law
That from thy mystic smile is born
A glory I ne’er saw.

In this dark world where now I stay
I scarce can see myself;
Thy radiant soul shines on my way
As my fair guiding elf.

With loving tones and beckoning hand
Thou say’st, “Beyond the night
I catch a glimpse upon the strand
Of thy mansion gleaming bright.”

Before I came upon this earth
I know I lived in gladness
For ages as an angel. Birth
Has caused my present sadness.

My soul was once a heavenly dove.
Do thou, in heaven’s domains,
Let fall a pinion from above
Upon this bird’s remains!

Yes, ’tis my dire misfortune now
To hang between two ties,
To hold within my furrowed brow
The earth’s clay, and the skies.

Alas the pain of being man,
Of dreaming o’er my fall,
Of finding heaven within my span,
Yet being but a pall;

Of toiling like a galley slave,
Of carrying the load
Of human burdens, while I rave
To fly unto my God;

Of trailing garments black with rust,
I, son of heaven above!
Of being only graveyard dust,
E’en though my name is—Love.

THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.
(LA MÉTEMPSYCOSE.)

BY BÉRANGER.

In philosophic mood, last night, as idly I was lying,
That souls may transmigrate, methought there could be no denying:

So, just to know to what I owe propensities so strong,
I drew my soul into a chat—our gossip lasted long.
“A votive offering,” she observed, “well might I claim from thee;
For thou in being hadst remained a cipher, but for me:
Yet not a virgin soul was I when first in thee enshrined.”—
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find!

“Yes,” she continued, “yes, of old—I recollect it now—
In humble ivy was I wreathed round many a joyous brow.
More subtle next the essence was that I essayed to warm,
A bird’s, that could salute the skies, a little bird’s my form:
Where thickets made a pleasant shade, where shepherdesses strolled,
I fluttered round, hopped on the ground, my simple lays I trolled;
My pinions grew whilst still I flew in freedom on the wind.”—
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find!

“Médor, my name, I next became a dog of wondrous tact,
The guardian of a poor blind man, his sole support in fact;
The trick of holding in my mouth a wooden bowl I knew—
I led my master through the streets, and begged his living too.
Devoted to the poor, to please the wealthy was my care,
Gleaning, as sustenance for one, what others well could spare;
Thus good I did, since to good deeds so many I inclined.”—
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find!

“Next, to breathe life into her charms, in a young girl I dwelt;
There, in soft prison, snugly housed, what happiness I felt!
Till to my hiding-place a swarm of Cupids entrance gained,
And after pillaging it well, in garrison remained.
Like old campaigners, there the rogues all sorts of mischief did:
And night and day, whilst still I lay in little corner hid,
How oft I saw the house on fire I scarce can call to mind.”—
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find.

“Some light on thy propensities may now upon thee break;
But prithee hark! one more remark I still,” says she, “would make.
’Tis this—that having dared one day with Heaven to make too free,
God for my punishment resolved to shut me up in thee:
And what with sittings up at night, with work and woman’s art,
Tears and despair—for I forbear some secrets to impart—
A poet is a very hell for soul thereto consigned!”
Ah! I suspected, little soul, thus much that I should find.

THE SONG OF THE EARTH SPIRITS.
IN GOETHE’S “FAUST.”

The soul of man
Is like the water:
From heaven it cometh,
To heaven it mounteth,
And thence at once
It must back to earth,
Forever changing.

THE SECRET OF REMINISCENCE.

FROM SCHILLER.

What unveils to me the yearning glow
Fix’d forever to thy lips to grow?
What the longing wish thy breath to drink,—
In thy Being blest, in death to sink
When thy look steals o’er me?

As when Slaves without resistance yield
To the Victor in the battle-field,
So my Senses in the moment fly
O’er the bridge of Life tumultuously
When thou stand’st before me!

Speak! Why should they from their Master roam?
Do my Senses yonder seek their home?
Or do sever’d brethren meet again,
Casting off the Body’s heavy chain,
Where thy foot hath lighted?

Were our Beings once together twin’d?
Was it therefore that our bosoms pin’d?
Were we in the light of suns now dead,
In the days of rapture long since fled,
Into One united?

Aye, we were so!—thou wert link’d with me
In Æone that has ceas’d to be;
On the mournful page of vanish’d time,
By my Muse were read these words sublime:
Nought thy love can sever!

And in Being closely twin’d and fair,
I too wondering saw it written there,—
We were then a Life, a Deity,—
And the world seem’d order’d then to lie
’Neath our sway forever.

And, to meet us, nectar-fountains still
Pour’d forever forth their blissful rill;
Forcibly we broke the seal of Things,
And to Truth’s bright sunny hills our wings
Joyously were soaring.

Laura, weep!—this Deity hath flown,—
Thou and I his ruins are alone;
By a thirst unquenchable we’re driven
Our lost Being to embrace;—tow’rd Heaven
Turns our gaze imploring.

Therefore, Laura, is this yearning glow
Fix’d forever to thy lips to grow,
And the longing wish thy breath to drink,
In thy Being blest, in death to sink
When thy look steals o’er me!

And as Slaves without resistance yield
To the Victor in the battle-field,
Therefore do my ravish’d Senses fly
O’er the bridge of Life tumultuously,
When thou stand’st before me!

Therefore do they from their Master roam!
Therefore do my Senses seek their home!
Casting off the Body’s heavy chain,
Those long-sever’d brethren kiss again,
Hush’d is all their sighing!

And thou, too—when on me fell thine eye,
What disclos’d thy cheek’s deep-purple dye?
Tow’rd each other, like relations dear,
As an exile to his home draws near,
Were we not then flying?

A SONNET ON CAUCASUS.

BY T. CAMPANELLA.

I fear that by my death the human race
Would gain no vantage. Thus I do not die.
So wide is this vast cage of misery
That flight and change lead to no happier place.
Shifting our pains, we risk a sorrier case:
All worlds, like ours, are sunk in agony:
Go where we will, we feel; and this my cry
I may forget like many an old disgrace.
Who knows what doom is mine? The Omnipotent
Keeps silence; nay, I know not whether strife
Or peace was with me in some earlier life.
Philip in a worse prison we hath pent
These three days past—but not without God’s will.
Stay we as God decrees: God doth no ill.

PART IV. PLATONIC POETS.

The largest inspiration of all western thought is nourished by the
Academe. Not only idealism, but the provinces of philosophy and
literature hostile to Plato are really indebted to him. The noble
loftiness, the ethereal subtlety, the poetic beauty of that teaching has
captivated most of the fine intellects of mediæval and modern times, and
it is impossible to trace the invisible course of exalted thought which
has radiated from this greatest Greek, the king of a nation of
philosophers.

Adopting Emerson’s words, “Out of Plato come all things that are still
written and debated among men of thought. Great havoc makes he among our
originalities. We have reached the mountain from which all these drift
boulders were detached. The Bible of the learned for twenty-two
centuries, every brisk young man who says fine things to each reluctant
generation, is some reader of Plato translating into the vernacular his
good things.... How many great men nature is incessantly sending up out
of the night to be _his men_—Platonists! the Alexandrians, a
constellation of genius; the Elizabethans, not less; Sir Thomas More,
Henry More, John Hales, John Smith, Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Ralph
Cudworth, Sydenham, Thomas Taylor. Calvinism is in his Phædro.
Christianity is in it. Mahometanism draws all its philosophy, in its
handbook of morals, the Akhlak-y-Jalaly, from him. Mysticism finds in
Plato all its texts.” We know not how much of the world’s later poetry
is due to the suggestion and nurture of the poet-philosopher. But in
closing our studies of the poetry of reincarnation it may be of interest
to group together the avowed Platonic poets.

Most illustrious of all the English disciples of this master, in the
brilliant coterie of “Cambridge Platonists,” was Dr. Henry More, whom
Dr. Johnson esteemed “one of our greatest divines and philosophers and
no mean poet.” Hobbes said of him that if his own philosophy was not
true he knew none that he should sooner adopt than Henry More’s of
Cambridge; and Hoadley styles him “one of the first men of this or any
other country.” Coleridge wrote that his philosophical works “contain
more enlarged and elevated views of the Christian dispensation than I
have met with in any other single volume; for More had both the
philosophical and poetic genius supported by immense erudition.” He was
a devout student of Plato. In the heat of rebellion he was spared by the
fanatics. They pardoned his refusal to take their covenant and left him
to continue the philosophic occupations which had rendered him famous as
a lovable and absorbed scholar. He wove together in many poems a quaint
texture of Gothic fancy and Greek thought. His “Psychozoia” or “Life of
the Soul,” from which the following verses are taken, is a long Platonic
poem tracing the course of the soul through ancient existences down into
the earthly realm. Campbell said of this work that it “is like a curious
grotto, whose labyrinths we might explore for its strange and mystic
associations.” Dr. More was an intimate friend of Addison and long a
correspondent of Descartes.

From Henry More’s “Philosophical Poems” (“Psychozoia”).

I would sing the preëxistency
Of human souls and live once o’er again
By recollection and quick memory
All that is passed since first we all began.
But all too shallow be my wits to scan
So deep a point and mind too dull to climb
So dark a matter. But thou more than man
Aread, thou sacred soul of Plotin dear,
Tell me what mortals are. Tell what of old they were.

A spark or ray of divinity
Clouded with earthly fogs, and clad in clay,
A precious drop sunk from eternity
Spilt on the ground, or rather slunk away.
For then we fell when we ‘gan first t’ essay
By stealth of our own selves something to been
Uncentering ourselves from our one great stay,
Which rupture we new liberty did ween,
And from that prank right jolly wits ourselves did deem.

Show fitly how the preëxisting soul
Enacts and enters bodies here below
And then entire unhurt can leave this moul,
In which by sense and motion they may know
Better than we what things transacted be
Upon the earth, and when they best may show
Themselves to friend or foe, their phantasmy
Moulding their airy arc to gross consistency.

Milton imbibed from his college friend Henry More an early fondness for
the study of Plato, whose philosophy nourished most of the fine spirits
of that day, and he expresses the Greek sage’s opinion of the soul in
his “Comus”:—

The soul grows clotted by oblivion,
Imbodies and embrutes till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being;
Such as those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres
Lingering and setting by a new made grave
As loth to leave the body that it loved.

Milton’s Platonic proclivities are also shown in his poem “On the Death
of a Fair Infant”:—

Wert thou that just maid, who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O tell me sooth,
And cam’st again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet smiling youth?
Or any other of that heavenly brood
Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?
Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who, having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixed seat didst post,
And after short abode fly back with speed
As if to show what creatures heaven doth breed;
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire,
To scorn the sordid world and unto heaven aspire.

In the old library of poetry known as “Dodsley’s Collection,” is a
Miltonic poem by an anonymous Platonist which is very interesting, and
as it is difficult of access we quote the best part of it.

PREËXISTENCE.
IN IMITATION OF MILTON.

Now had th’ archangel trumpet, raised sublime
Above the walls of heaven, begun to sound;
All æther took the blast and fell beneath
Shook with celestial noise; th’ almighty host,
Hot with pursuit, and reeking with the blood
Of guilty cherubs smeared in sulphurous dust,
Pause at the known command of sounding gold.
At first they close the wide Tartarean gates,
Th’ impenetrable folds on brazen hinge
Roll creaking horrible; the din beneath
O’ercomes the war of flames, and deafens hell.
Then through the solid gloom with nimble wing
They cut their shining traces up to light;
Returned upon the edge of heavenly day,
Where thinnest beams play round the vast obscure
And with eternal gleam drives back the night.
They find the troops less stubborn, less involved
In crime and ruin, barr’d the realms of peace,
Yet uncondemned to baleful beats of woe,
Doubtful and suppliant; all the plumes of light
Moult from their shuddering wings, and sickly fear
Shades every face with horror; conscious guilt
Rolls in the livid eyeball, and each breast
Shakes with the dread of future doom unknown.
’Tis here the wide circumference of heaven
Opens in two vast gates, that inward turn
Voluminous, on jasper columns hung
By geometry divine: they ever glow
With living sculptures; they arise by turns
To imboss the shining leaves, by turns they set
To give succeeding argument their place;
In holy hieroglyphics on they move,
The gaze of journeying angels, as they pass
Oft looking back, and held in deep surprise.
Here stood the troops distinct; the cherub guard
Unbarred the splendid gates, and in they roll
Harmonious; for a vocal spirit sits
Within each hinge, and as they onward drive,
In just divisions breaks the numerous jars
With symphony melodious, such as spheres
Involved in tenfold wreaths are said to sound.
Out flows a blaze of glory: for on high
Towering advanced the moving throne of God.

· · · · ·

Above the throne, th’ ideas heavenly bright
Of past, of present, and of coming time,
Fixed their immoved abode, and there present
An endless landscape of created things
To sight celestial, where angelic eyes
Are lost in prospect; for the shiny range
Boundless and various in its bosom bears
Millions of full proportioned worlds, beheld
With steadfast eyes, till more arise to view,
And further inward scenes start up unknown.

· · · · ·

A vocal thunder rolled the voice of God.
“Servants of God! and virtues great in arms,
We approve your faithful works, and you return
Blessed from the dire pursuits of rebel foes;
Resolved, obdurant, they have tried the force
Of this right hand, and known almighty power;
Transfixed with lightning, down they sunk and fell
Into the fiery gulf, and deep they plunge
Below the burning waves, to hide their heads.

· · · · ·

“For you, ye guilty throng that lately joined
In this sedition, since seduced from good,
And caught in trains of guile, by sprites malign
Superior in their order; you accept,
Trembling, my heavenly clemency and grace.
When the long era once has filled its orb,
You shall emerge to light and humbly here
Again shall bow before his favoring throne,
If your own virtue second my decree:
But all must have their races first below.
See, where below in chaos wondrous deep
A speck of light dawns forth, and thence throughout
The shades, in many a wreath, my forming power
There swiftly turns the burning eddy round,
Absorbing all crude matter near its brink;
Which next, with subtle motions, takes the form
I please to stamp, the seed of embryo worlds
All now in embryo, but ere long shall rise
Variously scattered in this vast expanse,
Involved in winding orbs, until the brims
Of outward circles brush the heavenly gates.
The middle point a globe of curling fire
Shall hold, which round it sheds its genial heat;
Where’er I kindle life the motion grows,
In all the endless orbs, from this machine;
And infinite vicissitudes that roll
About the restless centre; for I rear
In those meanders turned, a dusty ball,
Deformed all o’er with woods, whose shaggy tops
Inclose eternal mists, and deadly damps
Hover within their boughs, to cloak the light;
Impervious scenes of horror, till reformed
To fields and grassy dells and flowery meads
By your continual pains.... Here Silence sits
In folds of wreathy mantling sunk obscure,
And in dark fumes bending his drowsy head;
An urn he holds, from whence a lake proceeds
Wide, flowing gently, smooth and Lethe named;
Hither compelled, each soul must drink long draughts
Of those forgetful streams, till forms within
And all the great ideas fade and die:
For if vast thought should play about a mind
Inclosed in flesh, and dragging cumbrous life,
Fluttering and beating in the mournful cage,
It soon would break its gates and wing away:
’Tis therefore my decree, the soul return
Naked from off this beach, and perfect blank
To visit the new world; and wait to feel
Itself in crude consistence closely shut,
The dreadful monument of just revenge;
Immured by heaven’s own hand, and placed erect
On fleeting matter all imprisoned round
With walls of clay; the ethereal mould shall bear
The chain of members, deafened with an ear,
Blinded by eyes, and trammeled by hands.
Here anger, vast ambition and disdain,
And all the haughty movements rise and fall,
As storms of neighboring atoms tear the soul,
And hope and love and all the calmer turns
Of easy hours, in their gay gilded shapes,
With sudden run, skim o’er deluded minds,
As matter leads the dance; but one desire
Unsatisfied, shall mar ten thousand joys.
“The rank of beings, that shall first advance,
Drink deep of human life, and long shall stay
On this great scene of cares. From all the rest,
That longer for the destined body wait,
Less penance I expect, and short abode
In those pale dreamy kingdoms will content;
Each has his lamentable lot, and all
On different rocks abide the pains of life.
“The pensive spirit takes the lonely grove;
Nightly he visits all the sylvan scenes,
Where far remote, a melancholy moon
Raising her head, serene and shorn of beams,
Throws here and there her glimmerings through the trees.
The sage shall haunt this solitary ground
And view the dismal landscape limned within
In horrid shades, mixed with imperfect light.
Here Judgment, blinded by delusive sense,
Contracted through the cranny of an eye,
Shoots up faint languid beams to that dark seat,
Wherein the soul, bereaved of native fire,
Sets intricate, in misty clouds obscured.

· · · · ·

“Hence far removed, a different being race
In cities full and frequent take their seat,
Where honor’s crushed, and gratitude oppressed
With swelling hopes of gain, that raise within
A tempest, and driven onward by success,
Can find no bounds. For creatures of a day
Stretch their wide cares to ages; full increase
Starves their penurious soul, while empty sound
Fills the ambitious; _that_ shall ever shrink,
Pining with endless cares, while _this_ shall swell
To tympany enormous. Bright in arms
Here shines the hero, out he fiercely leads
A martial throng, his instruments of rage,
To fill the world with death, and thin mankind.

· · · · ·

“There savage nature in one common lies
And feels its share of hunger, care, and pain,
Cheated by flying prey; and now they tear
Their panting flesh; and deeply, darkly quaff
Of human woe, even when they rudely sip
The flowing stream, or draw the savory pulp
Of nature’s freshest viands; fragrant fruits
Enjoyed with trembling, and in danger sought.
“But where the appointed limits of a law
Fences the general safety of the world,
No greater quiet reigns: the blended loads
Of punishment and crime deform the world,
And give no rest to man; with pangs and throes
He enters on the stage; prophetic tears
And infant cries prelude his future woes;
And all is one continual scene of gulf
Till the sad sable curtain falls in death.

· · · · ·

“Then the gay glories of the living world
Shall cast their empty varnish and retire
Out of his feeble views; the shapeless root
Of wild imagination dance and play
Before his eyes obscure; till all in death
Shall vanish, and the prisoner enlarged,
Regains the flaming borders of the sky.”
He ended. Peals of thunder rend the heavens,
And chaos, from the bottom turned, resounds.
The mighty clangor; all the heavenly host
Approve the high decree, and loud they sing
Eternal justice; while the guilty troops,
Sad with their doom, but sad without despair,
Fall fluttering down to Lethe’s lake, and there
For penance, and the destined body wait.

Shelley’s Platonic leanings are well known.[29] The favorite Greek
conceit of preëxistence in many earlier lives may frequently be found in
his poems. The title over one of his songs of unrest, “The World’s
Wanderer,” evidently alludes to himself, as do the lines in it

“Like the world’s rejected guest.”

The song of the spirits in “Prometheus Unbound” pictures vividly the
human soul’s descent into the gloom of the material world:—

To the deep, to the deep,
Down, down!
Through the shade of sleep,
Through the cloudy strife
Of Death and of Life,
Through the veil and the bar
Of things which seem and are,
Even to the steps of the remotest throne,
Down, down!

While the sound whirls around,
Down, down!
As the fawn draws the hound,
As the lightning the vapor,
As a weak moth, the taper;
Death, despair; love, sorrow;
Time both; to-day, to-morrow;
As steel obeys the spirit of the stone,
Down, down!

In the depth of the deep,
Down, down!
Like the veiled lightning asleep,
Like the spark nursed in embers,
The last look Love remembers,
Like a diamond which shines
On the dark wealth of mines,
A spell is treasured but for thee alone,
Down, down!

The last stanza of “The Cloud” is Shelley’s Platonic symbol of human
life:—

I am the daughter of earth and water
And the nursling of the sky,
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores,
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

Another poem, entitled “A Fragment,” certainly refers to preëxistence:—

Ye gentle visitants of calm thought,
Moods like the memories of happier earth
Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth
Like stars in clouds by weak winds enwrought.

THE RETREAT.

BY HENRY VAUGHAN.

Happy those early days when I
Shined in my angel-infancy,
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love,
And, looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound;
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this flashy dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.

Oh, how I long to travel back
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence the enlightened spirit sees
That shady city of palm-trees.
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk and staggers in the way.
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move,
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.

In Emerson, the Plato of the nineteenth century, the whole feeling of
the Greek seems reflected in its most glorious development. Many of his
poems clearly suggest the influence of his Greek teacher, as his
“Threnody” upon the death of his young son, and “The Sphinx” in which
these two stanzas appear:—

To vision profounder
Man’s spirit must dive;
His aye-rolling orb
At no goal will arrive;
The heavens that now draw him
With sweetness untold,
Once found for new heavens
He spurneth the old.

Eterne alteration
Now follows, now flies,
And under pain, pleasure—
Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the centre,
Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.

Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe, the friend of Bishop Ken and of Dr. Isaac Watts,
has left this allusion to preëxistence in

A HYMN ON HEAVEN.

Ye starry mansions, hail! my native skies!
Here in my happy, preëxistent state
(A spotless mind) I led the life of Gods,
But passing, I salute you, and advance
To yonder brighter realms, allowed access.
Hail, splendid city of the almighty king,
Celestial salem, situate above, etc.

Some of the common church hymns glow with the enthusiasm of Platonic
preëxistence, and are fondly sung by Christians without any thought
that, while their idea is of Biblical origin, it has been nourished and
perpetuated by the Greek sage, and directly implies reincarnation. For
instance:—

“I’m but a stranger, here, heaven is my home.
Heaven is my fatherland, heaven is my home.”

“My Ain Countrie.”

“This world where grief and sin abideth,
Is not the Christian’s native clime.”

“The home-land, blessed home-land.”

“Jerusalem, my happy home.”

VI.
REINCARNATION AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

The ancient theologists and priests testify that the soul is conjoined
to the body through a certain punishment, and that it is buried in
this body as in a sepulchre.—PHILOLAUS, (a Pythagorean.)

Search thou the path of the soul, whence she came, or what way, after
serving the body, by joining work with sacred speed, thou shalt raise
her again to the same state whence she fell.—ZOROASTER.

Death has no power th’ immortal soul to slay,
That, when its present body turns to clay,
Seeks a fresh home, and with unlessened might
Inspires another frame with life and light.
So I myself (well I the past recall),
When the fierce Greeks begirt Troy’s holy wall,
Was brave Euphorbus: and in conflict drear
Poured forth my blood beneath Atrides’ spear.
The shield this arm did bear I lately saw
In Juno’s shrine, a trophy of that war.
PYTHAGORAS, in DRYDEN’S _Ovid_.

He [Plato] spoke of Him
The lone, eternal One, who dwells above,
And of the soul’s untraceable descent
From that high fount of spirit, through all the grades
Of intellectual being, till it mix
With atoms vague, corruptible and dark.
Nor yet ev’n thus, though sunk in earthly dross,
Corrupted all, nor its ethereal touch
Quite lost, but tasting of the fountain still
As some bright river, which has rolled along
Through meads of flowery light and mines of gold
When poured at length into the dusky deep
Disdains to take at once its briny taint,
But keeps unchanged awhile the lustrous tinge
Or balmy freshness of the scenes it left.
MOORE.

VI.
REINCARNATION AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

The origin of the philosophy of reincarnation is prehistoric. It
antedates the remotest antiquity all over the world, and appears to be
cognate with mankind, springing up spontaneously as a necessary
corollary of the immortality of the soul; for its undiminished sway has
been wellnigh universal outside of Christendom. In the earliest dawn of
Mother India it was firmly established. The infancy of Egypt found it
dominant on the Nile. It was at home in Greece long before Pythagoras.
The most ancient beginnings of Mexico and Peru knew it as the faith of
their fathers.

I. In sketching the course of this thought among the men of old, the
first attention belongs to India. Brahmanism, the most primitive form of
this faith, has gone through vast changes during the four thousand years
of history. The initial form of it, dating back into the remotest mists
of antiquity and descending to the first chapters of authentic
chronology, was an ideally simple nature-worship. The Rig Veda and the
oldest sacred hymns display the beauty of this adoration for every phase
of nature, centering with especial fondness upon light as the supreme
power, and upon the cow as the favorite animal. Professor Wilson’s and
Max Müller’s translations have opened to the English race the charming
thought of this primordial people, whose great child-souls found objects
of reverence in all things. There were no distinct gods, but everything
was divine, and through all they saw the flow of ever-changing life.
Gradually an ecclesiastical system climbed up around this religion,
clothing, stifling, and at last burying the vital organism, until Sakya
Muni’s reaction started Buddhism into vigorous growth as the beautiful
protest against the disfigured and decayed form. About Buddhism, too,
there has arisen a heavy weight of lifeless ritual, but every breath of
life with which the slumbering mother and daughter continue their
existence is perfumed with the roseattar of reincarnation. How they have
since continued to disseminate the idea of reincarnation is suggested in
chapter IX, for the East of to-day is essentially a sculptured picture
of what has been monotonously enduring for twenty centuries.

Of the ancient Indians we learn through Pliny, Strabo, Megasthenes,
Plutarch, and Herodotus, who describe the Gymnosophists and Brachmans as
ascetic philosophers who made a study of spiritual things, living singly
or in celibate communities much like the later Pythagoreans. Porphyry
says of them: “They live without either clothes, riches or wives. They
are held in so great veneration by the rest of their countrymen that the
king himself often visits them to ask their advice. Such are their views
of death that with reluctance they endure life as a piece of necessary
bondage to nature, and haste to set the soul at liberty from the body.
Nay, often, when in good health, and no evil to disturb them, they
depart life, advertising it beforehand. No man hinders them, but all
reckon them happy, and send commissions along with them to their dead
friends. So strong and firm is their belief of a future life for the
soul, where they shall enjoy one another, after receiving all their
commands, they deliver themselves to the fire, that they may separate
the soul as pure as possible from the body, and expire singing hymns.
Their old friends attend them to death with more ease than other men
their fellow-citizens to a long journey. They deplore their own state
for surviving them and deem them happy in their immortality.” When
Alexander the Great first penetrated their country he could not persuade
them to appear before him, and had to gratify his curiosity about their
life and philosophy by proxy, though he afterward witnessed them
surrender themselves to the flames.

II. Herodotus asserts that the doctrine of metempsychosis originated in
Egypt. “The Egyptians are the first who propounded the theory that the
human soul is imperishable, and that where the body of any one dies it
enters into some other creature that may be ready to receive it, and
that when it has gone the round of all created forms on land, in water
and in air, then it once more enters a human body born for it; and that
this cycle of existence for the soul takes place in three thousand
years.”[30] He continues, “Some of the Greeks adopted this opinion, some
earlier, others later, as if it were their own.”

The Egyptians held that the human race began after the pure gods and
spirits had left earth, when the demons who were sinfully inclined had
revolted and introduced guilt. The gods then created human bodies for
these demons to inhabit, as a means of expiating their sin, and these
fallen spirits are the present men and women, whose earthly life is a
course of purification. All the Egyptian precepts and religious codes
are to this end. The judgment after death decides whether the soul has
attained purity or not. If not, the soul must return to earth in renewal
of its expiation either in the body of a man, or animal or plant. As the
spirit was believed to maintain its connection with the material form as
long as this remained, the practice of embalming was designed to arrest
the passage of the soul into other forms. The custom of embalming is
also connected with their opinion that after three thousand years away
from the body the soul would return to its former body provided it be
preserved from destruction.[31] If it is not preserved, the soul would
enter the most convenient habitation, which might be a wretched
creature. They maintained, too, that the gods frequently inhabited the
bodies of animals, and therefore they worshiped animals as incarnations
of special divinities. The sacred bodies of these godly visitants were
also embalmed as a mark of respect to their particular class of deities.
For they placed certain gods in certain animals, the Egyptian Apollo
choosing the hawk, Mercury the ibis, Mars the fish, Diana the cat,
Bacchus the goat, Hercules the colt, Vulcan the ox, etc. This conceit
was but a specialization of their general tenet of pantheism, insisting
that all life is divine, that every living thing must be venerated, and
that the highest creatures should be most devoutly worshiped.

The Egyptian conception of reincarnation as shaped by the priesthood is
displayed in their classic, “Ritual of the Dead,” which is one of their
chief sacred books and describes the course of the soul after death. A
copy of it was deposited in each mummy case. It opens with a sublime
dialogue between the soul and the God of Hades, Osiris, to whose realm
he asks admission. Finally Osiris says, “Fear nothing, but cross the
threshold.” As the soul enters he is dazzled with the glory of light. He
sings a hymn to the sun and goes on taking the food of knowledge. After
frightful dangers are passed, rest and refreshment come. Continuing his
journey he reaches at last heaven’s gate, where he is instructed in
profound mysteries. Within the gate he is transformed into different
animals and plants. After this the soul is reunited to the body for
which careful embalming was so important. A critical examination tests
his right to cross the subterranean river to Elysium. He is conducted by
Anubis through a labyrinth to the judgment hall of Osiris, where
forty-two judges question him upon his whole past life. If the decisive
judgment approves him he enters heaven. If not, he is sentenced to pass
through lower forms of existence according to his sins, or, if a
reprobate, is given over to the powers of darkness for purgation. After
three thousand years of this he is again consigned to a human probation.

III. Of the old Persian faith, it is difficult to obtain a trustworthy
statement, except what is derived from its present form among the
Parsees. The Magi, Zoroaster’s followers, believed that the immortal
soul descended from on high for a short period of lives in a mortal body
to gain experience, and to then return again. When the soul is above it
has several abodes, one luminous, another dark, and some filled with a
mixture of light and darkness. Sometimes it sinks into the body from the
luminous abode and after a virtuous life returns above; but if coming
from the dark region, it passes an evil life and enters a worse place in
proportion to her conduct until purified. The dualism of these
fire-worshipers gave reincarnation a briefer period of operation than
the other oriental religions.

IV. Pythagoras is mentioned by a Greek tradition as one of the Greeks
who visited India before the age of Alexander. It is almost certain that
he went to Egypt and received there the doctrine of transmigration which
he taught in the Greek cities of lower Italy (B. C. 529). Jamblichus
says: “He spent twelve years at Babylon, freely conversing with the
Magi, was instructed in everything venerable among them, and learned the
most perfect worship of the gods.” He is said to have represented the
human soul as an emanation of the world soul, partaking of the divine
nature. At death it leaves one body to take another and so goes through
the circle of appointed forms. Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” contains a long
description of the Pythagorean idea, from which these verses are taken,
as translated by Dryden:—

“Souls cannot die. They leave a former home,
And in new bodies dwell, and from them roam.
Nothing can perish, all things change below,
For spirits through all forms may come and go.
Good beasts shall rise to human forms, and men,
If bad, shall backward turn to beasts again.
Thus, through a thousand shapes, the soul shall go
And thus fulfill its destiny below.”

But it is very difficult to determine exactly what the views of
Pythagoras were. Aristotle, Plato, and Diogenes Laertius say he taught
that the soul when released by death must pass through a grand circle of
living forms before reaching the human again. From Pythagoras himself we
have only some aphorisms of practical wisdom and symbolic sentences;
from his disciples a few fragments—all devoid of the grotesque
hypothesis generally ascribed to him. Although his name is synonymous
with the transmigration of human souls through animal bodies, the strong
probabilities are that if this doctrine came from him it was entirely
exoteric, concealing the inner truth of reincarnation. Some of his later
disciples, especially the author of the work which is attributed to
Timæus the Locian, denied that he taught it in any literal sense, and
said that by it he meant merely to emphasize the fact that men are
assimilated in their vices to the beasts. (See Chapter XII.)

V. Plato is called by Emerson the synthesis of Europe and Asia, and a
decidedly oriental element pervades his philosophy, giving it a sunrise
color. He had traveled in Egypt and Asia Minor and among the
Pythagoreans of Italy. As he died (B. C. 348) twenty years before
Alexander’s invasion of India he missed that opportunity of learning the
Hindu ideas.

In the great “myth,” or allegory, of Phædrus, the classic description of
the relation of the soul to the material world, what he says of the
judgment upon mankind and their subsequent return to human or animal
bodies coincides substantially with the Egyptian and Hindu religions.
But his theory of pre-existence and of absolute knowledge seems to be
original. It grows out of his cardinal doctrine (and that of his master
Socrates) concerning the reality and validity of truth, in opposition to
the skepticism of contemporary sophists, who claimed that truth is mere
subjective opinion—what each man troweth.

The Phædrus myth is evidently suggested by the splendid religious
procession which closed the Athenian festival. With gorgeous ceremony
nearly the whole city’s population participated in this crowning glory
of their most sacred holiday. The procession wound through the finest
streets of the city and then up the steep ascent of the Acropolis, whose
precipitous incline kept the horses struggling for a foothold. That
elevated site commanded a view of the busy city, the plains beyond, and
the distant mountains and sea under the deep blue canopy of the Greek
sky, presenting to the worshipers’ sight a panorama of the changing
aspects of human life and a type of heaven’s repose. From this picture
the poet-philosopher conjures up a sublimer procession marshalled by the
king of gods and men, moving through the heavenly orbits of the soul’s
progress, until they ascend the celestial dome itself, whence the soul
may gaze upon the unspeakable glories of spiritual Truth.[32]

The Socrates of the dialogue first likens the soul to “a winged team and
their charioteer. In the case of the gods both horses and charioteer are
all good and of good breed; those of the rest are mixed. And first of
all, our charioteer drives a pair; in the next place, the one is good
and noble in itself and by breed, while the other is the opposite in
both regards. And so the management of the chariot must needs be
difficult and harassing. Just how the living being which is immortal is
distinguished from that which is mortal, I must endeavor to tell you.
All that is soul has the charge of that which is soulless, and traverses
the whole heaven, appearing now in one form, now in another. When
perfect and possessed of wings, she moves in mid air and controls the
whole world (_kosmos_). But if she lose her feathers, she is borne
hither and thither until she lays hold of something that is fixed and
solid, and there making her home, and taking to herself an earthly body,
which seems to be self-moved by reason of the force she furnishes, soul
and body are fastened together and come to be called mortal.... But let
us take up the reason of that stripping off the feathers by which the
soul is brought to its fall. It is as follows: The power of the wing is
designed to bear up that which is heavy through mid air, where the race
of the gods dwells, and of all that is corporeal this has most in common
with the divine; for the divine is the beautiful, the wise, the good,
and everything of the sort, and by these the wing of the soul is
nourished and groweth especially. But by what is base and evil, and
whatever else is the opposite of divine, it wastes away and is
destroyed.

“Now Zeus, the great Leader in heaven, leads the van, driving a winged
chariot, the marshal and guardian of all. And he is followed by the host
of the gods and demons marshalled in eleven bands, for Hestia alone
remaineth in the house of the gods, and those of the rest who belong to
the number of The Twelve [Great Gods] lead on as captains of their
companies, each in the order to which he has been assigned. Now there
are within heaven many and blessed views and ways of passage in which
the race of the happy gods pass to and fro, each of them doing his own
work, and whoever can and will follows, for envy stands aloof from the
choir of the gods.

“But whenever they go to banquet and to feast, then they proceed all
together up towards the lofty vault of heaven. Now the chariots of the
gods, being well balanced and obedient to the rein, proceed easily, but
the rest with difficulty. For the horse that partakes of evil slips
downward, sinking and gravitating towards the earth, if he has not been
properly broken in by the charioteer. Then it is that toil and extremest
conflict press hard upon the soul. But those souls which are called
immortal, when they reach the summit, go forth and stand upon the back
[the convex] of the heaven, and as they stand the revolution [of the
sphere] carries them around with it, and they behold the things which
are outside of the heaven.

“Now the place which is above the heaven no earthly poet has ever
praised as it deserves, nor ever will: but it is thus. For I must dare
to tell the truth, especially when I am talking about Truth. The
colorless, formless, and intangible Being which is Being, is visible
only to the Reason (_nous_), which is the governor of the soul. Round
about this [pure Being] is located the true sort of knowledge. Since
then the intelligence of God—like that of every soul in so far as it is
to receive what best befits it—is nourished on Reason and pure
Knowledge, in beholding at last the Being it loves it, and in
contemplating the Truth is nourished and gladdened, until the revolution
[of the sphere] brings it round again to its starting-place. And in this
circuit it beholds Righteousness itself, beholds Temperance itself,
beholds Knowledge—not that which has origin, nor that which differs in
the different things to which we ascribe existence, but Knowledge which
has a real being in that which is Being indeed. And other equally real
existences she beholds and is feasted upon, and then reëntering the
heaven she returns homeward. And when she has come thither, the
charioteer, staying his horses at their stall, fodders them with
ambrosia, and waters them with nectar. And this is the life of the gods.

“But as to the other souls, that which best follows God and is most like
Him lifts up the head of the charioteer to the place outside the heaven,
and is carried around the revolution with Him, disturbed indeed by the
horses, and beholding the things which have true being with difficulty.
Another lifts up the head at times, at others draws it in because
compelled by the horses, and therefore beholds some and not others; the
rest one and all desire and follow that which is above, but not being
able to reach it, they are carried around submerged beneath the heaven,
they tread and fall upon each other, each trying to get precedence of
the other. Noise, and rivalry, and sweat to the last degree ensue,
whereupon many are maimed in their wings by the fault of their
charioteers. And all of them, after long toil, depart uninitiated into
the vision of Being, and when they have gone are fed on the food of
opinion. Whence then that great desire of theirs to behold the plain of
Truth? Is it not because the pasturage which befits what is best in the
soul happens to grow in that meadow, and the growth of the wing by which
the soul soars is nourished with this?

“And this is this law of Adrastea [or Nemesis, the inevitable Order]:
whatsoever soul has shared with God, in beholding any of those things
that are true and real, is unharmed until the next period, and if she is
always able to do this, is always unhurt. But should it happen that she
cannot follow on to know, and by any mischance grows heavy through being
filled with forgetfulness and faultiness, and through that heaviness
loses her feathers and falls to the earth, then the law is that this
soul shall not take upon her the nature of any beast in the first
generation [or birth], but the soul that has seen most shall come to the
birth of a man who is to be a philosopher, or an artist, or of some
musician and lover; and the second, [to the birth] of a lawful king, or
warrior and ruler; the third, of a statesman, or of some financier, or
man of affairs; the fourth, of a toil-loving gymnast, or of some one who
is to be a physician; the fifth, the life of a soothsayer, or some
hierophantic function; to the sixth, the life of a poet, or of some
other sort of mimic, will be suitable; to the seventh, that of an
artisan or a husbandman; to the eighth, that of a sophist or a
demagogue; to the ninth, that of a tyrant. And whoever in any of these
positions conducts himself rightly receives a better lot; but whoever
behaves otherwise, a worse.

“No soul arrives at that place from whence it came for ten thousand
years, except it be that one who is honestly a philosopher, or a lover
who has a share of philosophy. These in the third period of a thousand
years, if thrice successively they have chosen this manner of life, and
have thus received their wings, depart thither in the three thousandth
year. But the rest, when they have finished the first life assigned
them, undergo a judgment. And after the judgment, some of them proceed
to the prison-house under the earth and receive punishment; and the
others, having been raised by the judgment to a place in the heaven,
pass their time in a manner worthy of the life they lived in human form.

“And when, in the thousandth year, they come to a casting of lots and a
choice of their second life, each chooses whichever she wishes. And
thereupon a human soul comes to the life of a beast; and one that has
been a man becomes from a beast a man again.

“But that soul which has never beheld the Truth will never come into
this [human] form; the understanding of general truth collected from
many perceptions into unity by rational thought is an essential of
humanity. And this is the recollection of those things which our soul
has once seen when accompanying God, and disdaining those things which
we now speak of as being, and lifting up our heads to behold true Being.
Wherefore it is just that the intelligence of the philosopher alone
receives wings; for he is ever with all his might busied with the
recollections of these things, occupation with which makes God what he
is. And only the man who makes right use of such recollections, and thus
continually attains initiation into perfect mysteries, becomes truly
perfect; and for giving up human pursuits and becoming enwrapt in the
divine, he is esteemed by the many as beside himself, for they fail to
see that he is God-possessed.

... “As has been said, every human soul is by nature a beholder of
Being, else she would not have entered into this form of life. But it is
not easy for every soul to awaken those recollections which she brought
from thence, or they may then have had but scant vision of what was
there, or since they have fallen thence they may have had the mischance
to be diverted by bad associations to that which is unjust, and to fall
into forgetfulness of the holy things which they then beheld. A few are
left, who retain enough of the recollection; but whenever they behold
any resemblance of what is there, they are struck with astonishment, and
are no longer masters of themselves; but they know not why they are thus
affected, because they have no adequate perception. But there is no
brilliancy in those earthly likenesses of justice and temperance, and
whatever else is precious to the soul; for through obscure instruments,
it is given with difficulty and to but few to draw near to those images
and behold what manner of thing it is that they represent. But then it
was permitted to behold Beauty in all its splendor, when along with the
blessed chorus, we [philosophers] following Zeus, others some other of
the gods, we shared in the beatific vision and contemplation, and were
initiated into mysteries which it is just to call the most perfect of
all, and whose rapturous feast we kept in innocence, and while still
inexpert of those evils which were awaiting us in a time still future.
And we beheld visions innocent and simple and peaceful and happy, as if
spectators at the mysteries, in pure array, ourselves pure, and without
a sign upon us of this which we now carry about with us and call a body,
and are bound thereto like an oyster to his shell. Let us indulge in
these memories, whereby we are led to speak the longer from desire of
the things which we then saw.”[33]

We penetrate into the inmost secret of Plato’s thought in the
super-celestial plain, the dwelling-place of substantial ideas, the
essential Truth, the absolute knowledge, in which the pure Being holds
the supreme place which we assign to God, the Hindu to Brahm, and the
Egyptian to Osiris, but which the polytheist could not ascribe to his
gods. Plato, like the initiated priests of India and Egypt, to whom the
highest deity was nameless, knew the objects of common worship were but
exalted men, above whom was One whose nature was undisclosed to men, and
of whom it was audacious childishness to assert human attributes. The
Highest was the centre of those Realities dimly shadowed in earthly
appearance, and Plato’s pictorial representation of his thought is only
a parable cloaking the essential principle that during the eternal past
we have strayed from the real Truth through repeated lives into the
present.

Of Plato’s philosophy of preëxistence, Professor W. A. Butler says in
his masterly lectures on Ancient Philosophy: “It is certain that with
Plato the conviction was associated with a vast and pervading principle,
which extended through every department of nature and thought. This
principle was the priority of mind to body, both in order of dignity and
in order of time; a principle which with him was not satisfied by the
single admission of a _divine_ preëxistence, but extended through every
instance in which these natures could be compared. A very striking
example of the manner in which he thus generalized the principle of
priority of mind to body is to be found in the well-known passage in the
tenth book of his ‘Laws,’ in which he proves the existence of divine
energy. The argument employed really applies to every case of motion and
equally proves that every separate corporeal system is but a mechanism
moved by a spiritual essence anterior to itself. The universe is full of
gods, and the human soul is, as it were, the god or demon of the human
body.”

VI. The Jews had the best parallel of Plato’s Phædrus in the third
chapter of Genesis, describing the fall of Adam and Eve. The theological
comments upon that popular summary of the origin of sin have always
groped after reincarnation, by making all Adam’s descendants responsible
in him for that act. Many Jewish scholars undertook to fuse Greek
philosophy with their national religion. The Septuagint translation,
made in the third century before Christ, gives evidence of such a
purpose in suppressing the strong anthropomorphic terms by which the Old
Testament mentioned God. Aristobulus, a Jewish-Greek poet of the second
century, writes of Hebrew ideas in Platonic phrases. Similar passages
are found in Aristeas and in the second book of the Maccabees.
Pythagoreanism was blended with Judaism in the beliefs and practices of
the Jewish Therapeutæ of Egypt, and their brethren the Essenes of
Palestine.

Of the Essenes, Josephus writes: “The opinion obtains among them that
bodies indeed are corrupted, and the matter of them not permanent, but
that souls continue exempt from death forever; and that emanating from
the most subtle ether they are unfolded in bodies as prisons to which
they are drawn by some natural spell. But when loosed from the bonds of
flesh, as if released from a long captivity, they rejoice and are borne
upward.”

The most prominent Jewish writer upon this subject is Philo of
Alexandria, who lived in the time of Christ, and adapted a popular
version of Platonic ideas to the religion of his own people. He turned
the Hebrew stories into remarkably deft Platonic allegories. His theory
of preëxistence and re-births is practically that of his master Plato,
as is shown in this extract: “The company of disembodied souls is
distributed in various orders. The law of some of them is to enter
mortal bodies and after certain prescribed periods be again set free.
But those possessed of a diviner structure are absolved from all local
bonds of earth. Some of these souls choose confinement in mortal bodies
because they are earthly and corporeally inclined. Others depart, being
released again according to supernaturally determined times and seasons.
Therefore, all such as are wise, like Moses, are living abroad from
home. For the souls of such formerly chose this expatriation from
heaven, and through curiosity and the desire of acquiring knowledge they
came to dwell abroad in earthly nature, and while they dwell in the body
they look down on things visible and mortal around them, and urge their
way thitherward again whence they came originally: and call that
heavenly region in which they live their citizenship, fatherland, but
this earthly in which they live, foreign.” In choosing between the
Mosaic and the Platonic account of the Fall, as to which best expressed
the essential truth, although a Jew, he decided for Plato. He considers
men as fallen spirits attracted by material desires and thus brought
into the body’s prison, yet of kin to God and the ideal world. The
philosophic life is the means of escape, with the aid of the divine
Logos, or Spirit, to the blessed fellowship from which they have fallen.
Regeneration is a purification from matter. Philo renounced the creed of
his fathers in order to reform it, and his influence was profoundly felt
for centuries.

The origin of the Jewish Cabala is involved in endless dispute. Jewish
scholars claim that it is prehistoric. Although a portion of it is held
to have been composed in the Middle Ages, it is certain that its
teachings had been handed down by tradition from very early times, and
that some parts come from the Jewish philosophers of Alexandria and
others from the later Neo-Platonists and Gnostics. Preëxistence and
reincarnation appear here, not in Philo’s speculative form of it, but in
a much simpler and more matter-of-fact character,—affirming that human
spirits are again and again born into the world, after long intervals,
and in entire forgetfulness of their previous experiences. This is not a
curse, as in Plato’s religions, but a blessing, being the process of
purification by repeated probations. “All the souls,” says the Zohar, or
Book of Light, “are subject to the trials of transmigration; and men do
not know which are the ways of the Most High in their regard. They do
not know how many transformations and mysterious trials they must
undergo; how many souls and spirits come to this world without returning
to the palace of the divine king. The souls must reënter the absolute
substance whence they have emerged. But to accomplish this end they must
develop all the perfections, the germ of which is planted in them; and
if they have not fulfilled this condition during one life, they must
commence another, a third, and so forth, until they have acquired the
condition which fits them for reunion with God.”

VII.
REINCARNATION IN THE BIBLE.

Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old.
EMERSON.

The more diligently the student works this mine (the Bible), the
richer and more abundant he finds the ore; new light continually beams
from this source of heavenly knowledge to direct and illustrate the
work of God and the ways of men.—SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The divine oracles are not so silent in this matter as is imagined.
But truly I have so tender a sense of the sacred authority of that
holy volume that I dare not be so bold with it as to force it to speak
what I think it intends not. Wherefore I would not willingly urge
Scripture as a proof of anything, but what I am sure by the whole
tenor of it is therein contained. Would I take the liberty to fetch in
everything for a Scripture evidence that with a little industry a man
might make serviceable to his design, I doubt not but I should be able
to fill my margent with quotations which should be as much to purpose
as have been cited in general Catechisms and Confessions of Faith....
And yet I must needs say that there is very fair probability for
Pre-existence in the written word of God, as there is in that which is
engraved upon our rational natures.—GLANVIL, in _Lux Orientalis_.

VII.
REINCARNATION IN THE BIBLE.

The vitality of the doctrine of Reincarnation does not in the least
depend upon a scriptural endorsement of it, but the fact that it is
surprisingly conspicuous here is certainly interesting and confirmatory.
Every candid Christian student must acknowledge that the revelation of
truth is no more confined to the central book of Christendom than
sunshine is limited to the Orient. There must be great principles of
philosophy, like that of evolution, outside of the Bible; and yet the
most skeptical thinker has to concede that this volume is the richest
treasury of wisdom,—the best of which is still unlearned.

Although most Christians are unaware of it, reincarnation is strongly
present in the Bible, chiefly in the form of preëxistence. It is not
inculcated as a doctrine essential to redemption. Neither is
immortality. But it is taken for granted, cropping out here and there as
a fundamental rock. Some scholars consider it an unimportant oriental
speculation which is accidentally entangled into the texture. But the
uniform strength and beauty of its hold seem to rank it with the other
essential threads of the warp upon which is woven the noblest fabric of
religious thought.

A sufficient evidence of the Biblical support of pre-existence, and of
the consequent wide-spread belief in it among the Jews, is found in
Solomon’s long reference to it among his Proverbs. The wise king wrote
of himself: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before
the works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or
ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when
there were no foundations abounding with water. Before the mountains
were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: while as yet he had
not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of
the world. When he prepared the heavens I was there: when he set a
compass upon the face of the depth: when he established the clouds
above: when he strengthened the foundations of the deep: when he gave to
the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment:
when he appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by him, as
one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always
before him; rejoicing in the habitable part of the earth; and my
delights were with the sons of men.”[34] This passage disposes of the
theory of Delitzsch that preëxistence in the Bible means simply an
existence in the foreknowledge of the creator. Such a mere foreknowledge
would not place him previous to the parts of creation which preceded his
earthly appearance. And the last two clauses clearly express a prior
physical life. The prophets, too, are assured of their pre-natal
antiquity. Jeremiah hears Jehovah tell him, “Before I formed thee in the
belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I
sanctified thee.”[35]

Skipping passages of disputed interpretation in Job and the Psalms which
suggest this idea, there is good evidence for it all through the Old
Testament, which is universally conceded by commentators, and was always
claimed by the Jewish rabbis. The translators have distinguished the
revealed form of Deity, as successively recorded in the Hebrew
Scriptures, by the word LORD, in capitals, separating this use of the
word from other forms, as the preëxistent Christ. “The angel of the
Lord” and “the angel of Jehovah” are other expressions for the same
manifestation of the Highest, which modern theology regards as the
second person of the Trinity. Wherever God is said to have appeared as
man, to Abraham at Mamre, to Jacob at Peniel, to Joshua at Gilgal, to
the three captives in the Babylonian furnace as “a fourth, like to the
Son of God,” etc., Christian scholarship has maintained this to be the
same person who afterward became the son of Mary. The Jews also consider
these various appearances to be their promised Christ. After the
captivity they held the same view concerning all persons. The apocryphal
“Wisdom of Solomon” teaches unmistakably the preëxistence of human souls
in Platonic form, although it probably is older than Philo, as when it
says (ix. 15), “I was an ingenuous child, and received a good soul; nay,
more, being good, I came into a body undefiled;” and “the corruptible
body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down
the mind that museth upon many things.” Glimpses of it appear also in
“Ecclesiasticus.”

The assertion of Josephus that this idea was common among the Pharisees
is proven in the Gospels, where members of the Sanhedrin cast the retort
at Jesus, “Thou wast altogether born in sins.”[36] The prevalence of
this feeling in the judgments of daily life is seen in the question put
to Jesus by his disciples, “Which did sin, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind?”[37] referring to the two contending popular
theories, that of Moses, who taught that the sins of the fathers would
descend on the children to the third and fourth generation, and that of
reincarnation, subsequently adopted, by which a man’s discomforts
resulted from his former misconduct. Jesus’ reply, “Neither,” is no
denial of the truth of reincarnation, for in other passages he
definitely affirms it of himself, but merely an indication that he
thought this truth had better not be given those listeners then, just as
he withheld other verities until the ripe time for utterance. This very
expression of preëxistence used by the disciples he employs toward the
man whom he healed at Bethesda’s pool after thirty-eight years of
paralysis: “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”[38]
Repeatedly he confirms the popular impression that John the Baptist was
a reincarnation of Elijah. To the throng around him he said: “Among them
that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the
Baptist.” “If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to
come.”[39] That John the Baptist denied his former personality as Elijah
is not strange, for no one remembers distinctly his earlier life. Often
Jesus refers to his descent from heaven, as when he says, “I came down
from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me;”[40] and what he means by heaven is shown by his words to Nicodemus,
“No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of man _which is in heaven_.”[41] The inference is that the
heaven in which he formerly lived was similar to the heaven of that
moment, namely earth. Again, Jesus asked his disciples, “Whom say men
that I am?” And his disciples state the popular thought in answering,
“Some say Elijah, others Jeremiah, and others one of the old prophets.”
“But whom say ye that I am?” Peter, the spokesman, replies, “Thou art
the Christ, the Son of God,” and so expresses another phase of the same
prevailing idea, for the Christ was also an Old Testament personage. And
Jesus approves this response. After Herod had decapitated John the
Baptist, the appearance of Jesus, also preaching and baptizing, roused
in him the apprehension that the prophet he killed had come again in a
second life.

Preëxistence, the premise necessarily leading to reincarnation, is the
keynote of the most spiritual of the Gospels. The initial sentence
sounds it, the body of the book often repeats it, and the final climax
is strengthened by it. From the proem, “In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God,” all through the story occur frequent
allusions to it: “The word was made flesh” (John i. 14); “I am the
living bread which came down from Heaven” (vi. 51); “Ye shall see the
Son of man ascend up where he was before” (vi. 62); “Before Abraham was,
I am” (viii. 58); and finally, “Glorify thou me with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was” (xvii. 5); “For thou lovedst me
before the foundation of the world” (xvii. 24). It is always phrased in
such a form as might be asserted by any one, though the speaker says it
only of himself.

What the fourth Gospel dwells upon so fondly, and what is echoed in
other New Testament books,—as in Philippians ii. 7, “He took on him the
form of a servant,” in 2 Cor. viii. 9, “Though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor,” and in 1 John i. 2, “That eternal Life which was
with the Father, and was manifested unto us,”—is a thought not limited
to the Christ. Precisely the same occurs in the mention of the
prophet-baptizer John: “There was a man sent from God” (John i. 6). The
obvious sense of this verse to the Christians nearest its publication
appears in the comments upon it by Origen, who says that it implies the
existence of John the Baptist’s soul previous to his terrestrial body,
and hints at the universal belief in preëxistence by adding, “And if the
_Catholic opinion_ hold good concerning the soul, as not propagated with
the body, but existing previously and for various reasons clothed in
flesh and blood, this expression, ‘sent from God,’ will no longer seem
extraordinary as applied to John.” No words could more exactly suit the
aspirations of an oriental believer in reincarnation than these in the
Apocalypse: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of
my God, _and he shall go no more out_” (Rev. iii. 12).

More important than any separate quotations is the general tone of the
Scriptures, which points directly toward reincarnation. They represent
the earthly life as a pilgrimage to the heavenly country of spiritual
union with God. It is our conceit and ignorance alone which deems a
single earthly life sufficient to accomplish that purpose. They teach
the sinful nature of all men and their responsibility for their sin,
which certainly demands previous lives for the acquisition of that
condition, as shown well by Chevalier Ramsay. (See pages 83–87.) St.
Paul’s idea of the Fall and of God are precisely those of Philo and
Origen. The Bible also treats Paradise as the ancient abode of man and
his future home, which requires a series of reincarnations as the
connecting chain.

VIII.
REINCARNATION IN EARLY CHRISTENDOM.

Our soul having lost its heavenly mansion came down into the earthly
body as a strange place.—PHILO.

The soul leaving the body becomes that power which it has most
developed. Let us fly, then, from here below, and rise to the
intellectual world, that we may not fall into a purely sensible life,
by allowing ourselves to follow sensible images; or into a vegetative
life, by abandoning ourselves to the pleasures of physical love and
gluttony: let us rise, I say, to the intellectual world, to
intelligence, to God himself.—PLOTINUS.

The order of things is regulated by the providential government of the
whole world; some powers falling down from a loftier position, others
gradually sinking to earth: some falling voluntarily, others being
cast down against their will: some undertaking of their own accord the
service of stretching out the hand to those who fall, others being
compelled to persevere for a long time in the duty which they have
undertaken.—JEROME.

All that flesh doth cover
Souls by source sublime
Are but slaves sold over
To the master Time,
To work out their ransom
For the ancient crime.

VIII.
REINCARNATION IN EARLY CHRISTENDOM.

The first centuries of Christianity found reincarnation still the
prevailing creed, as in all the previous ages, but with various shades
of interpretation. What these different phases of the same central
thought were may be gathered from Jerome’s catalogue, after the strife
between Eastern and Western ideas had been working for some centuries
and the present tendency of Europe had asserted itself. Jerome writes:
“As to the origin of the soul, I remember the question of the whole
church: whether it be fallen from heaven, as Pythagoras and the
Platonists and Origen believe; or be of the proper substance of God, as
the Stoics, Manichæans and Priscillian heretics of Spain believe; or
whether they are kept in a repository formerly built by God, as some
ecclesiastics foolishly believe; or whether they are daily made by God
and sent into bodies according to that which is written in the Gospel:
‘My Father worketh hitherto and I work;’ or whether by traduction, as
Tertullian, Apollinarius, and the greater part of the Westerns believe,
_i. e._, that as body from body so the soul is derived from the soul,
subsisting by the same condition with animals.”

In the form of Gnosticism it so strongly pervaded the early church that
the fourth Gospel was specially directed against it; but this Gospel
according to John attacked it only by advocating a broader rendering of
the same faith. We have seen that Origen refers to preëxistence as the
general opinion. Clemens Alexandrinus (Origen’s master) taught it as a
divine tradition authorized by St. Paul himself in Romans v. 12, 14, 19.
Ruffinus in his letter to Anastasius says that “This opinion was common
among the primitive fathers.” Later, Jerome relates that the doctrine of
transmigration was taught as an esoteric one communicated to only a
select few. But Nemesius emphatically declared that all the Greeks who
believed in immortality believed also in metempsychosis. Delitzsch says,
“It had its advocates as well in the synagogues as in the church.”

The Gnostics and Manichæans received it, with much else, from
Zoroastrian predecessors. The Neo-Platonists derived it chiefly from a
blending of Plato and the Orient. The Church Fathers drew it not only
from these sources, but from the Jews and the pioneers of Christianity.
Several of them condemn the Persian and Platonic philosophies and yet
hold to reincarnation in other guises. Aside from all authority, the
doctrine seems to have been rooted among the inaugurators of our era in
its adaptation to their mental needs, as the best explanation of the
ways of God and the nature of men.

I. The Gnostics were a school of eclectics which became conspicuous amid
the chaotic vortex of all religions in Alexandria, during the first
century. They sought to furnish the young Christian church with a
philosophic creed, and ranked themselves as the only initiates into a
mystical system of Christian truth which was too exalted for the masses.
Their thought was an elaborate structure of Greek ideas built upon
Parsee Dualism, maintaining that the world was created by some fallen
spirit or principle, and that the spirits of men were enticed from a
preëxistent higher stage by the Creator into the slavery of material
bodies. The evils and sins of life belong only to the degraded
prison-house of the spirit. The world is only an object of contempt.
Virtue consists in severest asceticism. To combat their theory that
Jesus was one of a vast number of beings between man and God, the fourth
Gospel was written. They spread widely through the first and second
centuries in many branches of belief. But most of their strength was
absorbed into Manichæism, which was a more logical union of Persian with
Christian and Greek ideas. In this simple faith the world is a creation
not of a fallen spirit, but of the primary evil principle, while the
spirit of man is the creation of God, and the conflict between flesh and
spirit is that between the powers of light and darkness. The Gnostic and
Manichæan notions of preëxistence perpetuated themselves in many of the
medieval sects, especially the Bogomiles, Paulicians, and Priscillians.
Seven adherents of the Priscillian heresy were put to death in Spain A.
D. 385, as the first instance of the death penalty visited by a
Christian magistrate for erroneous belief. The Italian Cathari were
another sect holding this form of reincarnation, against whom the
Albigensian Crusade of the elder De Montfort was sent, and the
inquisition devised by St. Dominic. Still they thrived in secret and
possessed a disguised hierarchy which long survived their violent
persecution. Similar sects descended from them still exist among the
Russian dissenters.

II. Contemporary with the Alexandrian Gnostics arose the philosophical
school of the Neo-Platonists which gathered into one the doctrines of
Pythagoras, Plato, and Buddhism,[42] and constructed a theology which
might make headway against Christianity by satisfying in a rational way
the longings which the new religion addressed. They too disclosed the
reality and nearness of a spiritual world, a reconciliation with God,
and the pathway for returning to Him. The distinguishing principle of
Neo-Platonism is _emanation_, which took the place of creation. From the
eternal Intelligence proceeds the multiplicity of souls which comprise
the intelligible world, and of which the worldsoul is the highest and
all-embracing source. They insisted upon the distinct individuality of
each soul, and earnestly combated the charge of Pantheism. Souls who
have descended into the delusion of matter did so from pride and a
desire of false independence. They now forget their former estate and
the Father whom they have deserted. The mission of men, in the dying
words of Plotinus, is “to bring the divine within them into harmony with
that which is divine in the universe.” The Neo-Platonists fought
Gnosticism as fiercely as Christianity. Plotinus, by far the best of
their writers, as well as the oldest whose works are preserved, devotes
a whole book of his Enneads to the refutation of the doctrines of
Valentinus, the brightest of the Gnostics. Contrary to the latter’s
thought, that men are fallen into the miry pit of matter which is wholly
bad, Plotinus claims that the world of matter, although the least divine
part of the universe because remotest from the One, is still good and
the best place for man’s development. From its former life he insists
the soul has not fallen and cannot, but has descended into the lower
stage of existence through innate weakness of intellect in order to be
prepared for a higher exaltation.

The most important of this group of thinkers were Ammonius Saccas,
Plotinus, and Porphyry in the third century, Jamblichus in the fourth,
Hierocles and Proclus in the fifth, and Damascius in the sixth. It
flourished with energy for over three hundred years, and as its ideas
were largely appropriated by Christian theologians and philosophers,
beginning with Origen, it has never ceased to be felt through
Christendom. Giordano Bruno, the martyr of the Italian reformation,
popularized it, and handed it over to later philosophers. The philosophy
of Emerson is substantially a revival of Plotinus. Coleridge is also
strongly influenced by him.

As Plotinus is in some respects the most interesting of all the older
writers, and taught reincarnation in a form thoroughly rational and
supremely helpful, meeting Western needs in this regard more directly
than any other philosopher, we quote at some length from his scarce
essay on “The Descent of the Soul.”

“When any particular soul acts in discord from the One, flying from the
whole and apostasizing from thence by a certain disagreement, no longer
beholding an intelligible nature, from its partial blindness, in this
case it becomes deserted and solitary, impotent and distracted with
care; for it now directs its mental eye to a part, and by a separation
from that which is universal, attaches itself as a slave to one
particular nature. It thus degenerates from the whole and governs
particulars with anxiety and fatigue, assiduously cultivating externals
and becoming not only present with body, but profoundly entering into
its dark abodes. Hence, too, by such conduct the wings of the soul are
said to suffer a defluxion and she becomes fettered with the bonds of
body, after deserting the safe and innoxious habit of governing a better
nature which flourishes with universal soul. The soul, therefore,
falling from on high, suffers captivity, is loaded with fetters, and
employs the energies of sense; because in this case her intellectual
longing is impeded from the first. She is reported also to be buried and
to be concealed in a cave; but when she converts herself to intelligence
she then breaks her fetters and ascends on high, receiving first of all
from reminiscence the ability of contemplating real beings; at the same
time possessing something supereminent and ever abiding in the
intelligible world. Souls therefore are necessarily of an amphibious
nature, and alternately experience a superior and inferior condition of
being; such as are able to enjoy a more intimate converse with Intellect
abiding for a longer period in the higher world, and such to whom the
contrary happens, either through nature or fortune, continuing longer
connected with these inferior concerns.”...

“Thus, the soul, though of divine origin, and proceeding from the
regions on high, becomes merged in the dark receptacle of the body, and
being naturally a posterior god, it descends hither through a certain
voluntary inclination, for the sake of power and of adorning inferior
concerns. By this means it receives a knowledge of its latent powers,
and exhibits a variety of operations peculiar to its nature, which by
perpetually abiding in an incorporeal habit, and never proceeding into
energy, would have been bestowed in vain. Besides the soul would have
been ignorant of what she possessed, her powers always remaining dormant
and concealed: since energy everywhere exhibits capacity, which would
otherwise be entirely occult and obscure, and without existence, because
not endued with one substantial and true. But now indeed every one
admires the intellectual powers of the soul, through the variety of her
external effects.”...

“Through an abundance of desire the soul becomes profoundly merged into
matter, and no longer totally abides with the universal soul. Yet our
souls are able alternately to rise from hence carrying back with them an
experience of what they have known and suffered in their fallen state;
from whence they will learn how blessed it is to abide in the
intelligible world, and by a comparison, as it were, of contraries, will
more plainly perceive the excellence of a superior state. For the
experience of evil produces a clearer knowledge of good. This is
accomplished in our souls according to the circulations of time, in
which a conversion takes place from subordinate to more exalted natures.

“Indeed, if it were proper to speak clearly what appears to me to be the
truth, contrary to the opinions of others, the whole of our soul also
does not enter into the body, but something belonging to it always
abides in the intelligible, and something different from this in the
sensible world: and that which abides in the sensible world, if it
conquers, or rather if it is vanquished and disturbed, does not permit
us to perceive that which the supreme part of the soul contemplates; for
that which is understood then arrives at our nature when it descends
within the limits of sensible inspection. For every soul possesses
something which inclines downwards to body, and something which tends
upwards toward intellect; and the soul, indeed, which is universal and
of the universe, by its part which is inclined towards body, governs the
whole without labor and fatigue, transcending that which it governs.

“But souls which are particular and of a part are too much occupied by
sense, and by a perception of many things happening contrary to nature
are surrounded by a multitude of foreign concerns. It is likewise
subject to a variety of affections, and is ensnared by the allurements
of pleasure. But the superior part of the soul is never influenced by
fraudulent delights, and lives a life always uniform and divine.”

III. Many of the orthodox Church Fathers welcomed reincarnation as a
ready explanation of the fall of man and the mystery of life, and
distinctly preached it as the only means of reconciling the existence of
suffering with a merciful God. It was an essential part of the church
philosophy for many centuries in the rank and file of Christian thought,
being stamped with the authority of the leading thinkers of Christendom,
and then gradually was frowned upon as the Western influences
predominated, until it became heresy and at length survived only in a
few scattered sects.

Justin Martyr expressly speaks of the soul inhabiting more than once the
human body, and denies that on taking a second time the embodied form it
can remember previous experiences. Afterwards, he says, souls which have
become unworthy to see God in human guise, are joined to the bodies of
wild beasts. Thus he openly defends the grosser phase of metempsychosis.

Clemens Alexandrinus is declared by a contemporary to have written
“wonderful stories about metempsychosis and many worlds before Adam.”

Arnobius, also, is known to have frankly avowed this doctrine.

Noblest of all the church advocates of this opinion was Origen. He
regarded the earthly history of the human race as one epoch in an
historical series of changeful decay and restoration, extending backward
and forward into æons; and our temporal human body as the place of
purification for our spirits exiled from a happier existence on account
of sin. He taught that souls were all originally created by God _minds_
of the same kind and condition, that is of the same essence as the
infinite Mind, and that they exercised their freedom of will, some
wisely and well, others with abuse in different degrees, producing the
divergences now apparent in mankind. From that old experience some souls
have retained more than others of the pristine condition. The lapsed
souls God clothed with bodies and sent into this world, both to expiate
their temerity and to prepare themselves for a better future. The
variety of their offenses caused the diversity of their terrestrial
conditions. In these bodies, each enjoys that lot which most exactly
suited his previous habits. On these the whole earthly circumstances of
man, internal and external, even his whole life from birth, depend. In
this way alone he thought the justice of God could be defended. But when
men keep themselves free from contagion in bodily existence and restrain
the turbulent movements of sense and imagination, being gradually
purified from the body they ascend on high and are at last changed into
_minds_, of which the earthly souls are corruptions. In his own words,
“Here is the cause of the diversing among rational creatures, not in the
will or decision of the creature, but in the freedom of individual
liberty. For God justly disposing of his creatures according to their
desert united the diversities of minds in one congruous world, that he
might, as it were, adorn his mansion (in which ought to be not only
vases of gold and silver, but of wood also and clay, and some to honor
and some to dishonor) with these diverse vases, minds, or souls. To
these causes the world owes its diversity, while Divine Providence
disposes each according to his tendency, mind, and disposition.”

“If from unknown reasons the soul be already not exactly worthy of being
born in an irrational body, nor yet exactly in one purely rational, it
is furnished with a monstrous body, so that reason cannot be fully
developed by one thus born, the nature of the body being fashioned
either of a higher or lower body according to the scope of the reason.”

“I think this is a question how it happens that the human mind is
influenced now by the good now by the evil. The causes of this I suspect
to be more ancient than this corporeal birth.”

“If our course be not marked out according to our works before this
life, how is it true that it is not unjust in God that the elder should
serve the younger and be hated, before he had done things deserving of
servitude and of hatred.”

“By the fall and by the cooling from a life of the Spirit came that
which is now the soul, which is also capable of a return to her original
condition, of which I think the prophet speaks in this: ‘Return unto thy
rest, O my soul.’ So that the whole is this—how the mind becomes a soul
and how the soul rectified becomes a mind.”

Concerning preëxistence in the Bible, Origen writes, in his “De
Principiis”: “The Holy Scriptures have called the creation of the world
by a new and peculiar name, terming it καταβολή, which has been very
improperly translated into Latin by ‘constitutio’; for in Greek
καταβολή; signifies rather ‘dejicere,’ _i. e._, to cast downwards,—a
word which has been improperly translated into Latin by the phrase
‘constitutio mundi,’ as where the Saviour says, ‘And there will be
tribulation in those days, such as was not since the beginning of the
world;’[43] in which passage καταβολή is rendered by beginning
(constitutio). The Apostle also has employed the language, saying, ‘Who
hath chosen us before the foundation of the world;’[44] and this
foundation he calls καταβολή, to be understood in the same sense as
before. It seems worth while, then, to inquire what is meant by this new
term; and I am, indeed, of the opinion that as the end and consummation
of the saints will be in those (ages) which are not seen, and are
eternal, we must conclude that rational creatures had also a similar
beginning. And if they had a beginning such as the end for which they
hope, they existed undoubtedly from the very beginning in those (ages)
which are not seen, and are eternal. And if this is so, then there has
been a descent from a higher to a lower condition, on the part not only
of those souls who have deserved the change by the variety of their
movements, but also on that of those who, in order to serve the whole
world, were brought down from those higher and invisible spheres to
these lower and visible ones, although against their will. From this it
follows that by the use of the word καταβολή, a descent from a higher to
a lower condition, shared by all in common, would seem to be pointed
out. The hope of freedom is entertained by the whole of creation—of
being liberated from the corruption of slavery—when the sons of God, who
either fell away or were scattered abroad, shall be gathered into one,
and when they shall have fulfilled their duties in this world.”

Many contemporaneous and subsequent writers censured Origen for this
opinion, but his doctrine was maintained by a large number of strong
followers and independent thinkers.

Even in Jerome and Augustine certain passages indicate that they held
this theory in part. In his Epistle to Avitus, Jerome agrees with Origen
as to the interpretation of the passage above mentioned by Origen, “Who
hath chosen us before the foundation of the world.” He says “a divine
habitation, and a true rest above, I think, is to be understood, where
rational creatures dwelt, and where, before their descent to a lower
position, and removal from invisible to visible (worlds), and fall to
earth, and need of gross bodies, they enjoyed a former blessedness.
Whence God the Creator made for them bodies suitable to their humble
position, and created this visible world and sent into the world
ministers for their salvation.”

The Latin Fathers Nemesius, Synesius, and Hilarius boldly defend
preëxistence, though taking exception to Origen’s form of it. Of
Synesius, most familiar to English readers as the convent patriarch in
“Hypatia,” it is known that when the citizens of Ptolemais invited him
to their bishopric, he declined that dignity for the reason that he
cherished certain opinions which they might not approve, as after mature
reflection they had struck deep roots in his mind. Foremost among these
he mentioned the doctrine of preëxistence. Vestiges of this belief are
discerned in his writings; for example, in the Greek hymn paraphrased as
follows:—

Eternal Mind, thy seedling spark
Through this thin vase of clay
Athwart the waves of chaos dark
Emits a timorous ray!

This mind-enfolding soul is sown
Incarnate germ in earth.
In pity, blessed Lord, then own
What claims in Thee its birth.

Far forth from Thee, Thou central fire,
To earth’s sad bondage cast,
Let not the trembling spark expire,
Absorb Thine own at last.

Another of this group, Prudentius, entertained nearly the same idea as
that of Origen concerning the soul’s descent from higher seats to earth,
as appears in one of his hymns:—

O Saviour, bid my soul, thy trembling spouse,
Return at last to Thee believing.
Bind, bind anew those all unearthly vows
She broke on high and wandered grieving.

Although Origen’s teaching was condemned by the Council of
Constantinople in 551, it permanently colored the stream of Christian
theology, not only in many scholastics and medieval heterodoxies, but
through all the later course of religious thought, in many isolated
individuals and groups.

IX.
REINCARNATION IN THE EAST TO-DAY.

A man may travel from one end of the kingdom to the other without
money, feeding and lodging as well as the people.

A MISSIONARY IN BURMAH.

Buddhism has not deceived, and it has not persecuted. In this
respect it can teach Christians a lesson. The unconditioned command,
“Thou shalt not kill,” which applies to all living creatures, has
had great influence in softening the manners of the Monguls. This
command is connected with the doctrine of transmigration of souls,
which is one of the essential doctrines of this system as well as of
Brahmanism. Buddhism also inculcates a positive humanity consisting
of good actions.—JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

He lived musing the woes of man,
The ways of fate, the doctrines of the books,
The secrets of the silence whence all come,
The secrets of the gloom whereto all go,
The life that lies between like that arch flung
From cloud to cloud across the sky, which hath
Mists for its masonry and vapory piers.
THE LIGHT OF ASIA.

IX.
REINCARNATION IN THE EAST TO-DAY.

The religious philosophy of the Orient, like everything else there,
remains now substantially the same as in the earliest times. History
cannot say when Brahmanism did not flourish among the multitudes of
India. Buddhism, the later Protestant phase of the old faith, which
abolished its abuses of priesthood and caste and spread its
reformation broadcast through Asia, did not alter the original
teaching of re-birth, but rather confirmed and popularized the truth
that has lain at the heart of India from remotest ages. Reincarnation
is the sap-root of eastern religion and permeates the Veda scriptures.

While it is claimed by the West that the religion of Sakya Muni is
below that of Jesus, as inspiring an exalted selfishness in
distinction to the generous sacrifice taught by Christianity; while it
is true that the best Buddhists lead a passive, submissive life which
made them easy spoil for conquering races and has not accomplished any
result in civilization since the first ancient subjugation; while
Buddhism with its mortification and self-centred goodness is even more
distasteful to the western race than the meditative dreamy asceticism
of Brahmanism: it is equally certain that these eastern religions are
far more really lived by their followers than Christianity is with us;
it must be admitted that a spiritual selfishness, which is so
thoroughly practiced as to bear all the fruits of generous love, is
preferable to a noble sacrifice, which is so largely precept as to
appear to the naked eye a civilized barbarism; and it is worth
considering whether Christendom may not gain as much by learning the
secret of Eastern superiority to materialism, as the Orient is gaining
by the infusion of Western activity. Travelers agree that in many
parts of inner China, Thibet, Central India, and Ceylon the daily life
of Buddhism is so like the realization of Christianity, as to give
strong support to the theory of the Indian origin of our religion.
There is a practical demonstration of what reincarnation will do for a
race, and a hint of the grander result which would accrue from
grafting that principle into the real life of the stronger Saxon,
Teutonic, and Celtic stock. Knowing the indestructibility of the soul,
the evanescence of the body, and the permanence of spiritual traits as
formed by thought, word, and deed, the whole energy of life is focused
upon purity of self and charity to others. To love one’s enemies, to
abstain from even defensive warfare, to govern the soul, to obey one’s
superiors, to venerate age, to provide food and shelter, to tolerate
all differences of opinion and religion, are guiding maxims of actual
life. They are as vitally and generally translated into flesh and
blood as in primitive Christianity or in Count Tolstoi’s flock.
Honesty, modesty, and simplicity prevail in these sections. Women are
held in the same esteem as in the ancient Sanskrit epoch, and children
are treated more beautifully than in many Christian homes. A lady
traveler, known to the writer, who witnessed this, said that if her
lot were that of a friendless woman, she knew no place on earth where
she would labor and dwell more happily than in Ceylon. As the
peasantry receive reincarnation in the simplest and extremest form of
human re-births in animal bodies, every living creature is regarded by
them as a possible relative. Gentleness to the animal creation abounds
as nowhere else in the world. It is a sin to kill any beast. It is a
virtue to offer one’s life for a distressed animal, as the popular
tradition holds that Buddha did in one life by throwing himself to a
famished tigress. Death is no object of dread, but a welcome
benefactor, transferring them forward in their progress to the goal of
rest. To die for any good purpose, as under the sacred Brahman car of
Juggernaut, or in some one’s behalf, is the common aspiration; so much
so that it is difficult for the missionaries to gain any feeling for
the death on the cross, as they think any one would easily suffer
that.

The Brahmans have for ages studied the problems of ontology and the
soul’s future, by severest introspection and acutest thought, to build
their system, which is a vast elaboration of religious metaphysics,
upon a theistic basis. Reincarnation is the cornerstone of this
structure. Many of the higher Brahmans are believed to have penetrated
the veils concealing past existences. It is related, for instance,
that when Apollonius of Tyana visited India, the Brahman Iarchus told
him that “the truth concerning the soul is as Pythagoras taught you
and as we taught the Egyptians,” and mentioned that he (Apollonius) in
a previous incarnation was an Egyptian steersman, and had refused the
inducements offered him by pirates to guide his vessel into their
hands. The common people of India are sure that certain of the
Brahmans and Buddhists are still able to verify by their finer senses
the reality of reincarnation. And many educated natives and resident
foreigners in India have witnessed evidences of this keen power of
insight associated with other extraordinary qualities which compelled
them to believe in it.

Brahmanism and Buddhism are practically agreed upon the philosophy of
reincarnation, as the great Buddhist revolt against priestcraft only
emphasized this doctrine. Every branch of these systems aims at the
means of winning escape from the necessity of repeated births. The
ardent and final desire of all is expressed by the words of the sage
Bharata:—

“And may the purple self-existent god (Siva),
Whose vital energy pervades all space,
From future transmigrations save my soul.”

There are, however, great differences in these two faiths as to the
means and the result. Both contend that all forms are the penance of
nature. They regard personal existence as an empty delusion and the
exemption from it as true salvation. The Brahman seeks Nirvana, which
is absorption in Brahm, as the reality at the heart of things; the
Buddhist considers this also unreal, and finds no reality but in the
silence and peace attained beyond Nirvana. In the Brahman’s paradise,
one is so free from desire that no need remains for perpetuating his
individual existence. But after that comes Pan-Nirvana, which is utter
inaction and disappearance, a condition so difficult for a Western
mind to comprehend that it persists in falsely calling it and Nirvana
alike—annihilation. The Buddhist’s one duty of life and the means of
attaining his goal is mortification, the extinction of affection and
desire. But the Brahman’s work is contemplation, illumination,
communion with Brahm, religious study, and asceticism. The creed of
Buddhism is universal; that of Brahmanism is exclusive. The Buddhist
saint may come from any class, for the _raison d’être_ of his faith is
the abolition of caste. But only the wearer of the sacred Brahman
thread can aspire to direct union with Brahm; the lower castes must
undergo painful fakir penances until they attain the Brahman estate.

Northern Buddhism has been defined as almost identical with
Gnosticism. It has spun a dense fabric of legend and speculation about
this central thought of the soul’s gradual evolution from the natural
to the spiritual. The Hindus believe that human souls emanated from
the Supreme Being, and became gradually immersed in matter, forgetting
their divine origin, and straying in bewildered condition back to him
through many lives, after a protracted round of births in partial
reparation. Having become contaminated with sin, we must work out our
release through earthly lives in the delusive arena of sense until the
reality of spiritual existence is attained. So long as the soul is not
pure enough for re-mergence into Brahm, we must be born again
repeatedly, and the degree of our impurity determines what these
births shall be. So closely is the account of the soul’s misdeeds kept
that it may pass through thousands of years in one or another of the
heavens in reward for good deeds, and yet be obliged later to descend
to earth for certain ancient sins. The Laws of Manu give a standard by
which the moral consequences of various human actions are measured
with great detail.[45] A more general doctrine is based on the
assumption of three Cosmic qualities—goodness, passion, and
darkness—in the human soul. On this ground Manu and other writers
built an intricate theory, providing that souls of the first quality
become deities, those of the second, men, and those of the third,
beasts.

The Hindu conception of reincarnation embraces all existence—gods,
men, animals, plants, minerals. It is believed that everything
migrates, from Buddha down to inert matter. Hardy tells us that Buddha
himself was born an ascetic eighty-three times, a monarch fifty-eight
times, as the soul of a tree forty-three times, and many other times
as ape, deer, lion, snipe, chicken, eagle, serpent, pig, frog, etc.,
amounting to four hundred times in all. A Chinese authority represents
Buddha as saying, “The number of my births and deaths can only be
compared to those of all the plants in the universe.” Birth is the
gate which opens into every state, and merit determines into which it
shall open. Earth and human life are an intermediary stage, resulting
from many previous places and forms and introducing many more. There
are multitudes of inhabited worlds upon which the same person is
successively born according to his attractions. To the earthly life he
may return again and again, dropping the memory of past experiences,
and carrying, like an embryonic germ, the concisest summary of former
lives into each coming one. Every act bears upon the resultant which
shall steer the soul into its next habitation, not only on earth, but
in the more exalted or debased regions of “Heaven” and “Hell.” Thus
“the chain of the law” binds all existences, and the only escape is by
the final absorption into Brahm.

While the Hindus generally hold that the same soul appears at
different births, the heretical Southern Buddhists teach that the
succession of existences is a succession of souls, bred from one
another, like the sprouting of new generations from plants and
animals, and like the new light kindled from an old lamp, the result,
but not the identity of the former. Another curious aspect of these
Indian speculations is the view of certain Northern Buddhists, who
divide eternity into gigantic cycles which shall at length bring
around again a precise repetition of earlier events. This is similar
to the grand periodic year of the Stoics and of the Epicurean
Atomists, and to the continual metempsychosis of Pythagoras, which
provided that the identical Plato would again and again, at certain
tremendous intervals staggering any one but a Greek or Hindu
metaphysician, appear at the same Academy and deliver the same
lectures, etc.

Zoroastrians and Sufi Mohamedans, with their usual antipathy to Indian
thought, limit their conceptions of reincarnation to a few repeated
lives on earth, which some of the Persian and Arabian mystics stretch
out to a larger number, but soon disappearing either back into the
original source or into darker scenes.

X.
EASTERN POETS UPON REINCARNATION.

Here shalt thou pluck from the most ancient shells
The whitest pearls of wisdom’s treasury.
EDWIN ARNOLD.

Young and enterprising is the West,
Old and meditative is the East.
Turn, O youth! with intellectual zest
Where the sage invites thee to his feast.

Eastward roll the orbs of heaven,
Westward tend the thoughts of men.
Let the poet, nature-driven,
Wander eastward now and then.
MILNES.

X.
EASTERN POETS UPON REINCARNATION.

All Eastern poetry finds a favorite theme in metempsychosis, and the
literature of India is thoroughly saturated with it. The fervent
passion, the subtle thought, the luxuriant imagery which permeate
Asiatic life are centred upon this common philosophy. But the best
portion of this enormous wealth of fantasy is withheld from us, simply
because of its revelry in this very thought which is generally
unattractive to the West. What oriental poetry enters our language is
chiefly erotic or epic, and the most characteristic of all is left for
the few educated natives to enjoy. We can therefore only select a few
representative gems from this unworked mine, illustrating the Muses of
India, Persia, and Arabia. Among the ancient Sanskrit epics are
discovered beautiful renderings of the thought of many births. The
delicacy and tenderness of Persian poetry furnish charming expressions
of the Zoroastrian aspirations for release from earthly bondages to
reascend homeward. The Arabian mysticism of the Sufis directs their
intense subjectivity into ecstatic phrasings of the same idea.

In the wonderful ancient Sanskrit drama “Sakoontala” by Kalidésa,
translated by Monier Williams, occur these passages:—

This peerless maid is like a fragrant flower
Whose perfumed breath has never been diffused.
A gem of priceless water, just released
Pure and unblemished from its glittering bed.
Or rather is she like the mellowed fruit
Of virtuous actions in some former birth
Now brought to full perfection.

That song has filled me with a most peculiar sweetness.
I seem to yearn after some long forgotten love.
Not seldom in our happy hours of ease
When thought is still, the sight of some fair form,
Or mournful fall of music breathing low
Will stir strange fancies thrilling all the soul
With a mysterious sadness and a sense
Of vague yet earnest longing. Can it be
That the dim memory of events long passed,
Or friendships formed in other states of being
Flits like a passing shadow o’er the spirit?

The Sanskrit “Katha Upanishad,” in Edwin Arnold’s rendering as “The
Secret of Death,” contains a full explanation of the Eastern doctrine.

For his noble sacrifice Yama (Death) grants to Nachikêtas the
privilege of asking three boons. After naming and receiving the first
two Nachikêtas says:—

“Thou dost give peace—is that peace nothingness?
Some say that after death the soul still lives,
Personal, conscious; some say, nay, it ends:
Fain would I know which of these twain be true,
By the enlightened. Be my third boon this.”
Then Yama answered, “This was asked of old,
Even by the gods! This is a subtle thing,
Not to be told, hard to be understood:
Ask me some other boon: I may not grant.”

Nachikêtas insists upon this, and will not accept the wealths, powers,
and pleasures which Death offers as a substitute.

Then Yama yielded, granting the great boon,
And spake: “Know, first of all, that what is Good
And what is Pleasant—these be separate!
By many ways, in diverse instances
Pleasure and Good lay hold upon each man!
Blessed is he who, choosing high, lets go
Pleasure for Good. The Pleasure-seekers lose
Life’s end, so lived. The Pleasant and the Good
Solicit men: the sage, distinguishing
By understanding, followeth the Good,
Being more excellent. The foolish man
Cleaveth to Pleasure, seeking still to have,
To keep, enjoy. The foolish ones who live
In ignorance, holding themselves as wise
And well instructed, tread the round of change
With erring steps, deluded, like the blind
Led by the blind. The necessary road
Which brings to life unchanging is not seen
By such: wealth dazzles heedless hearts: deceived
With shows of sense, they deem their world is real
And the unseen is naught; so, constantly,
Fall they beneath my stroke. To reach to Being
Beyond all seeming Being, to know true life—
This is not gained by many; seeing that few
So much as hear of it, and of those few
The more part understandeth not.
“The uttermost true soul is ill-perceived
By him who, unenlightened, sayeth: I
Am I: thou, thou; and the life divided: He
That knoweth life undifferenced, declares
The spirit, what it is, One with the All.
And this is Truth. But nowise shall the truth
Be compassed, if thou speak of small and great.
“Excellent youth! the knowledge thou didst crave
Comes not with speech: words are the false world’s signs.
By insight surely comes it if one hears.
Lo! thou hast loved the Truth, and striven for it.
I would that others, Nachikêtas, strove!
“Only the wise who patiently do sever
Their thought from shows and fix it upon truths,
See HIM, the Perfect and Unspeakable,
Hard to be seen, retreating, ever hid
Deeper and deeper in the uttermost;
Whose house was never entered, who abides
Now and before and always; and so seeing
Are freed from griefs and pleasures.”
“Make it known to me,” he saith,
“Who is HE? what? whom thou hast knowledge of.”
Then Yama spake:
“The answer whereunto all vedas lead;
The answer whereunto as penance strives;
The answer whereunto those strive that live
As seekers after God—hear this from me.
Who knoweth the word Om (which meaneth God)
With all its purports; what his heart would have
His heart possesseth. This of spoken speech
Is wisest, deepest, best, supremest. He
That speaketh it, and wotteth what he speaks
Is worshiped in the place of Brahm, with Brahm!
Also, the soul which knoweth thus itself
It is not born. It doth not die. It sprang
From none, and it begetteth none. Unmade,
Immortal, changeless, primal. I can break
The body, but that soul I cannot harm.”
“If he that slayeth thinks ‘I slay’; if he
Whom he doth slay thinks ‘I am slain,’ then both
Know not aright. That which was life in each
Cannot be slain nor slay. The untouched soul,
Greater than all the worlds (because the worlds
By it subsist); smaller than subtleties
Of things minutest; last of ultimates,
Sits in the hollow heart of all that lives!
Whoso hath laid aside desire and fear,
His senses mastered and his spirit still,
Sees in the quiet light of verity
Eternal, safe, majestical—his soul:
Resting it ranges everywhere: asleep
It roams the world, unsleeping: who, save I,
Know that divinest spirit as it is,
Glad beyond joy, existing outside life?
Beholding it in bodies bodiless,
Amid impermanency permanent,
Embracing all things, yet in the midst of all
The mind enlightened casts its grief away:
It is not to be known by knowledge: man
Wotteth it not by wisdom: learning vast
Halts short of it: only by soul itself
Is soul perceived—when the Soul wills it so
There shines no light save its own light to show
Itself unto itself: none compasseth
Its joy who is not wholly ceased from sin,
Who dwells not self-controlled, self-centred, calm,
Lord of himself. It is not gotten else.
Brahm hath it not to give.
“The man unwise, unmindful, evil-lived
Comes not to that fixed place of peace; he falls
Back to the region of sense life again.
The wise and mindful one, heart purified,
Attaineth to the changeless Place, wherefrom
Never again shall births renew for him.
Then hath he freedom over all worlds
And, if it wills the region of the Past,
The fathers and the mothers of the Past
Come to receive it; and that soul is glad:
And if it wills the regions of the Homes,
The Brothers and the Sisters of the Homes
Come to receive it; and that soul is glad:
And if it wills the region of the Friends,
The well-beloved come to welcome it
With love undying; and that soul is glad.
And if it wills a world of grace and peace
Where garlands are and perfumes and delights
Of delicate meats and drinks, music and song,
Lo! fragrances and blossoms and delights
Of dainty banquets and the streams of song
Come to it; and that soul is glad.
Whoso once perceiveth HIM that is
Without a name, Unseen, Impalpable,
Bodiless, Timeless, such an one is saved,
Death hath not power upon him.”

Although not an Asiatic poem in the ordinary sense, we do not hesitate
to place in this cluster Edwin Arnold’s “Light of Asia.” After the
festival scene in which the prince distributed prizes to the maiden
victors in the sports, and his love had centred upon Yasôdhara, the
last of the contestants, follow these lines:—

Long after, when enlightenment was full,
Lord Buddha, being prayed why thus his heart
Took fire at first glance of the Sâkya girl,
Answered: “We were not strangers as to us
And all it seemed; in ages long gone by
A hunter’s son, playing with forest girls
By Yamun’s springs, where Nandadevi stands
Sate umpire while they raced beneath the firs
Like hares at eve that run their playful rings;
One with flower-like stars crowned he, one with long plumes,
Plucked from the pheasant and the jungle cock,
One with fir apples; but who ran the last
Came first for him, and unto her the boy
Gave a tame fawn and his heart’s love beside.
And in the wood they lived many glad years,
And in the wood they undivided died.
Lo! as hid seed shoots after rainless years,
So good and evil, pains and pleasures, hates
And loves, and all dead deeds come forth again
Bearing bright leaves or dark, sweet fruit or sour.
Thus was I he and she Yasôdhara;
And while the wheel of birth and death turns round
That which hath been must be between us two.”

In other passages of the same poem Buddha tells how his athletic
triumph over the suitors for Yasôdhara, in which she wore a black and
gold veil, was but a new version of an ancient forest battle, when as
a tiger he conquered all the rival claimants for the black and
gold-striped tigress Yasôdhara; how ages before in time of famine,
when he was a Brahman, he compassionately threw himself to a starving
tigress; and how his final salvation of Yasôdhara by the enlightened
doctrine repeated a transaction centuries old, when he was a pearl
merchant and sacrificed the priceless gem containing all his fortune
to rescue this same wife Yasôdhara from hunger.

* * * * *

A typical expression of the Zoroastrian phase of reincarnation is
found in this poem:—

FROM THE PERSIAN.

BY ARCHBISHOP R. C. TRENCH.

Happy are you, starry brethren, who from heaven do not roam,
In the eternal Father’s mansion from the first have dwelt at home.

Round the Father’s throne forever standing in his countenance,
Sunning you, you see the seven circling heavens around you dance.

Me he has cast out to exile in a distant land to learn
How I should love Him the Father, how for that true country yearn.

I lie here, a star of heaven, fallen upon this gloomy place,
Scarce remembering what bright courses I was once allowed to trace.

Still in dreams it comes upon me, that I once on wings did soar;
But or e’er my flight commences this my dream must all be o’er.

When the lark is climbing upward in the sunbeam, then I feel
Even as though my spirit also hidden pinions could reveal.

I a rosebud to this lower soil of earth am fastly bound,
And with heavenly dew besprinkled still am rooted to the ground.

Yet the life is struggling upward, stirring still with all their
might,
Yearning buds that cry to open to the warmth and heavenly light.

From its stalk released, my flower soars not yet a butterfly,
But meanwhile my fragrant incense evermore I breathe on high.

By my Gardener to his garden I shall once transplanted be,
There where I have been already written from eternity.

Oh, my brothers blooming yonder, unto Him the ancient—pray
That the hour of my transplanting He will not for long delay.

Hafiz, the prince of Persian poets, figures the soul as the phœnix
alighting on Tuba, the Tree of Life:—

My phœnix long ago secured
His nest in the sky-vault’s cope;
In the body’s cage immured
He was weary of life’s hope.

Round and round this heap of ashes
Now flies the bird amain,
But in that odorous niche of heaven
Nestles the bird again.

Once flies he upward he will perch
On Tuba’s golden bough;
His home is on that fruited arch
Which cools the blest below.

If over this sad world of ours
His wings my phœnix spread,
How gracious falls on land and sea
The soul-refreshing shade!

Either world inhabits he,
Sees oft below him planets roll;
His body is all of air compact,
Of Allah’s love, his soul.

The following Sufi poem will illustrate the passionate phase of
reincarnation which appears in the spiritual absorption of the
Mohammedan mystics. It is not surprising that the intensity of their
rapturous piety has drawn among their ranks of meditative devotees the
most distinguished religionists, philosophers, and poets of the whole
Persian and Arabian Orient:

THE SUCCESSFUL SEARCH.

I was ere a name had been named upon earth,—
Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth,—
When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign,
And being was none save the Presence Divine!
Ere the veil of the flesh for Messiah was wrought
To the Godhead I bowed in prostration of thought.
I measured intensely, I pondered with heed
(But ah! fruitless my labor) the Cross and its creed.
To the Pagod I rushed, and the Magian’s shrine,
But my eye caught no glimpse of a glory divine:
The reins of research to the Caaba I bent,
Whither hopefully thronging the old and young went;
Candasai and Herát searched I wistfully through,
Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view!
I toiled to the summit, wild, pathless and lone,
Of the globe-girding Kâf, but the Phœnix had flown.
The seventh earth I traversed, the seventh heaven explored,
But in neither discerned I the Court of the Lord.
I questioned the Pen and the Tablet of Fate,
But they whispered not where He pavilions his state.
My vision I strained, but my God-scanning eye
No trace that to Godhead belongs could descry.
But when I my glance turned within my own breast,
Lo! the vainly sought Loved One, the Godhead confessed.
In the whirl of its transport my spirit was tossed
Till each atom of separate being I lost:
And the bright sun of Tanniz a madder than me
Or a wilder, hath never yet seen, nor shall see.

XI.
ESOTERIC ORIENTAL REINCARNATION.

Life’s thirst quenches itself
With draughts which double thirst, but who is wise
Tears from his soul this Trishna, feeds his sense
No longer on false shows, files his mind
To seek not, strive not, wrong not; bearing meek
All ills which flow from foregone wrongfulness,
And so constraining passions that they die.
Thus grows he sinless: either never more
Needing to find a body and a place,
Or so informing what freer frame it takes
In new existence that the new toils prove
Lighter and lighter not to be at all,
Thus “finishing the path”; free from earth’s cheats;
Released from all the skandhas of the flesh;
Broken from ties—from Upâdân—saved
From whirling on the wheel; aroused and sane
As is a man wakened from hateful dreams.
Till aching craze to live ends, and life glides
Lifeless—to nameless quiet, nameless joy,
Blessed NIRVANA—sinless, stirless rest—
That change which never changes.
THE LIGHT OF ASIA.

XI.
ESOTERIC ORIENTAL REINCARNATION.

Throughout the East to-day, as in all past time, the higher priesthood
controls a spiritual science which has been accumulated by long ages
of severest study, and is concealed from the vulgar world. This is no
mere elaboration of fanciful philosophy, as is much of eastern
metaphysics, patiently spun from secluded speculation like the
mediæval scholasticism of Europe. It is a purely rational development
of psychology by the aid of scientific inquiry. Through protracted
investigation and crucial tests repeatedly applied to actual
experience and through retrospective and prophetic insight they have
probed many of the secrets of the soul. The falsity of materialism and
the all-commanding power of spirit are proven beyond a cavil. How the
soul is independent of the physical body, sometimes leaving and
returning to it, and moulding it to suit its needs; how all nature is
but a vast family embodied in physical clothing and inextricably
interlaced in living brotherhood, from lowest atom to sublimest
archangel; how the gradual evolution of all races proceeds through
revolving cycles in a constantly ascending order of things;—these and
many other stupendous spiritual facts are to them familiarly known.
These masters of human mystery hold themselves apart from the populace
and seldom appear to any but their special disciples, but they are
universally believed in by the natives of India, as the miraculous
evidences of their penetration into nature’s heart have been seen of
many. Moreover, ocular demonstration of the existence and phenomenal
capacities of these Mahatmas has frequently been given to well-known
officials and reputable foreigners, whose testimony is on record.

Although these highest adepts keep most of their discoveries secret,
preferring to enlighten mankind indirectly and by a wholesome gradual
uplifting, occasional expressions have been given of the occult
philosophy derived from their funds of science, and from these we
abridge what they are said to teach concerning reincarnation. Even in
the books containing their doctrine, as “Man,” “Esoteric Buddhism,”
“Light on the Path,” and “Through the Gates of Gold,”[46] we surmise
that portions relating to specific details are more or less arbitrary
and exoteric. Therefore we confine our attention to a synopsis of
their central principles of the subject.

These masters tell us that man is composed of seven principles
intricately interwoven so as to constitute a unit and yet capable of
partial separation. This septenary division is only a finer analysis
of the common triple distinctions, body, soul, and spirit, and runs
through the entire universe. The development of man is in the order of
these divisions, from body to spirit and from spirit to body, in a
continual round of incarnations. The progress may be best illustrated
by a seven-coiled spiral which sweeps with a wider curve at every
ascent. The spiral is not a steady upward incline, but at one side
sags down into materiality and at the other side rises into
spirituality,—the material portion of each ring being the lowest side
of its curve, but always higher than the corresponding previous
descent. Furthermore, each ring of the spiral is itself a seven-fold
spiral, and each of these again is a seven-fold spiral, and so on to
an indefinite number of subdivisions.

The evolutionary process requires for its complete unfoldment a number
of planets[47] corresponding to the seven principles. On each of these
planets a long series of lives is necessary before one can advance to
the next. After a full circuit is made the course must be repeated
again on a higher plane, until many successive series of the planetary
rotations, each involving hundreds of separate lives, has developed
the individual into the perfect fullness of experience. Some of these
planets are unknown to astronomy, being of too fine a materiality for
our present perceptions, and on them man is very unlike his
terrestrial appearance.

Since the first human souls began their career through these cycles
they have moved along the entire planetary chain three times, and now,
for the fourth time, we have reached the fourth planet—Earth. We are
therefore, roughly speaking, about half developed, physically. During
the previous series of earthly inhabitations we were exceedingly
different from our present form, and during the later ones we shall
enter upon still more marvelous stages. With each grand series (or
round) a dimension is added to man’s conception of space. The fourth
dimension will be a common fact of consciousness before we complete
the present set of earthly lives. Before reaching the perfection
attainable here at each round every soul must pass through many minor
circuits. We are said to be in the middle of the fifth circuit (or
race) of our fourth round, and the evolution of this fifth race began
about a million years ago. Each race is subdivided, and each of these
divisions again dissected, making the total number of lives allotted
to each round very large. No human being can escape the earth’s
attraction until these are accomplished, with only rare exceptions
among those who by special merit have outstripped the others: for
although all began alike, the contrasted uses of the universal
opportunities have produced all the variations now existing in the
human race. The geometrical progression of characteristics selected by
each soul has resulted in vast divergences.

Long before the twilight of our birth into the present life we passed
through an era of immense duration on this planet as spiritual beings,
gradually descending into matter to enter the bodies which were
developed up from the highest animal type for our reception. Our
evolution therefore is a double one—on the spiritual side from
ethereal races of infinite pedigree, and on the physical side from the
lower animals.

In the first earthly circuit of the last great series (or round) we
passed through seven ethereal sub-races. Each of these developed one
astral sense, until the seventh sub-race had seven senses. What the
sixth and seventh were we cannot imagine, but in time we shall know,
as we are at present tracing over again that path more perfectly, and
have reached only the fifth of the seven stages on this circuit. The
first of these seven sub-races slowly acquired the sense of physical
sight. All the other parts of the sensuous nature were in shadowy
latency. They had no notion of distance, solidity, sound, or smell.
Even colors were hidden from the earliest men, all being white at
first. Each incarnation in this race developed more of the prismatic
hues in their rainbow order, beginning with red. But the one sense of
sight was so spiritual that it amounted to clairvoyancy. The second
sub-race inherited sight and developed newly touch. Through the
repeated lives in this rank the sense of feeling became wonderfully
delicate and acute, possessing the psychometric quality and revealing
the inner as well as the outer nature of the things to which it was
applied. The third sub-race attained hearing, and its spiritual
development of this sense was so keen that the most subtle sounds, as
the budding leaf and the motion of the heavenly bodies, was clearly
perceived. The fourth sub-race added smell to the other three senses,
and the fifth entered into taste. The sixth and seventh unfolded the
remaining senses, which are beyond our present ken.

In the second circuit (or race) the soul began once more with a single
sense and passed through another course of sub-races, rehearsing the
scale of the senses with a larger control of them, though less
spiritual. But even in the third circuit the repeated unfoldments of
the senses toward their physical destiny had still retained a large
degree of spiritual quality, as the men themselves were still
ethereal.

Our first terrestrial appearance in the present circuit (the fifth
race) was in spiritual form, having only astral bodies. This primitive
ethereal race occupied the earth long before it was geologically
prepared for the historical human races. The development of the
physical senses in their present form marks the stages of our
reincarnation in the present race, which is called the descent into
matter. Each turn in this circuit has carried forward the evolution of
the senses in a fixed order, until now we have a firmer hold than ever
before upon those five which indicate the extent of our progress in
the present stage. Our repeated re-births have obscured the long vista
of the ages through which we have traveled to this point, running
through the seven-toned gamut over and over again, first in broad
rough outline, then finishing the details more carefully at each
iteration. Their early spiritual forms have gradually given way to the
modern physical forms, but some persons still retain a portion of
those old guises that once were universal, in certain peculiarly
delicate senses known as second sight, psychometry, clairaudence,
tasting through the fingers, and smelling like a hound. In our present
era the sense of taste has become the last and most fully developed
and the characteristic sense. At first the body did not require food;
then becoming grosser it inhaled it with the air, and as the condition
approached which now prevails, man became an eating animal and is
grown to an epicure. When we shall have completed the full number of
rounds on this earth we shall have not only the other two senses, but
shall govern all seven in a triple form as physical, astral, and
spiritual.

The most important fact in our evolution, and the cause of the present
phase of existence, with its blinding encasements of matter and evil,
is the growth of a personal will. This is the forbidden fruit of the
Bible Paradise. It originated many cycles back and gradually
flourished, until its impress was stamped upon all our
fellow-creatures. At first starting as selfish desires, then urging
motives for rivalry, it resulted in fierce contest between man and
man. The concentration of the soul in selfish energy clouded the inner
spiritual nature, destroyed the trace of ethereal descent, and buried
us deep in the material world. But this “fall into matter” is really
but a necessary curve of the spiral, and is the dawn of a brighter day
such as humanity has never seen.

Death marks the origin of the turn which human evolution is at present
describing. The earlier races had no sense of age and did not die.
Like Enoch, they “walked with God” into the next period of their life.
At present when a man dies his _ego_ holds the impetus of his earthly
desires until they are purged away from that higher self, which then
passes into a spiritual state, where all the psychic and spiritual
forces it has generated during the earthly life are unfolded. It
progresses on these planes until the dormant physical impulses assert
themselves and curve the soul around to another incarnation, whose
form is the resultant of the earlier lives.

The successive appearances of the soul upon one or many earths are a
series of personalities which are the various masks assumed by one
individuality, the numerous parts played by one actor. In each birth
the personality differs from the prior and later existence, but the
one line of individual continuity runs unbroken through all the
countless forms; and as the soul enters into its highest development
it gradually comprehends the whole course of forgotten paths which
have led to the summit.

The time spent by each soul in physical life is only a small fraction
of the whole period elapsing before the next incarnation. The larger
part of the time is passed in the spiritual existence following death,
in which the physical desires and spiritual qualities derived from the
earthly life determine the condition of being, until the impetus of
unconscious character brings the individual into another earthly life.

XII.
TRANSMIGRATION THROUGH ANIMALS.

All things are but altered, nothing dies,
And here and there th’ unbodied spirit flies
By time and force or sickness dispossessed
And lodges where it lights in man or beast.
PYTHAGORAS, in DRYDEN’S _Ovid_.

What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?
That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
What thinkest thou of his opinion?
I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of his opinion.
SHAKESPEARE.

Whoever leaves off being virtuous ceases to be human; and since he
cannot attain to a divine nature he is turned into a beast.—BOETHIUS.

Be not under any brutal metempsychosis while thou livest and walkest
about erectly under the form of man. Leave it not disputed at last how
thou hast predominantly passed thy days.—SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

That which has saved India and Egypt through so many misfortunes and
preserved their fertility is neither the Nile nor the Ganges; it is
the respect for animal life by the mild and gentle heart of
man.—MICHELET.

Oh! the beautiful time will, must come when the beast-loving Brahmin
shall dwell in the cold north and make it warm, when man who now
honors humanity shall also begin to spare and finally to protect the
animated ascending and descending scale of living creatures.—RICHTER.

As many hairs as grow on the beast, so many similar deaths shall the
man who slays that beast for his own satisfaction in this world pass
through in the next from birth to birth.—LAWS OF MANU.

XII.
TRANSMIGRATION THROUGH ANIMALS.

The idea of reincarnation is so intimately connected and so generally
identified with the notion that human souls sometimes descend into
lower animals, that it is necessary for us to thoroughly understand
the exoteric and gross nature of this grotesque phrasing of a solemn
and beautiful truth.

All the philosophies and religions teaching reincarnation seem to
teach also the wandering of human souls through brute forms. It was
the common belief in Egypt and still is in Asia. All animals were
sacred to the Egyptians as the masks of fallen gods, and therefore
worshiped. The same reverence for all creatures still reigns in the
East. The Hindu regards everything in the vast tropical jungle of
illusion as a human soul in disguise. The Laws of Manu state: “For
sinful acts mostly corporeal, a man shall assume after death a
vegetable or mineral form; for such acts mostly verbal, the form of a
bird or beast; for acts mostly mental, the lowest of human
conditions.”

“A priest who has drunk spirituous liquors shall migrate into the form
of a smaller or larger worm or insect, of a moth or some ravenous
animal.

“If a man steal grain in the husk he shall be born a rat; if a
yellow-mixed metal, a gander; if water, a plava or diver; if honey, a
great stinging gnat; if milk, a crow; if expressed juice, a dog; if
clarified butter, an ichneumon weasel.

“A Brahman killer enters the body of a dog, a bear, an ass, a tiger,
or a serpent.”

Not only does this conception permeate the domains of Brahmanism and
Buddhism; it prevailed in Persia before the time of Zoroaster as
since. Pythagoras is said to have obtained it in Babylon from the
Magi, and through him it scattered widely through Greece and Italy.
More closely than with any other teacher, this false doctrine is
associated with the sage of Crotona, who is said to have recognized
the voice of a deceased friend in the howling of a beaten dog. Plato
seems to endorse it also. Plotinus says: “Those who have exercised
human faculties are born again men. Those who have used only their
senses go into the bodies of brutes, and especially into those of
ferocious beasts, if they have yielded to bursts of anger; so that
even in this case, the difference between the bodies that they animate
conforms to the difference of their propensities. Those who have
sought only to gratify their lust and appetite pass into the bodies of
lascivious and gluttonous animals. Finally, those who have degraded
their senses by disuse are compelled to vegetate in the plants. Those
who have loved music to excess and yet have lived pure lives, go into
the bodies of melodious birds. Those who have ruled tyrannically
become eagles. Those who have spoken lightly of heavenly things,
keeping their eyes always turned toward heaven, are changed into birds
which always fly toward the upper air. He who has acquired civic
virtues becomes a man; if he has not these virtues he is transformed
into a domestic animal, like the bee.”

Some of the church fathers also believed it. Proclus and Syrianus
argued that the brute kept its own soul, but that the human soul which
passed into the brute body was bound within the animal soul. Nearly
all mythology contains this view of transmigration in some form. In
the old Norse and German religions the soul is poetically represented
as entering certain lower forms, as a rose, a pigeon, etc., for a
short period before assuming the divine abode. The Druids of old Gaul
also taught it. The Welsh bards tell us that the souls of men
transmigrate into the bodies of those animals whose habits and
characters they most resemble, till, after a circuit of such
penitential miseries, they are purified for the celestial presence.
They mention three circles of existence: the circle of the
all-inclosing circle which holds nothing alive or dead but God; the
second circle, that of felicity, in which men travel after they have
meritoriously passed through their terrestrial changes; the circle of
evil, in which human nature passes through the varying stages of
existence which it must undergo before it is qualified to inhabit the
circle of felicity, and this includes the three infelicities of
necessity, oblivion, and death, with frequent trials of the lower
animal lives.[48] “Sir Paul Rycant gives us an account of several
well-disposed Mohammedans that purchase the freedom of any little bird
they see confined to a cage, and think they merit as much by it as we
should do here by ransoming any of our countrymen from their captivity
at Algiers. The reason is because they consider every animal as a
brother or sister in disguise, and therefore think themselves obliged
to extend their charity to them, though under such mean circumstances.
They tell you that the soul of a man, when he dies, immediately passes
into the body of another man, or some brute which he resembled in his
humor, or his fortune, when he was one of us.”[49] Pythagorean
transmigration is apparent also in the natives of Mexico, who think
that the souls of persons of rank after death inhabit the bodies of
beautiful, sweet singing birds and the nobler quadrupeds, while the
souls of inferior persons pass into weasels, beetles, and other low
creatures. Among the negroes, the Sandwich Islanders, the Tasmanians,
in short, among nearly all the world outside of Christendom, this
faith rules unquestioned.

The lowest forms of this belief are found among the tribes of Africa
and America, which think that the soul immediately after death must
seek out a new tenement, and, if need be, enter the body of an animal.
Some of the Africans assume that the soul will choose the body of a
person of similar rank to its former one, and therefore bury the dead
near the houses of their relatives, enabling the unbodied souls to
occupy their new-born children. Sometimes holes are dug in the grave
to facilitate the soul’s egress, and the house-doors are left open for
its admission. The Druses hold firmly to the theory of transmigration.
The folk-lore of all nations has various ways of telling how the soul
of a man can inhabit an animal’s body, in stories of wehr-wolves,
swan-maidens, mermaids, etc. In many parts of Europe the belief in the
man-wolf still flourishes in connection with a crazy person, or a
monomaniac, who is said to be transformed into the brute nature.
Northern Europe receives this superstition as the man-bear. In India
it is the man-tiger; in Abyssinia, the man-hyena; in South Africa, the
man-lion; each country associating the depraved human nature, which
sometimes runs riot as an epidemic mania, with the animal most
dreaded.

But it is all a coarse symbol caricaturing the inner vital truth of
reincarnation, and springing from the striking resemblance between men
and animals, in feature and disposition, in voice and mien. The
intelligence and kindness of the beasts approaching near to human
character, and the brutality of some men, would seem to indicate that
both races were closely enough related to exchange souls. As an
English writer says: “A judicious critic or observant reader will
scarce allow that more than four or five in the long catalogue of
Roman emperors had any humanity; and although they might perhaps have
a just claim to be styled Lords of the Earth, they had no right to the
title of Man. There is an excellent dissertation in Erasmus on the
princely qualities of the eagle and the lion; wherein that great
author has demonstrated that emperors and kings are very justly
represented by those animals, or that there must be a similarity in
their souls, as all their actions are similar and correspondent.”[50]
Emerson has a paragraph upon this in his essay on Demonology: “Animals
have been called ‘the dreams of nature.’ Perhaps for a conception of
their consciousness we may go to our own dreams. In a dream we have
the instinctive obedience, the same torpidity of the highest power,
the same unsurprised assent to the monstrous, as these metamorphosed
men exhibit. Our thoughts in a stable or in a menagerie, on the other
hand, may well remind us of our dreams. What comparison do these
imprisoning forms awaken! You may catch the glance of a dog sometimes
which lays a kind of claim to sympathy and brotherhood. What! somewhat
of me down there? Does he know it? Can he, too, as I, go out of
himself, see himself, perceive relations? We fear lest the poor brute
should gain one dreadful glimpse of his condition. It was in this
glance that Ovid got the hint of his metamorphoses; Calidasa, of his
transmigration of souls. For these fables are our own thoughts carried
out. What keeps these wild tales in circulation for thousands of
years? What but the wild fact to which they suggest some approximation
of theory? Nor is the fact quite solitary, for in varieties of our own
species where organization seems to predominate over the genius of
man, in Kalmuck or Malay or Flathead Indian, we are sometimes pained
by the same feeling; and sometimes, too, the sharp-witted prosperous
white man awakens it. In a mixed assembly we have chanced to see not
only a glance of Abdiel, so grand and keen, but also in other faces
the features of the mink, of the bull, of the rat, and the barn-door
fowl. You think, could the man overlook his own condition, he could
not be restrained from suicide.”

The remarkable mental cleverness of the highest animals, the cunning
of the fox, the tiger’s fierceness, the serpent’s meanness, the dog’s
fidelity, seem to be human traits in other forms, and the animal
qualities are striking enough in many men for them to be fitly
described as a fox, a hog, a snake, etc. The characteristics of
animals are accurately termed in expressions first applied to mankind,
and the community of disposition between the erect and the debased
animal creation has furnished words for human qualities from the lower
orders of life,—as leonine, canine, vulpine, etc. Briefly, “the rare
humanity of some animals and the notorious animality of some men”
first suggested the idea of interchanging their souls among the
primitive peoples, and has nourished it ever since among the oldest
portion of the race as a vulgar illustration of a vital reality.

As the fruits of this idea are beneficial, it was firmly held by the
priests and philosophers as a moral fable, through which they
popularly taught not only reincarnation, but respect for virtue and
for life. It wrought a poetic love of nature in the masses such as has
never been seen under any other influence—and which Christianity has
strangely failed to establish. Lecky candidly says in his “European
Morals”: “In the inculcation of humanity to animals on a wide scale
the Mohammedans and the Brahmins have considerably surpassed the
Christians.”

To the eastern mind life is a stream flowing through endless
transformations, and everything containing it is divine, from the
commonest onion to the crowned king; and as all living things are the
possible casements of human souls, it is the height of impiety to
abuse anything. The kindness of the Orient toward the brute creation
is a beautiful comment upon the genuineness of this faith. The mercy
due from man to his friends the lower animals is a noble bequest which
has there been treasured for the world. As the wholesome lesson of
transmigration, Asia has thoroughly learned that

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small,
For the dear Lord who loveth us
He made and loveth all.

But the intelligent leaders of oriental thought were far from
believing transmigration literally. The occult theory of the priests
of Isis, like that of the Brahmans, Buddhists, and Chaldeans, never
really held that human souls inhabit animals, or that animal souls
occupy men, although many orientalists have not penetrated beyond this
outer court of eastern doctrine. It was simply an allegorical gospel
for the masses with a double purpose,—to picture the inner truth which
acute thinkers would reach and which the crowds need not know, and to
instill respect for all life. The Egyptian priesthood adopted three
styles of teaching all doctrine. The vulgar religion of the populace
was a crude shaping of the priestly thought. The priests of the outer
temple received the half-veiled tenets of initiates. But only the
hierophants of the inner temple, after final initiation, were allowed
to know the pure truth. The same triple shaping of the central
thought, adapted to the audience, was followed by Pythagoras, Plato,
and all the great masters. Although the name of Pythagoras is
synonymous with the idea of soul-wandering through animals, a careful
perusal of the fragments of his writings, and of his disciples’ books,
shows that he tremendously realized the fact that souls must always,
by all the forces of the universe, find an adequate expression of
their strongest nature, and that it would be as impossible for a
gallon to be contained in a pint measure, as for a human spirit to
inhabit an animal body. That the teaching of Pythagoras on this point
was purely allegorical is proven by the abridgment of his philosophy
given by his disciple Hierocles: “The man who has separated himself
from a brutal life by the right use of reason, purified himself as
much as is possible from excess of passions, and by this become a man
from a wild beast, shall become a God from a man, as far as it is
possible for a man to become a God.... We can only cure our tendency
downwards by the power that leads upwards, by a ready submission to
God, by a total conversion to the divine law. The end of the
Pythagorean doctrine is to be all wings for the reception of divine
good, that when the time of death comes we may leave behind us upon
earth the mortal body, and be ready girt for our heavenly journey.
Then we are restored to our primitive state. This is the most
beautiful end.”

Hierocles also comments on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras: “If
through a shameful ignorance of the immortality annexed to our soul, a
man should persuade himself that his soul dies with his body, he
expects what can never happen; in like manner he who expects that
after his death he shall put on the body of a beast, and become an
animal without reason, because of his vices, or a plant because of his
dullness and stupidity,—such a man, I say, acting quite contrary to
those who transform the essence of man into one of the superior
beings, is infinitely deceived, and absolutely ignorant of the
essential form of the soul, which can never change; for being and
continuing always man, it is only said to become God or beast by
virtue or vice, though it cannot be either the one or the other.”[51]
The early Neo-Platonists of Alexandria limited the range of human
metempsychosis to human bodies and denied that the souls of men ever
passed downwards into brutal states. Even the apparent endorsement of
that conceit by Plotinus, quoted above, was merely a simile. Porphyry,
Jamblichus, and Hierocles forcibly emphasized this distinction.
Wilkinson shows that the initiated priests taught that “dissolution is
only the cause of reproduction. Nothing perishes which has once
existed. Things which appear to be destroyed only change their natures
and pass into another form.” But Ebers demonstrates that the inner
circle of the temple held this truth in a form wholly above the system
of embalming, animal worship, and transmigration ingeniously devised
by them for the people. Like the ruling priestcraft in all times and
countries, they considered it necessary to disguise their sacred
secrets for the crowd. The symbols of reincarnation which everywhere
have typified the same doctrine,—in Egyptian architecture by the
flying globe, in Chinese pagodas and Indian temples by the intricate
unfoldments of germinant designs ascending through successive stories
to culminate in a gilded ball, in the Grecian friezes of religious
processions, in the Druidical cromlechs and cairns of Wales and the
circular stone heaps of Britain,—all expressed a threefold
significance, telling the masses of their transition through all
living conditions, reminding the common priesthood of an exalted
series of transformations, and picturing for the initiates the hidden
principles of immortal progress. For all alike these emblems
reiterated, the solemn and vital reality of universal brotherhood
throughout Nature; but the keenest students, who guided the bulk of
religious thought, read in them simply the eternal law of cause and
effect divinely ruling the soul through incessant changes. It would be
as unjust to construe literally the poetic statements of the human
soul wandering through animals, etc., by which metaphor the noblest
leaders of western thought convey the idea of spiritual evolution (see
chapter v.), as to call this lowest phase of the philosophy the real
belief of those who shaped it.

And yet there is a sense in which the most intelligent orientals
adhere to this, and in which western science endorses it,—namely in
the axiomatic truth that human atoms and emanations traverse the
entire round of lower natures. When the Laws of Manu speak of the
transmigration of men through all animal stages, these eastern
authorities say that they mean not souls, but men’s physical selves.
When the Laws assert that “a Brahman killer enters the body of a dog,
bear, ass, etc.,” they do not mean that the murderer of a priest
becomes a dog, bear, ass, etc. The inner meaning of the Law is that he
who kills and extinguishes the Brahman or divine nature, condemns his
soul to lower human circumstances, and the downward affinity of his
passions carries every particle of his body by magnetic relations into
more degraded ranks of existence. The Brahmans have distorted the
inward purpose of this Law in their own interest by insisting upon its
outward meaning. So the various accounts of the descent of human into
animal or vegetative nature, whether given by Hindu, Pythagorean,
Platonist, Egyptian, Norse, or Barbarian, are actual facts as far as
the migration of the composing atoms and emanations of the outer
individual are concerned. For these atoms obey the directing impulses
of degrading passion or ascending principle. The imponderable force of
these atomic changes is proven by the psychometric evidence of
sensitives, who perceive the various unexpressed moods of a person by
the kinds of lambent particles flowing from him, and trace the
permanent course of these particles after they have lodged on objects
widely separated from him. The tell-tale characteristics of these
scattered atoms remain a long while as stamped by their source, and
guide them to what is most congenial. This scientific fact, confirmed
by many experiments,[52] but generally ignored, shaped the old atomic
hypotheses in which Pythagoras, Epicurus, Zeno, and all the old
philosophers down to Plato found delight, and Plato himself simply
spiritualized it into a more enduring form.

The attitude of the dominant disciples of reincarnation upon this
point may be gathered from the following statement of a Brahman to the
writer: “The whole question of re-births rests upon the right
understanding of what it is that is born again. Obviously not the
body, nor is it the ego, which is the same whether in a man or in a
worm. The ego is colorless of all attributes of which we have any
knowledge in practice. The only thing that can be said to be re-born
is the character of a being, through spiritual blindness confounded
with the ego, in the same way as light is commonly confounded with the
objects illuminated and said to be red, blue, or any other color. The
essential characteristic of humanity cannot possibly exist in an
animal form, for otherwise it cannot be essential to humanity.
Whenever in a human being the ego is identified in the above manner
with what is essentially human, birth in an animal form is as certain
as any relative truth can be not to take place.”

“Atoms enter into organic combinations according to their affinities,
and when released from one individual system they retain a tendency to
be attracted by other systems, not necessarily human, with similar
characteristics. The assimilation of atoms by organisms takes place in
accordance with the law of affinities. It may be hastily contended
that the relation between the mental characteristics of an individual
and the atoms of his body ceases when the atoms no longer constitute
the body. But the fact that certain atoms are drawn into a man’s body
shows that there was some affinity between the atoms and the body
before they were so drawn together. Consequently there is no reason to
suppose that the affinity ceases at parting. And it is well known that
psychometers can detect the antecedent life history of any substance
by being brought into contact with it. It must be insisted that the
true human ego in no sense migrates from a human body to an animal
body, although those principles which lie below the plane of
self-consciousness may do so. And in this sense alone is
transmigration accepted by Esoteric Science.”

XIII.
WHAT THEN OF DEATH, HEAVEN, AND HELL?

When we die, we shall find that we have not lost our dreams; but
that we have only lost our sleep.—RICHTER.

Life is a kind of sleep. Old men sleep longest. They never begin to
wake but when they are to die.—DE LA BRUYERE.

There is no death: what seems so is transition.
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life Elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
LONGFELLOW.

We can hardly do otherwise than assume that the future being must be
so involved in our present constitution as to be therein
discernible.

ISAAC TAYLOR.

When I leave this rabble rout and defilement of the world, I leave
it as an inn, and not as a place of abode. For nature has given us
our bodies as an inn, and not to dwell in.—CATO.

He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but
he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life
everlasting.

ST. PAUL.

But all lost things are in the angels’ keeping, Love.
No past is dead for us, but only sleeping, Love.
The years of heaven will all earth’s little pain make good.
Together there we can begin again in babyhood.
HELEN HUNT.

Death is another life. We bow our heads
At going out, we think, and enter straight
Another chamber of the king’s,
Larger than this we leave and lovelier.
BAILEY.

The deep conviction of the indestructibleness of our nature through
death, which everyone carries at the bottom of his heart, depends
altogether upon the consciousness of the original and eternal nature
of our being.—SCHOPENHAUER.

XIII.
WHAT THEN OF DEATH, HEAVEN, AND HELL?

The latest developments of science agree with the occultists and poets
that there is no death, and that nothing is dead. What seems to be
extinction is only a change of existence. What appears to have no
vitality has only a lower order of the life principle. Everything is
pulsing with energy, stones and dirt as well as animals and trees. The
same force which animates the human body, the beasts, birds, and
reptiles in their brief periods, also vitalizes the oaks and vines in
a smaller degree with longer lives, and individualizes the mineral
world into crystals on a still lower plane but with lifetimes reckoned
by thousands of years. And below crystal-life, in the constituent
atoms of shapeless matter, is a tremendous thrill of undiminished
activity. Life, the occultists say, is the eternal uncreated energy.
The physicists grasp at the same thing in their Law of Continuity, and
modern science concedes that “energy has as much claim to be regarded
as an objective reality as matter itself.”[53] This life is the one
essential energy acting under protean forms. It always inheres in
every particle of matter, and makes no distinction between organic and
inorganic, except one of grade, the former containing life-energy
actively and the latter in dormant form. Because the scientist is
unable to awaken into activity the latent life of inorganic matter, he
insists, by the law of biogenesis, that life can only come from life.
But that only marks the limit of his knowledge. The world’s
development has bridged all the gaps now yawning between the different
kingdoms of nature, though nothing remains now to show how it was
done, and science has to confess its ignorance. There is nothing to
contradict and much to enforce the occult axiom that the same life
animates man, plant, and rock simply in different states of the one
indestructible force,—the Universal Soul,—making all nature what
Goethe terms “the living visible garment of God.”

It is impossible for a person to cease to exist. When the tenant of
the body moves out, the forces binding together the dwelling scatter
to the nearest uses awaiting them. The positivists would have it that
the individual soul also dissolves into an impersonal fund of being—a
sort of immediate chilling Nirvana, out-freezing any eastern
conception of remotest destiny. This melancholy result of western
materialism is boldly confronted by reincarnation with a proven
hypothesis, which illuminates the mystery of death and the future, and
shows the unimpeachable reality of immortality. Reincarnation
demonstrates that the personal ego, which permanently maintains its
identity amid the constant changes of the bodily casement and the
mental consciousness, must continue its individuality. In addition to
the evidences already adduced for the genuineness of this truth, there
stands the honest reliable testimony of spiritualism (a small core of
veritable fact around which is gathered an enormous concretion of
deceptions, mischievously intentional or pathetically unconscious),
and the actual experience of some orientals whose intense devotion to
pure invisible realities has pushed them into the perception of
ultra-mortal things.

It is the strong attachment to physical existence which makes death
the king of terrors. Those who have learned the lesson of life find
him the blessed angel who ushers them through the golden gates. There
shall at length come to every ascending soul the experience of those
whose departure from this life cannot be called death, as Jesus,
Elijah, or Enoch, who “walked with God and he was not, for God took
him.” They became so buoyed with spiritual forces that a slight touch
shifted the equipoise and translated them into the invisible. The
clarified spirit greets death with a welcome, and sings his praise as
did Paul Hamilton Hayne in his dying song:—

Sad mortal! couldst thou but know
What truly it means to die,
The wings of thy soul would glow,
And the hopes of thy heart beat high;
Thou wouldst turn from the Pyrrhonist schools,
And laugh their jargon to scorn,
As the babbling of midnight fools
Ere the morning of Truth be born:
But I, earth’s madness above,
In a kingdom of stormless breath,—
I gaze on the glory of love
In the unveiled face of Death.

I tell thee his face is fair
As the moon-bow’s amber rings,
And the gleam in his unbound hair
Like the flash of a thousand springs;
His smile is the fathomless beam
Of the star-shine’s sacred light,
When the summers of Southland dream
In the lap of the holy Night:
For I, earth’s blindness above,
In a kingdom of halcyon breath,—
I gaze on the marvel of love
In the unveiled face of Death.

When death severs the soul from its mortal shell, the ruling
tendencies of the soul carry it to its strongest affinities. If these
still dwell on earth, the soul hovers affectionately among the old
scenes and insensibly mingles with its heart-friends, ministering and
being ministered to, with no essential difference from the former
condition.[54] Many veritable experiences, apart from all possibility
of delusion, confirm this, although the darkness of matter blinds most
of us to the psychic life. At length, as shifting time unties the
bonds of earth, the soul moves on with its strongest allies to the
realms of its choice. There the soul lives out an era of its true
life, an expression of its deepest nature, as much more full and more
real than the late physical life, as the waking state exceeds the
dreaming. For the escape from material confinement allows the freest
activity, in which the dominant desires, unconsciously nourished in
the spirit, have the mastery. This liberty rouses the spirit from the
earthly lethargy into its permanent individuality. The startling bound
of the spirit into its own sphere must transfer the self-consciousness
from its terrestrial form to a far higher vividness; but, as the
wakefulness of day includes the somnambulence of night and knows
itself superior to that dumb life, so the burst of unconstrained
spiritual existence does not annul, but transcends the material phase.

The condition of the period intervening between death and birth, like
all other epochs, is framed by the individual. The inner character
makes a Paradise, a Purgatory, or an Inferno of any place. As Jesus
said he was in heaven while talking with his followers, as Dante found
all the material for hell in what his eyes witnessed, so in the
environments beyond death, where the subjective states of the soul are
supreme, the appearance of the universe and the feelings of self are
created, well or ill, by the central individual. There must be as many
heavens and hells as there are good and bad beings. All the attempts
to describe the future are inadequate and erroneous, and must
necessarily be so. Plato, in the last book of the Republic, quotes the
narrative of the Pamphylian Er, who had been killed in battle but came
to life again on his funeral pyre, and declared that he was returned
to earth to disclose the nature of the coming life. He found things
about as Plato’s allegory pictures them: the good and the wicked who
had just died being assigned their places in heaven or under the
earth. A number of souls whose thousand years of one or the other
experience had expired were made to cast lots for a choice out of a
large number of human and animal lives, and to drink of the River of
Indifference, and to traverse the Plain of Forgetfulness before
entering the world again. As with all the visions of after death, this
simply reflected the opinions of the Platonic thinker. St. John’s
Revelation paints the scene by colors obtained from his Jewish
training, on the canvas of his Patmos imprisonment. Bunyan’s
description shows a simple imagination saturated with the Apocalypse.
Protestant visionaries always discover a Protestant heaven and hell.
Catholic ecstatics always add purgatory. Swedenborg found the gardens
of heaven laid out in the Dutch fashion of his time. English
clairvoyants and mediums are properly orthodox and evangelical.
American spirits talk broad theology with ridiculous details. The
divergence in all these alleged liftings of the veil betrays their
subjectiveness.

It is impossible in the nature of things that one should permanently
leave the physical condition until the business of that existence is
accomplished in transferring the affections from material to spiritual
things. While the ruling attraction to a soul remains in this world,
all the forces of the universe conspire to continue the association of
the two in repeated lives. On the other hand, a person dominated by
spiritual proclivities finds infinite magnetisms drawing him away from
temporal surroundings to the inscrutable glories of the eternal. In
Swedenborg’s phrase, “a man’s loves make his home.” The residual
impulses coming from the momentums of past lives determine what and
when shall be the next embodiment. The time and manner of
reincarnation vary with each individual according to the impetus
engendered by his lives. Between these lives the spiritual effect of
the earth life is absorbed from the personal soul manifested on earth
into the immortal and unmanifested ego. This process may require days,
years, centuries, or millenniums, depending upon the intensity of the
mundane aspirations which draw the spirit to earth and hinder its
liberation into pure spiritual life. But as in dreams a whole life’s
history is sometimes condensed into a few seconds, time has no
existence to the disembodied spirit. Whether the interval be long or
short, the entire spiritual effect of the last life must be
assimilated and shaped into a form that will spring up in coming
lives. The instances of alternate consciousness indicate that some
such marked difference from the previous incarnation appears in each
earthly life, losing all remembrance of the previous chapter, and
working out the tendencies which embodied that particular life in a
career that will achieve redemption or condemnation.

At the first thought reincarnation carries the unwelcome inference
that death and re-births separate us from the dearest present ties and
introduce us as strangers into new phases of activity where
everything—friends, knowledge, and occupations—must be found afresh.
This is a mistake. The unnoticed habits of thought and action derived
from the alliance of cherished comrades strengthen into ungovernable
steeds whose course directs the soul on every journey toward those
favorite companions. Among the thousands of acquaintances made in a
lifetime, the rare friends whose intimacy strikes down into the inmost
depths of the soul must continue as irresistible attractions in the
next life. Orpheus could not fail to discover Eurydice in the spirit
realm. In this earthly existence, which is the Heaven, or Purgatory,
or Hell of the last one, we go straying among unfamiliar forms,
frequently mistaking them for true friends, until suddenly we meet a
soul with which there comes so intense and permanent an affection that
every other person is forgotten. Such a fusion of spirits must hail
from the shores of long distant loves, and its new unrecognized
mastery develops a mightier union than would be possible in one
uninterrupted flow. The poets like to symbolize this as the blending
of two hemispheres long since separated into their original perfect
whole. The most probable explanation of such intimacies rests in the
idea that they are repetitions of previous attachments. A sense of
ancient familiarity grows upon these closest ties, notwithstanding the
absence of memory’s confirmation. The powerful attractions residing in
families and kinships may well be the result of ancestral affinities
which have bound together in many earlier combinations, like a turning
kaleidoscope, the same individuals.

XIV.
KARMA, THE COMPANION TRUTH OF REINCARNATION.

We are our own children.—PYTHAGORAS.

Nothing can work me damage but myself.—ST. BERNARD.

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill
Our fatal shadows that walk with us still.
BEAUMONT & FLETCHER.

The kingdom of heaven is within you.—JESUS.

We make our fortunes and we call them fate.—B. DISRAELI.

Men must reap the things they sow.
Force from force must ever flow.
SHELLEY.

The soul contains in itself the event that shall presently befall
it, or the event is only the actualizing of its thoughts.—EMERSON.

Seldom went such grotesqueness with such pain;
I never saw a brute I hated so.
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.
BROWNING.

Not from birth does one become a slave; not from birth does one
become a saint; but by conduct alone.—GAUTAMA.

We sleep, but the loom of life never stops; and the pattern which
was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up
to-morrow.—BEECHER.

Then spake he of that answer all must give
For all things done amiss or wrongfully,
Alone, each for himself, reckoning with that
The fixed arithmetic of the universe,
Which meteth good for good, ill for ill,
Measure for measure unto deeds, words, thoughts,
Making all futures fruits of all the pasts.
THE LIGHT OF ASIA.

XIV.
KARMA, THE COMPANION TRUTH OF REINCARNATION.

Karma is the eastern word for what the West knows as the Law of
Causation, applied to personal experience. In Christendom the full
recognition of this great principle, like that of its mate,
reincarnation, lies dormant; but it is merely an extension into the
spiritual domain of the fundamental premise of all science, the
substratum of common sense, the cardinal axiom of every
philosophy,—that each effect has an adequate cause, and each cause
works infinite consequences. Briefly, the doctrine of karma is that we
have made ourselves what we are by former actions, and are building
our future eternity by present actions. There is no destiny but what
we ourselves determine. There is no salvation or condemnation except
what we ourselves bring about. God places all the powers of the
universe at our disposal, and the handle by which we use them to
construct our fate has been and is and always shall be our own
individual will. Action (karma) of the spirit, whether in the inner
consciousness alone, or by vocal expression, or in outward act, is the
secret force which directs our journeys through infinity, driving us
down into the gloomy regions of evil, of matter, and of selfishness,
or up toward the luminous fields of good, of spirit, and of love.

The most adamantine of facts is that of an infinite all-comprehending
power of which nature is the pulsing body, an eternal reality shaping
the shadowy appearances of time, and variously named Force, Fate,
Justice, Righteousness, Love, Mind, The Over-Soul, God. The most
essential attribute of this unfathomable Being is that of Almighty
Equity. Confronting this fact is the puzzling fact of our spiritual
personality enveloped in matter. The thought always associated with
this, never practically forsaken, though sometimes theoretically
denied, is individual responsibility. “Two things fill me with
wonder,” said Kant, “the starry heavens and the sense of moral
responsibility in man.” When Daniel Webster was asked what was the
greatest thought that ever stirred his soul, he replied, “The thought
of my personal accountability to God.” Every balanced mind agrees with
these intellectual giants on this point. The inevitable outcome of
grouping these two actualities (God and responsibility) is the
conception that the Universal Sustainer is giving every creature the
best thing for it, and that each soul is in some way accountable for
its condition. Single observations seem to contradict this idea, but
the long trend of life’s experience verifies it. Because it offers no
shelter for culpable actions and necessitates a sterling manliness, it
is less welcome to weak natures than the easy religious tenets of
vicarious atonement, intercession, forgiveness, and death-bed
conversions. But it rings through the inner soul-world as the
fundamental harmonic tone, setting the key for all wholesome poetry,
philosophy, religion, and art, and inspiring the magnificent sweep of
progress which is rationalizing modern Christendom. For it is
identical with the essence of Bible truth, as these representative
sentences will suggest:—

“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of
life.” (Solomon.)

“Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee.” (Jesus.)

“Work out your own salvation. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap.” (St. Paul.)

The embryos of all animals are at the earliest stage indistinguishable
from one another. The biologist who has lost his labels cannot tell
which would become a fish, which a cat, and which a man; but nature
knows the past records and therefore the future possibility of each.
So within souls apparently similar there hide unsuspected germs of
vast difference, resulting from the forgotten pasts, which may develop
into corresponding divergent futures. The ancient behaviors of every
soul have accumulated a grand heritage of influences from which our
present bequest is derived. Using another figure, as each piece of
“new” soil contains through all its depth a multitude of various seeds
sown in past ages, which patiently bide their time to be brought to
light and bear fruit, so the kernels of remote conducts shall
eventually all have their unfoldment in the revolution of our lives,
until at last, if we refuse weeds and harbor only worthy germs, we
shall bear a continual harvest of good.

The “bonds of action” include the whole range of material for
character,—not only the recognized habits of the soul, but, of more
consequence still, the unconscious inner thought whence the outward
manifestations spring. Whatever impulses are secretly cherished, these
feed the acts of life, and mould all our environments to fit them. The
nurtured thought of killing produces a thousand unseen murders and
must continue wreaking crimes in immensely larger degree than hangable
horrors. Our favorite inclinations show what we have been doing in
ancient ages. Within the germ of to-day’s conduct are coiled
interminable consequences of good and evil.

The relentless hand which metes out our fortunes with the stern
justice most vividly portrayed by the Greek dramatists in their
Nemesis, Fates, and Furies, takes from our own savings the gifts
bestowed on us. “Alas! we sow what we reap; the hand that smites us is
our own.” In the domain of eternal justice, the offense and the
punishment are inseparably connected as the same event, because there
is no real distinction between the action and its outcome. He who
injures another in fact only wrongs himself. To adopt Schopenhauer’s
figure, he is a wild beast who fastens his fangs in his own flesh. But
linked with the awful fact of our undivided responsibility for what we
now are, goes the inspiring assurance that we have in our control the
remedy of evil and the increase of good. We can, and we alone can,
extricate ourselves from the existing limitations, by the all-curing
powers of purity, love, spirituality. In eastern phraseology, the
purpose of life is to work out our bad karma (action) and to stow away
good karma. As surely as the harvest of to-day grows from the
seed-time of yesterday, so shall every kernel of thought and feeling,
speech and performance, bring its crop of reward or rebuke. The
inherent result of every quiver of the human will continually tolls
the Day of Judgment, and affords immeasurable opportunities for
amelioration.

The worthy soul straitened with misfortune is shifting off the chains
of old wrong-doing. The vicious soul enjoying comforts is reaping the
benefits of old virtues. So intricately are all situations connected
with untraceable lineages that only the Omniscient can penetrate below
appearances in the real natures of men. The world is like a garden in
which is newly planted a huge assortment of unknown plants. To the
common observer the fresh sprouts are only deceptive, for the most
promising stalk may prove to be a weak, fragile thing, and the
uninviting leaflets may introduce a sturdy growth. But the all-wise
Gardener knows each seed, and that it will ultimately show its
ancestry. The stupendous issues of conduct endure through all changes.
After one has climbed to high summits of character the surprising
reappearance of some forgotten sin may stay his progress and require
all his forces to conquer the viper whose egg he long ago nested in
his bosom. The man plunged into the abyss of degradation may be a
saint much farther advanced than those exalted persons who despise
him.

It is karma, or our old acts, that draws us back into earthly life.
The spirit’s abode changes according to its karma, and this karma
forbids any long continuance in one condition, because _it_ is always
changing. So long as action is governed by material and selfish
motives, just so long must the effect of that action be manifested in
physical re-births. Only the perfectly selfless man can elude the
gravitation of material life. Few have attained this; but it is the
goal of mankind. Some have reached it and have voluntarily returned as
saviors of the race.

An illustrious explanation of karma appears at the close of “The Light
of Asia”:

KARMA—all that total of a soul
Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had,
The “self” it wove with woof of viewless time
Crossed on the warp invisible of acts.

· · · · ·

What hath been bringeth what shall be, and is,
Worse—better—last for first and first for last;
The angels in the heavens of gladness reap
Fruits of a holy past.

The devils in the underworlds wear out
Deeds that were wicked in an age gone by.
Nothing endures: fair virtues waste with time,
Foul sins grow purged thereby.

Who toiled a slave may come anew a prince
For gentle worthiness and merit won;
Who ruled a king may wander earth in rags
For things done and undone.

Before beginning, and without an end,
As space eternal and as surety sure,
Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good,
Only its laws endure.

It will not be contemned of any one:
Who thwarts it loses, and who serves it gains;
The hidden good it pays with peace and bliss,
The hidden ill with pains.

It seeth everywhere and marketh all:
Do right—it recompenseth! do one wrong—
The equal retribution must be made,
Though DHARMA[55] tarry long.

It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter-true
Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs;
Times are as naught, to-morrow it will judge,
Or after many days.

By this the slayer’s knife did stab himself;
The unjust judge hath lost his own defender;
The false tongue dooms its lie; the creeping thief
And spoiler rob, to render.

Such is the law which moves to righteousness,
Which none at last can turn aside or stay;
The heart of it is love, the end of it
Is peace and consummation sweet. Obey!

· · · · ·

The books say well, my brothers! each man’s life
The outcome of his former living is;
The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes,
The bygone right breeds bliss.

That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields!
The sesamum was sesamum, the corn
Was corn. The silence and the darkness knew;
So is a man’s fate born.

He cometh, reaper of the things he sowed,
Sesamum, corn, so much cast in past birth;
And so much weed and poison-stuff, which mar
Him and the aching earth.

If he shall labor rightly, rooting these,
And planting wholesome seedlings where they grew,
Fruitful and fair and clean the ground shall be,
And rich the harvest due.

If he who liveth, learning whence woe springs,
Endureth patiently, striving to pay
His utmost debt for ancient evils done
In love and truth alway;

If making none to lack, he throughly purge
The lie and lust of self forth from his blood;
Suffering all meekly, rendering for offence
Nothing but grace and good:

If he shall day by day dwell merciful,
Holy and just and kind and true; and rend
Desire from where it clings with bleeding roots,
Till love of life have end:

He—dying—leaveth as the sum of him
A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit,
Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near,
So that fruits follow it.

No need hath such to live as ye name life;
That which began in him when he began
Is finished: he hath wrought the purpose through
Of what did make him man.

Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins
Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes
Invade his safe eternal peace; nor deaths
And lives recur. He goes

Unto NIRVÂNA. He is one with Life
Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be.
OM, MANI PADME, OM! the dewdrop slips
Into the shining sea!

· · · · ·

This is the doctrine of the KARMA. Learn!
Only when all the dross of sin is quit,
Only when life dies like a white flame spent,
Death dies along with it.

XV.
CONCLUSION.

The glories of the Possible are ours.—BAYARD TAYLOR.

The majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the
world.—WALT WHITMAN.

There is no life of a man, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed
or unrhymed.—Would’st thou plant for eternity: then plant into the
deep infinite faculties of man.—CARLYLE.

Life is a mission. Every other definition of life is false, and
leads all who accept it astray. Religion, Science, Philosophy,
though still at variance upon many points, all agree in this, that
every existence is an aim.—MAZZINI.

A sacred burden is this life ye bear.
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly;
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly;
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin;
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.
FRANCES A. KEMBLE.

Know that this world is one stage of eternity. For those who are
journeying in the right way, it is the road of religion. It is a
market opened in the wilderness where those who are travelling on
their way to God may collect and prepare provisions for their
journey.

AL GAZZALI.

Life is but a means unto an end—that end,
Beginning, mean, and end of all things—God.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
BAILEY.

XV.
CONCLUSION.

We are lotus-eaters, so engrossed with the ignoble attractions around
us as to have forgotten the places through which we have long strayed
away from home, and to heed not the necessity of many more perilous
journeys before we can reach our glorious destination. It is only by
rousing ourselves to the important fact of the past pilgrimage by
which we have traveled hither, and to the still more vital reality of
the incalculable sequences of our present route, that we can attain
the best progress. Our repugnance to the idea of a cycle of lives,
with myriad meanderings through varied forms, is the cry of Tennyson’s
Lotus-Eaters:

While all things else have rest from weariness,
All things have rest, why should we toil alone?

· · · · ·

Nor ever fold our wings
And cease our wanderings.
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

This is virtually the longing for Nirvâna, and the cause of the
irrational belief in an eternal Heaven immediately following this
life. But it is neither wise nor religious to ignore the necessity of
continuing our ascent at the present pace, until we have journeyed all
the way to that distant goal. The restlessness of our nature comes
from the established habit of straying about in temporal realms, and
has developed a love of adventure in which the occidental world finds
profounder delight than in the oriental yearning for inactivity, and
which shall have abundant exercise before it disappears. The only path
to that perfect satisfaction which is found in complete oneness with
the Supreme winds through the ascending planes of material embodiment.

Still must I climb if I would rest:
The bird soars upward to his nest;
The young leaf on the tree-top high
Cradles itself within the sky.

I cannot in the valley stay;
The great horizons stretch away!
The very cliffs that wall me round
Are ladders into higher ground.

And heaven draws near as I ascend;
The breeze invites, the stars befriend.
All things are beckoning to the Best;
I climb to Thee, my God, for rest![56]

In which one of its various guises we shall receive reincarnation
depends upon the individual. Whether it shall be in the crude form of
transmigration through animals as received by most of the world; or in
the Persian and Sufi faith as the unjust banishment from our proper
home by the powers of evil; or, following Egypt, Pythagoras, Plato,
Origen, and the Druids, as a purgatorial punishment for pre-natal
sins; or, in the form of some Christian teaching, as a probationary
stage testing our right to higher existence and ushering us into a
permanent spiritual condition; or, as maintained alike by the acutest
Eastern philosophy and the soundest Western thought, as a wholesome
development of germinal soul-forces;—through all these phrasings the
same central truth abides, furnishing what Henry More called “the
golden key” for the problem of life, and explaining the plot of this
“drama whose prologue and catastrophe are both alike wanting.” But the
broadest intelligence leads us directly into the evolutionary aspect
of reincarnation, and finds the others inadequate to the full measure
of human nature. In this view the present life is one grade of a
stupendous school, in which we are being educated for a destiny so far
beyond our comprehension that some call it a kind of deity. The
experiences through which we have come were needful for our
strengthening. Even though we have descended below former altitudes,
the only path to the absolute lies through the sensuous earthly vale.
Sin itself, after we have escaped it, will lead to a mightier result
than would be possible without it, or it would not be permitted. The
richest trees of all the forest world spring from the unclean miasmic
fens. The severest present disciplines, coming from our earlier
errors, are training us for a loftier growth than we ever knew. Our
physical schooling, through all the grades necessary to our best
unfoldment, will build a character as much sublimer than our primitive
condition as virtue overtowers innocence, and when the race finally
emerges from the jangling turmoil of self-will into complete harmony
with the Perfect One, as it must at last, the multitudes of our lives
will not seem too enormous a course of experience for the
establishment of that consummation. The victorious march of Evolution
through all the provinces of thought will at length be followed by the
triumphal procession of Reincarnation.

There is a spirit in all things that live
Which hints of patient change from kind to kind;
And yet no words its mystic sense can give,
Strange as a dream of radiance to the blind.

And as in time unspeakably remote
Vague frenzies in inferior brains set free
Presaged a power no language could denote,
So dreams the mortal of the God to be.[57]

The Father’s purpose with us seems to be to educate us as His children
so that we shall be in complete sympathy with the divine mind. The
only method of accomplishing this glorious result is for us to enter
with Him into all the phases of His being. Our long series of physical
lives will finally give us a thorough knowledge of the grosser nature
with which He cloaks Himself. We penetrate the animal existence in
human form more successfully than would be possible if we
transmigrated into all the species of zoölogy; for here we carry
sufficient intelligence, along with the material condition, to
comprehend these creatures around us which cannot understand
themselves. We cannot expect to permanently leave this department of
God’s house until we have essentially grasped the secret of all
earthly life. The highest individuals of mankind, the saviors of the
race, the true prophets and poets, attain this intimate communion with
nature, this mastery over the lower creation, which demonstrates their
fitness for introduction to a higher stage.

It is difficult to account for the great geniuses except by the
consideration that they are the result of many noble lives. Emerson
arrives at this conclusion in his essay on Swedenborg. “In common
parlance, what one man is said to learn by experience, a man of
extraordinary sagacity is said, without experience, to divine. The
Arabians say that Abul Khain, the mystic, and Abu Ali Scena, the
philosopher, conferred together; and on parting the philosopher said,
‘All that he sees, I know;’ and the mystic said, ‘All that he knows, I
see.’ If one should ask the reason of this intuition, the solution
would lead us into that property which Plato denoted as reminiscence,
and which is implied by the Brahmans in the tenet of transmigration.
The soul having been often born, or, as the Hindoos say, ‘traveling
the path of existence through thousands of births,’ having beheld the
things which are here, those which are in heaven, and those which are
beneath, there is nothing of which she has not gained the knowledge:
no wonder that she is able to recollect, in regard to one thing, what
formerly she knew. For all things in nature being linked and related,
and the soul having heretofore known all, nothing hinders but that any
man who has recalled to mind, or, according to the common phrase, has
learned one thing only, should of himself recover all his ancient
knowledge, and find out again all the rest, if he have but courage,
and faint not in the midst of his researches. For inquiry and learning
is reminiscence all. How much more, if he that inquires be a holy,
godlike soul! For by being assimilated to the original soul, by whom,
and after whom, all things subsist, the soul of man does then easily
flow into all things, and all things flow into it: they mix; and he is
present and sympathetic with their structure and law.”

A recent instance of the glaring facts inexplicable by any other
theory than reincarnation appears in the little musical prodigy Josef
Hofmann, whose phenomenal genius holds complete mastery of the piano,
and charms vast audiences with his exquisite rendering of most
difficult concertos, and particularly with his marvelous
improvisations upon themes suggested at a moment’s notice. He presents
the uncanny phenomenon of a child of ten who has little more to learn
in the most difficult of arts. The natural explanation occurring to
any candid mind is thus suggested by the _Boston Herald_ in its report
of a Hofmann concert: “It almost seems as if the spirit of some great
composer had been put into this boy by nature, waiting to be developed
in accordance with our modern art to shine forth again in all its
glory in his work.” What if he actually were the reappearance of
Mozart hastening to fill out the life that was cut sadly short? There
may be means of verifying such a presumption by the character of his
later compositions, when he gets the full expression of his natural
bent. An art so independent of time and place, as music, might fairly
be traced through two historic individuals, when literature and
painting would not permit it. At any rate it is significant that the
young prodigies in any particular kind of skill do not come until that
skill has been well established on the earth. Guido followed
generations of great painters, Pascal was preceded by a long course of
mathematicians. Pope “lisped in numbers” after a vast procession of
poets. And Mozart waited until the new era of musical harmony had been
well inaugurated. The colossal characters who stand out from the race,
with no predecessors equal to them, like Homer, Plato, Jesus, Raphael,
Shakespeare, Beethoven, all reach their maturity later than other
prodigies, after infancy and youth have fastened the Lethean gates
upon the prehistoric scenes from which they seem to hail. But the
unfathomable vagaries of the soul, as it works out successively its
dominant impulses, easily disguise the individual in different
personalities, so long as the physical realm is most attractive to it.
Yet it is noticeable that the great minds of history come together in
galaxies, when the fullness of time for their capacities draws them
together. Witness the Sanskrit sages, the Greek poets and
philosophers, the Augustan writers and generals, the Italian artists
of the Renaissance, the German masters of music, the Elizabethan
authors, the nineteenth-century scientists. The traits of the
commonest child, however, as much as the miracles of a genius, have no
satisfactory explanation outside of the philosophy of re-births.

Evolution of the physical nature and of material strength attaches our
future to body and matter. But the attachment hastens toward a release
by at length proving these to be low steps in the ascent of life. As
in the geological programme of animal development each era carried its
type to gigantic dimensions and then was surmounted by a higher order
of creatures, which in turn grew monstrous as tyrants of their age and
then succumbed to a still higher rank: so the soul’s progress from the
earthly domain lies through the mastery of physical things to mental,
thence to psychic, and at last to spiritual. And the passion for
material achievement animating our side of the planet should not be
underestimated, since it governs an important epoch in the world’s
growth. But the danger lies in esteeming it a finality. It is chiefly
valuable as the foundation upon which we may build skyward, in an
evolution of character. When the structure is made high enough, the
buoyancy of the upper stories will conquer the weight of the base and
float away our abode to ethereal climes. Only the education of the
spiritual in us, of sacrifice, nobility, and divinity, can divorce us
from these uneasy earthly affinities to the permanent rest of union
with God. While we must not abandon the glories of physical beauty,
power and pleasure, we must not forget that the true business of life
is to wean our affections from the visible to the invisible, to
transfer the preponderance of our magnetisms from shadows to
substances. For we bridge the two kingdoms of matter and spirit, and
we have the choice between them more freely than we know.

The mechanical transmigration which was fancifully told in Grecian
mythology, gathered and beautifully rendered by Ovid, which was taught
in the Egyptian and Pythagorean dogmas and still floats broadcast
throughout the vast realms of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and barbarism,
which fascinates the thought of our poets, and which is daily enacted
by a myriad object-lessons in nature, is merely the objective
expression of a subjective truth, discerned by all the mystics, seers,
and philosophers, and most elaborately stated by Swedenborg. It means
that the infinite progress of the soul conveys it through countless
epochs, moving in perfect succession by the dynamic laws of its own
being. During this development, the universe arranges itself
peculiarly to each individual according to his thought and character.
We shape the outer world by our inner nature, and we say just how long
our stay shall be among dust and mortality.

The true and wholesome aspect of the earthly life, under the religious
philosophy of reincarnation, transforms the spectacle from a trivial
show, or a gloomy arena of despair, to a majestic stage in the
ascending series of human sojournings on the way to the Absolute. In
the words of the old martyr-philosopher Giordano Bruno, the father of
Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, the cherisher of that thought,
“being present in the body, is yet, as by an indissoluble oath, bound
and united to divine things, so that he is not sensible either of love
or hatred for mortal things, knowing he is greater than these, and
that he must not be the slave of his body, which is to be regarded as
no other than the prison of his liberty, a snare for his wings, a
chain upon his limbs, and a veil impeding his sight.” His life flows
beauteously in aspiration for the invisible kingdom of permanence, as
this same Bruno, the Nolan, phrased it in verse:—

While that the sun upon his round doth burn
And to their source the roving planets flee,
Things of the earth do to the earth return
And parted waters hasten to the sea:
So shall my spirit to the high gods turn
And heaven-born thought to Heaven shall carry me.

Instead of being a cold pagan philosophy as it is frequently
considered, reincarnation throbs with the most vital spirit of
Christianity. It is no more Buddhism, than kindliness is Christianity.
It is the hidden core of the gospel of Jesus as of all other great
religions and philosophies. This is what has preserved them in spite
of their degrading excrescences. It is “the religion of all sensible
men” who refuse the weak sentiment and bigoted dogmas that obscure the
light of Christianity in the churches: for it clearly unfolds what
they unconsciously believe, in the laws of cause and effect. It spurns
the despairing doctrine of total depravity, but shows the cause of
partial depravity. It teaches salvation as Jesus did, not by heaping
our sins upon him, but by recognizing the Fatherhood of the Supreme,
entering the new birth into spiritual life, and watchfully growing
Godward. It revolts against the thought of everlasting punishment for
brief errors, but provides infinite opportunities for restoration and
advancement, while emphasizing most vigorously the unescapable results
of all action. It is therefore a corrective of modern Christianity
holding fast to the strength and beauty of what the Nazarene taught
and lived, but including those very principles which breed religious
skepticism in the extreme advocates of science and evolution. It
enlarges Christianity to a grander capacity than it has hitherto
known, and so furnishes at once an inspiring religion for the loftiest
spiritual aspiration, a most satisfactory philosophy for the
intellect, and the strongest basis for practical nobility of conduct.
There is no reason why reincarnation and Christianity should not grasp
hands and magnificently advance together, each keeping the other
steadfastly true. Only in this union can Christianity escape its
present downward sag. Since western religion fails to spiritually
sustain us and has largely gone over to the enemy,—materialism, it is
time for another oriental tide to sweep over the West. Having already
a partial possession here, reincarnation promises to flow in freely to
revitalize Christianity, to spiritualize science. As Christianity has
degenerated in the West, so has reincarnation in the East, and the
hope of the race lies in an exalted marriage of them. They need each
other, as husband and wife, allied in purest devotion, supplementing
the defects and strengths of each other, and regenerating their lower
unassociated tendencies. The religion of Jesus tends to sink into an
irrational sentimentality which is commonly relegated to women and
effeminate men. The spiritual philosophy of India declines into
passionless fatalism or an ungenerous self-absorption. Superstition
darkens both alike. But reincarnation keeps Christianity thoroughly
rational, and Christianity will sustain reincarnation in vigorous
unselfishness. This alliance of the best truths of both hemispheres
will teach a reverential submission to the divine will without its
sequel of stagnation, a heroic self-reliance without its danger of
atheism, a regenerative communion with the Highest without the
sacrilegious folly of selfish prayer.

Reincarnation unites all the family of man into a universal
brotherhood more effectively than the prevailing humanity. It promotes
the solidarity of mankind by destroying the barriers that conceit and
circumstances have raised between individuals, groups, nations, and
races. All are alike favored with perfect poetic justice. The children
of God are not ordained some to honor and others to abasement. There
are no special gifts. Physical blessings, mental talents, and moral
successes are the laborious result of long merit. Sorrows, defects,
and failures proceed from negligence. The upward road to the glories
of spiritual perfection is always at our feet, with perpetual
invitations and aids to travel higher. The downward way into sensual
wreckage is but the other direction of the same way. We cannot despise
those who are tending down, for who knows but we have journeyed that
way ourselves? It is impossible for us to scramble up alone, for our
destiny is included in that of humanity, and only by helping others
along can we ascend ourselves. The despondent sadness of the world
which dims the lustre of every joy, chanting the minor key of nature,
haunting us in unaccountable ways, cropping out in all literature and
art, making the grandest of poetry tragic and the sublimest music
sombre, is the unconscious voice of mankind, humming its keynote of
life. While we continue to dwell in the murky realm of sense, that
must prevail. But the bright rifts illuminating the advance guard
herald the approach of day, and assure us that the trend of restless
human gyrations is away from that condition.

Contrary to the common opinion of eastern thought, reincarnation is
optimistic. The law of causation is not a blind meting of eye for eye
and tooth for tooth. It opens out into a scheme of beneficent
progress. Science recognizes this in the _vis medicatrix remedia
naturæ_, the healing power of nature. What was once denied in the
creed of the alchemists concerning the ascending impulse of all things
is now preached by science, which declares in Tyndall’s words that
“matter contains within it the promise and potency of all life.” All
minerals have the rudimentary possibility of plants and animals.
Crystals strive after a higher life by assuming arborescent and mossy
shapes. Plants display the embryonic qualities of low animals. No
naturalist can mark infallibly the boundaries of the three kingdoms,
so closely are they interlinked. A zoölogist does not doubt the
possibility of minerals becoming plants and these mounting into
animals. The movement of vital energy is manward, and the cry of
mankind is “excelsior,” towards God. Poetry cherishes the same
conviction

that somehow good
Shall be the final goal of ill,
For pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed
Or cast as useless to the void
When God shall make this pile complete.

Behold! we know not anything.
We can but trust that good shall fall
At last, far off, at last, to all,
And every winter turn to spring.

And Tennyson’s uncertain faith is an undoubted verity in the Orient,
thus phrased by Edwin Arnold:—

Ye are not bound! the soul of things is sweet,
The heart of being is celestial rest;
Stronger than woe is will: that which was good
Doth pass to better—best.

Acknowledging that the forces of evil are terrific and multiply
themselves prodigiously, there can be no question that the predominant
powers are infinitely good. And the supremacy of good in the universe
diminishes the full force of evil, makes the higher attractions outvie
the lower, and hastens the final disappearance of darkness. This
insures the amelioration of all life by the benign process of
re-birth; for

The Heart of all is a boundless Love
Pulsing through every part
In streams that thrill the hosts above
And make the atoms dart.

The strongest objection to reincarnation, our ignorance of past lives,
is met by the fact permeating all nature and experience, that progress
depends upon forgetfulness. Every great stage of advancement is
accompanied by the mental loss of earlier epochs. One of Montaigne’s
best essays shows the blessedness of defective memory. All deep
philosophy agrees that after an experience is absorbed into the soul,
its purpose is accomplished, and the only chance of improvement
consists in “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching
forth unto those things which are before.” It would be intellectually
impossible for the memory to grasp anything new, if it clung to all it
had known. One of the grandest discourses of that greatest English
preacher of the last generation, Frederick W. Robertson, is upon the
theme of “Christian Progress by Oblivion of the Past.” The experience
of the race affords no sufficient endorsement of the continuation of
our mortal memories. It is impossible to escape the liberal scientific
teaching that the mind is only an instrument of the soul, and when it
decays with the body, the soul retains of its earthly possessions only
what has sunk down into the character. The logician of the Scriptures
expresses this in saying, “Whether there be knowledge it shall vanish
away.” But the everlastingness of character insures the permanence of
our identity and of our dearest ties. And as the scale of being on
earth shows a gradual development of memory from the lowest protozoön
to man, so in man the unconscious memory shall become more and more
conspicuous, until it reveals the course of our complete career.

The glorious unfoldment of our dormant powers in repeated lives
presents a spectacle magnificent beyond appreciation, and approaches
more grandly than any other conception to the sublimity of human
development. Addison wrote: “There is not, in my opinion, a more
pleasing consideration than that of the perpetual progress which the
soul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving
at a period in it. To look upon the soul as going on from strength to
strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions
of glory and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding
virtue to virtue and knowledge to knowledge, carries in it something
wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of
man. Nay, it must be a prospect pleasing to God himself, to see his
creatures forever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to Him
by greater degrees of resemblance.” Reincarnation shows the programme
by which this stupendous scheme is being worked out, step by step, in
the gradual method of all God’s doings, and glorifies the present
cycle as a specimen of eternity which shall ever grow brighter until
the full brilliancy of the Highest shall radiate from every life.

The practical application of this truth not only dispels the haunting
enigmas of life, but incites us to the strongest habits of virtuous
conduct in ourselves, and of generous helpfulness toward others. It
inspires us to nurture all the means of developing noble traits, since
the promise of all good, and the only highway out of the bogs of
physical life into the mountain heights of spirituality, is character.
It reminds us most forcibly that

Every thought of purity,
Every deed of right,
Conquers sin’s obscurity,
Speeds the reign of light;
Moves with might supernal
Toward rest and home,
Leads to life eternal,
Prays, “Thy kingdom come.”

It is not strange, therefore, that one of the leading writers of Great
Britain says of reincarnation: “The ethical leverage of the doctrine
is immense. Its motive power is great. It reveals as magnificent a
background to the present life, with its contradictions and disasters,
as the prospect of immortality opens up an illimitable foreground,
lengthening out the horizon of hope. It binds together the past and
the present and the future in one ethical series of causes and
effects, the inner thread of which is both personal to the individual
and impersonal, connecting him with two eternities, one behind and the
other before. With peculiar emphasis it proclaims the survival of
moral individuality and personal identity along with the final
adjustment of external conditions to the internal state of the
agent.”[58]

Alongside of the Scotch professor’s words we place these sentences
from an eastern teacher, that the wisdom of the antipodes may grasp
hands in one common brotherhood for the instruction of the world:—

“There is in each incarnation but one birth, one life, one death. It
is folly to duplicate these by persistent regrets for the past, by
present cowardice, or fear of the future. There is no Time. It is
Eternity’s now that man mistakes for past, present, and future.

“The forging of earthly chains is the occupation of the indifferent;
the awful duty of unloosing them through the sorrows of the heart is
also their occupation.

“Liberate thyself from evil actions by good actions.”[59]

Emerson, who unites in one personality the sublimest intuitions of the
Orient with the broadest observations of the West, may well represent
a noble harmony of these distant kinships when he says: “We must infer
our destiny from the preparation. We are driven by instinct to hive
innumerable experiences which are of no visible value, and we may
revolve through many lives before we shall assimilate or exhaust them.
Now there is nothing in nature capricious, or whimsical, or
accidental, or unsupported. Nature never moves by jumps, but always in
steady and supported advances.... If there is the desire to live, and
in larger sphere, with more knowledge and power, it is because life
and knowledge and power are good for us, and we are the natural
depositaries of these gifts. The love of life is out of all proportion
to the value set on a single day, and seems to indicate a conviction
of immense resources and possibilities proper to us, on which we have
never drawn. All the comfort I have found teaches me to confide that I
shall not have less in times and places than I do not yet know.”

We conclude, therefore, with the conviction that all the best teachers
of mankind—religion, philosophy, science, and poetry—urge the soul to

Be worthy of death; and so learn to live
That every incarnation of thy soul
In varied realms, and worlds, and firmaments
Shall be more pure and high.

APPENDIX.

Where a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and
courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the event by: it
is good and made by a good workman.—DE LA BRUYÈRE.

* * * * *

You despise books: you whose whole lives are absorbed in the vanities
of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure, or in indolence; but remember
that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed
by books.—VOLTAIRE.

* * * * *

Within their silent chambers treasures lie
Preserved from age to age; more precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold
And orient gems, which for a day of need
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs;
These hoards of truth you can unlock at will.
WORDSWORTH.

* * * * *

I not only commend the study of this literature (the eastern), but
wish our sources of supply and comparison vastly enlarged. American
students may well derive from all former lands—all the older
literatures and all the newer ones—bearing ourselves always courteous,
always deferential, indebted beyond measure to the motherworld, to all
its nations dead, as all its nations living.

WALT WHITMAN.

* * * * *

In books lies the _soul_ of the whole Past Time—the articulate,
audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it
has altogether vanished like a dream. No magic _Rune_ is stranger than
a book. All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been, is lying
in magic preservation in the pages of books. Do not books still
accomplish _miracles_ as _Runes_ were fabled to do? They persuade
men.—CARLYLE.

APPENDIX.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REINCARNATION.

I. LATIN.

Schilling, Wolfg. Heinrich. De Metempsychosi Dissertatio. Lipsiæ,
1679.

Henrici, Heinrich. De Animarum Transmigratione. 1699.

Haffner, Gotthard. Dissertatio de Transmigratione Animarum, quatenus
ex Lumine Rationis cognosci potest. 1746.

Osiander, Johann Adam. Dissertatio de Transmigratione Animarum
Humanarum ex suis Corporibus in alia Corpora. Tubingae, 1749.

Heusse, M. De Metempsychosi sive Animarum per plura Corpora
Revolutione. 1757.

Haeggroth, Nic. De Metempsychosi. London, 1793.

Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius van. Seder Olam sive Ordo Seculorum.
Holland, 1693.

Keil. De Pre-existentia Animarum. (In _Opuscula_.)

Huygens, Christian. Cosmotheoros, sive de Terris Celestibus earumque
Ornatu Conjecturæ. Paris, 1698.

Iamblichus. De Pythagorica Vita. Didot, 1862.

Porphyrius. De Vita Pythagoræ. Didot, 1862.

Barrow, Isaac. Animæ Humanæ Corporibus non præexistunt. (In opposition
to Henry More.) (In his _Opuscula_, vol. iv. of his works.) London,
1687.

Sibbern, Fred. C. De Præexistentia, Genesi et Immortalitate Animæ.
Havniæ, 1823.

Doppert, Joh. De vetusto Metempsycheos Commento. Schneebergæ, 1716.

Irhove, Willem. De Palingenesia Veterum seu Metempsychosi sic dicta
Pythagorica Libri III. Amstelodami, 1733.

Wernsdorf, Gottlieb. Disputatio de Metempsychosi Veterum non figurate
sed proprie intelligenda. Vitembergæ, 1741.

Vangerow, W. G. von. Dissertatio historico-philosophica Metempsychosin
veterum sistens. Halle, 1765.

Sedermark, Pet. De Metempsychosi Veterum. Pars I-III. Upsalæ, 1807.

Wendel, Joh. And. De Metempsychosi nuper Denuo defensa. Coburgi, 1828.

Sai an Sinsin sive Liber Metempsychosis veterum Ægyptiorum. E duabus
Papyris funebribus hieraticis Signis exaratis nunc primum edidit
Latine vertit Notas adjecit Henricus Brugsch. Berolini, 1851.

Haupt, Eberh. Dav. De Metempsychosi sive Pythagoræa Animarum
Transmigratione brevis Disquisition. Ulmæ, 1724.

Bruno, Giordano. De Triplice minimo et mensura ad trium speculatinarum
scientiarum et multarum actinarum artium principia. Francofurti, 1591.

II. GERMAN.

Bertram, J. F. Bescheidene Prüfung der Meynung von der Präexistenz,
oder dem Vorherseyn menschlicher Seelen in organischen Leibern, sammt
einer Historia Præexistentianorum. Bremen, 1741.

Schubert, Johann E. von. Wandelung der Seele nach dem Tode. Jena,
1746.

Trinius, Joh. Anton. Abhandlung von der Seelenwanderung. Frankfurt und
Leipzig, 1760.

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts.
Berlin, 1780. Translated by Rev. Frederick W. Robertson. “The
Education of the Human Race.” London, 1855.

Schlosser, Joh. Georg. Ueber die Seelenwanderung. Basel, 1781.

Beiträge zur Lehre der Seelenwanderung. Leipzig, 1785.

Wasseljew, W. Der Buddhismus, seine Dogmen, Geschichte und Literatur.
St. Petersburg, 1860.

Koeppen, Carl Friedrich. Die Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung.
Berlin, 1857. Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche. Berlin, 1857.

Herder, Joh. Gottfried von. Das Land der Seelen—Palingenesis—Ueber die
Seelenwanderung. (Three Dialogues.) 1785. (The Dialogue on
Transmigration is translated by F. H. Hedge in his “Prose Writers of
Germany.” Philadelphia, 1848.)

Bruch, J. Fr. Die Lehre von der Präexistenz der menschlichen Seelen
historisch-kritisch dargestellt. Strassburg, 1859.

Conzius, C. P. Schicksale der Seelenwanderungshypothese under
verschiedenen Völkern und in verschiedenen Zeiten. Königsberg, 1781.

Leibnitz, G. W. Monadologie.

Müller, Joh. T. Ueber die Seelenwanderung. Einige prüfende Gedanken.
Friedrichsstadt, 1785.

Ungern-Sternberg, Chrn. F., Baron von. Blick auf die moralische und
politische Welt, was sie war, was sie ist, was sie seyn wird. Bremen,
1785.

Grosse, Carl. Helim, oder über die Seelenwanderung. Zittau, 1789.

Wedekind, Georg, Baron von. Ueber die Bestimmung des Menschen und die
Erziehung der Menschheit, oder: wer, wo, wozu, bin ich, war ich, und
werde ich sein. Giessen, 1828.

Ritgen, Ferd. Aug. von. Die höchsten Angelegenheiten der Seele, nach
dem Gesetze des Fortschrittes betrachtet. Darmstadt, 1835.

Krug, Wilhelm Traugott. Der neue Pythagoras, oder Geschichte eines
dreimal gebornen Erdenbürgers. Leipzig, 1836.

Meyer, Jürgen Bona. Die Idee der Seelenwanderung. Hamburg, 1861. A
French translation, “De la migration des âmes,” is in the Revue
Germanique, Nov. 30, 1861, XVIII. 239–259.

Klewitz, A. W. von. Ueber Fortdauer und Præexistenz. Magdeburg, 1789.

Fichte, Joh. Gottlieb. Ideen über Gott und Unsterblichkeit, als
Nachtrag zu seinen “Sämmtlichen Werken.” 1853.

Nürnberger, Jos. C. E. Still-Leben, oder über die Unsterblichkeit der
Seele. Kempten, 1839.

Meyer, Joh. Friedrich von. Prüfung der Lehre von der Seelenwanderung.
(In his Blätter für höhere Wahrheit. Neue Folge, 1830, I. 244–299.)

Fichte, Imman. Herm. Die Idee der Persönlichkeit und der individuellen
Fortdauer. Leipzig, 1855.

Schubert, G. H. Die Geschichte der Seele. Stuttgart, 1833.

Bastian, Adolf. Der Mensch in der Geschichte. See Vol. II. Psychologie
und Mythologie. Leipzig, 1860. Die Vorstellungen von der Seele.
Berlin, 1875. Der Mensch in der Geschichte, 3 vols. Leipzig, 1866.
Beiträge zur vergleichenden Psychologie. Berlin, 1868. Weltauffassung
der Buddhisten. Berlin, 1870. Der Buddhismus in seiner Psychologie.
Berlin, 1882.

Müller. Lehre von der Sünde. Augsburg, 1854. See Vol. II. 495 et seq.

Froschammer, J. Ueber den Ursprung der menschlichen Seelen. München,
1854.

Marcus, Joh. Vorstellungen über den Ursprung der menschlichen Seelen
in den ersten Jahren der Kirche. 1854.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. Sämmtliche Werke. Die Welt als Wille und
Vorstellung. Leipzig, 1873.

Fechner, Gustav Theodor. Ueber die Seelenfrage; ein Gang durch die
sichtbare Welt, um die unsichtbare zu finden. Leipzig, 1861.

Philo. Versuch eines systematischen Entwurfs des Lehrbegriffs Philo’s
von Alexandrien. E. H. Stahl. Eichhorn’s Allgem. Bibl. 1792. (IV.
767–890.)

Seelenwanderung. Zeitschrift der Morgenländ. Gesellschaft. VI., IX.,
XXVII., XXIX.

Kern. Der Buddhismus. Leipzig, 1882.

Spiesz, E. Entwicklungsgeschichte der Vorstellungen vom Zustande nach
dem Tode. Jena, 1877. (Contains a bibliography at the end of each
chapter.)

Müller, J. G. Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligion. Basel, 1867.

Simrock, K. Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie. Bonn, 1878.

Pfleiderer, O. Religions-Philosophie. Berlin, 1878.

Döllinger, J. J. I. Heidenthum und Judenthum. Regensburg, 1857.

Karsten, S. Verhandeling over Palingenesie en Metempsychosis.
Amsterdam, 1846.

Weber. Indische Studien.

Twesten, C. Die religiösen, politischen und socialen Ideen der
asiatischen Culturvölker. 2 vols. Berlin, 1872.

Vierteljahrschrift für die Seelenlehre.

Delitzsch, Franz. System der Biblischen Psychologie. Leipzig, 1855.

III. FRENCH.

Olivier, Jean. La Metempsychose, discours prononcé par Pythagore dans
l’école de Crotone. Amsterdam et Paris, 1760.

Duguet, Charles. Pythagore, ou Precis de philosophie ancienne et
moderne dans ses rapports avec les metamorphoses de la nature ou la
metempsychose. Paris, 1841.

Reynaud, Jean. Philosophie Religieuse du Tierre et Ciel. Paris, 1854.

Bouchet, Père. Lettre sur la metempsychose. In Picart’s Ceremonies.
Paris, 1867.

Erckmann-Chatrian. Le Docteur Malthéus. Paris, 1859.

Linner, Jean R. Essai sur les Dogmes de la Metempsychose et du
Purgatoire enseigne par les Bramins de l’Indostan. Berne, 1771.

Leroux, Pierre. De l’Humanité. Paris. (See Fortnightly Review, V. 17,
1872, p. 324–333.)

Beausobre, Isaac de. Histoire du Manichéisme. Paris.

Bonnet, Charles. La Palingenesis Philosophique, ou Idées sur l’état
passé et sur l’état futur des êtres vivans. Geneve, 1769.

Pezzani, André. La Pluralité des Existences de l’Âme. Paris, 1865.

Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bouyer de. Entretiens sur la Pluralité des
Mondes. Paris, 1686. Bibliothèque National. Paris, 1871.

Flammarion, Camille. La Pluralité des Mondes Habitués. Paris, 1864.
Histoires d’Infinité. Paris, 1867. Les Mondes Imaginaires, et les
Mondes Réel. Paris, 1865. (Contains a list and analysis of all the
works on the plurality of worlds.)

Fourier, F. Charles Marie. La Fausse Industrie Morcelée, et
l’Antidote, l’Industrie Naturelle, combinée. Paris, 1835–36.

Picart, Bernard. Céremonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les
peuples du monde: 12 tom. Paris, 1807.

Franck, Ad. Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques. Paris, 1875. See
the article “Metempsychose.”

Bibliothèque Orientale. Chef-d’œuvre Littéraires de l’Inde, de la
Perse, de l’Égypte et de la Chine. Tomes 4. Paris, 1872–78. Vol. I.
Rig Veda. II. Hymnes Sanscrit, Persans, Egyptiens, Assyriens et
Chinois. III. Burnouf, E. Introduction à l’Histoire du Buddhisme
Indien. IV. Le Koran Analysé.

Bibliothèque Orientale Elzévirienne. Tomes 30. Paris, 1873–1880. (A
vast collection of valuable works upon the religions, literatures, and
peoples of the East.)

Plotinus. Les Ennéades de Plotin. Traduits pour la première fois en
français, accompagnée de sommaires, de notes—par M. N. Bouillet. Tomes
3. Paris, 1858–61. (With fragments from Porphyry, Iamblichus, and
other Neo-Platonists.)

Regnaud, P. Materiaux pour servir à l’histoire de la philosophie de
l’Inde. Paris, 1876.

Draward, L. La Science Occulte. Paris.

Burnouf, E. Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme Indien. Paris,
1844. Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi. Traduit du Sanscrit, accompagnée d’un
Commentaire. Paris, 1852.

IV. ENGLISH.

Cudworth, Ralph. The True Intellectual System of the Universe. London,
1678. (“A storehouse of learning on the ancient opinions of the
nature, origin, pre-existence, transmigration, and future of the
soul.”)

More, Henry. Philosophical Poems. “A Platonick Song of the Soul;
treating of the Life of the Soul, her Immortality, the Sleep of the
Soul, the Unitie of Souls, and Memorie after Death.” Cambridge, 1647.
(See page 18, above.)

More, Henry. The Immortality of the Soul, so farre as it is
demonstrable from the knowledge of Nature and the Light of Reason.
London, 1659. (See Book II, chapter xvi.)

Glanvil, Joseph (Rector of Bath). Lux Orientalis; or an Inquiry into
the opinions of the Eastern sages concerning the Præ-existence of
Souls. Being a key to unlock the Grand Mysteries of Providence in
Relation to man’s sin and misery. London, 1662. Republished with
annotations by Dr. Henry More. 1682.

Dunton, John. The Visions of the Soul before it comes into the Body.
In several Dialogues. London, 1692. (Satirical.)

Helmont, F. M. Two Hundred Queries moderately Propounded concerning
the Doctrine of the Revolution of Human Souls. London, 1684.

Parker, Samuel (Bishop). A Free and Impartial Censure of the Platonick
Philosophie; with an account of the Origenian Hypothesis, concerning
the Pre-existence of Souls. London, 1666.

Evidence (An) for Immortality, and for Transmigration. To which is
added a Treatise concerning those who sleep in the Dust of the Earth.
London, 1732.

Mede. The Mystery of Godliness. London, 1708. (Chapter III upholds
“the reasonable doctrine” of pre-existence as “a key for some of the
main mysteries of Providence, which no other can so handsomely
unlock.”)

Warren, Edward. No Pre-Existence; or a brief Dissertation against the
Hypothesis of Humane Souls living in a state antecedaneous to this.
London, 1667.

Addison, Joseph. The Spectator. London. See Nos. 211 and 343.

Newcomb, Thomas. Pre-existence and Transmigration. A Poem. London,
1743.

Pre-existence. A Poem. Bath, 1763. (In Dodsley’s Collection, I. pp.
158–172.) (See pp. 181–187, above.)

Berrow, Capel, Rector of Rossington. A Lapse of Human Souls in a State
of Pre-existence, the only Original Sin, and the Groundwork of the
Gospel Dispensation. London, 1766.

(He considers that men are apostate angels, and that the brute
creation labors under a severer stroke of divine justice than the
human race because it was guiltier than mankind in æons past.)

Jenyns, Soame. Disquisitions on Several Subjects. London, 1782. Disq.
III, pp. 27–46. (See page 88, above.)

Preëxistence of Souls and Universal Restoration. From the Minutes and
Correspondence of the Burnam Society. Taunton, 1798.

Ramsay, Chevalier. Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed
Religion unfolded in a Geometrical Order. Edinburgh, 1748.

Brocklesby, Richard. An Explication of Gospel Theism and the Divinity
of the Christian Religion, containing the true account of the System
of the Universe. 1706.

(Maintains preëxistence.)

Goodwin, John. Works. London, 1652.

(Defends preëxistence.)

Bulstrode, Whitelocke. An Essay on Transmigration, in Defence of
Pythagoras. London, 1692.

Wheeler, J. T. History of India. London, 1874. (For Hindu
Transmigration, see pp. 72–76.)

Garrett, J. Classical Dictionary of India. 1871. (See
“Transmigration,” on pp. 637–642.)

Tulloch, John, D.D. Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in
England in the 17th Century. Edinburgh and London, 1872. (Vol. II: The
Cambridge Platonists.)

Wilkinson, Sir John Gardiner. A second series of the Manners and
Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, including their Religion, etc. 3
vols. London, 1878. (Vol. II. chap, xvi., pp. 440–451, relate to
transmigration.)

Bunsen, Christian Carl J. Egypt’s Place in Universal History. 5 vols.
London, 1848–1860. (Vol. IV. pp. 638–653, treat of animal worship and
metempsychosis.)

Ginsburg, Dr. The Kabbala: its Doctrines, Development and Literature.
London.

Taylor, Isaac. Physical Theory of Another Life. London and New York,
1836.

Hume, David. Essay on Immortality. In his Essays, moral, political and
literary. Edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Gosse. London, 1875. (See p.
94, above.)

Cox, Edward W. What am I? A Popular Introduction to Mental Philosophy
and Psychology. 2 vols. London, 1871. Vol. I., chap. 42,
“Pre-existence.”

Hudson, C. F. Debt and Grace, as related to the Doctrine of a Future
Life. Boston, 1858. (See p. 111.)

Timbs, John. The Mysteries of Life, Death and Futurity. London, 1880.
(See the chapters on Pre-existence of Souls, pp. 43 and 262.)

Butler, Wm. Archer. Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy,
edited by William Hepworth Thompson. London, 1856. (See Vol. II.,
Lecture IV., pp. 240–264, Psychology of Plato.)

Mozley, J. B., D.D. (Canon of Christ Church). Essays, Historical and
Theological. London, 1878. (Vol. II. pp. 317 sq., “Indian Conversion,”
severely attacks the Brahmanical doctrine.)

Liddon, H. P., D.D. (Canon of St. Paul’s). Some Elements of Religion.
Lent Lectures. London, 1870. (Lecture II. pp. 95–106, is devoted to a
refutation of Preëxistence.)

Jennings, H. The Rosecrucians. Their Rites and Mysteries. London,
1870. (References to transmigration occur on pages 94, 97, 101, 106.)

Davies, Edward. Mythology and Rites of the British Druids. London,
1809.

Mosheim, Joh. L. von. Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians in
the First Three Centuries. London and New York. (See Sections 27–29
for Origen.)

Beecher, Edward. The Conflict of Ages; or the Great Debate on the
Moral Relations of God and Man. Boston, 1853. The Concord of Ages. New
York, 1860.

Alger, Wm. R. A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life.
Philadelphia, 1860. (See p. 100, above.)

Clarke, James Freeman. Ten Great Religions. Boston, 1871. (Vol. I.
chapter iii. Brahmanism; chap. iv. Buddhism; chap. vi. The Religion of
Egypt. Vol. II. chap. vi. The Soul and its Transmigrations in all
Religions.)

Johnson, Samuel. Oriental Races and Religions. India. Boston, 1875.

Channing, Wm. Henry. Lectures on Eastern Religions. London.

Haldred. An Account of the Hindoo Land.

D’Israeli, Isaac. Curiosities of Literature. London. (Vol. II.
contains a short section on “Metempsychosis.”)

Hardy, R. Spence. A Manual of Buddhism, in its Modern Development.
London, 1853. New York, 1886.

Wilson, Prof. H. H. Lectures on the Religious Opinions of the Hindus.

Upham, Edward. The History and Doctrine of Buddhism, popularly
illustrated. London, 1829. (Transmigration occupies pp. 25–43.)

Lillie, Arthur. Buddha and Early Buddhism.

Brewster, David. More Worlds than One: the Philosopher’s Faith and the
Christian’s Hope. London.

Man: Fragments of Forgotten History. By Two Chelas. London, 1885.

Hartmann, Franz, M.D. Magic, White and Black; or the Science of the
Finite and Infinite Life. London, 1886.

Sinnet, A. P. Esoteric Buddhism. Boston, 1884. Five Years of
Theosophy. London, 1885.

Arnold, Edwin. The Light of Asia. Boston, 1879. Pearls of the Faith.
Boston, 1883.

Collins, Mabel. Light on the Path. Boston, 1885. Through the Gates of
Gold. A Fragment of Thought. Boston, 1887.

Tredwell, Daniel N. Apollonius of Tyana. New York, 1886.

Chasseaud, Geo. Washington. The Druses of the Lebanon: their Manners,
Customs, and History. With a translation of their Religious Code.
London, 1855.

Fleming’s Vocabulary of Philosophy. London, 1886. (See under
Metempsychosis, etc.)

Hedge, Frederick Henry. Ways of the Spirit and other Essays. Boston,
1877. (See above, page 120.)

Tyler, E. B. Primitive Culture. New York, 1876.

Myers, F. W. H. Modern Essays. (See page 55.)

Poe, Edgar Allan. Eureka. In his Complete Works. New York.

Smedley. The Occult Sciences. London, 1855. Dreamland and Ghostland. 3
vols. London, 1887.

Hodson, B. H. Essays on the Language, Literature and Religion of Nepal
and Tibet. London, 1874.

King, C. W. The Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Medieval.
London and New York, 1864 and 1887.

McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological and
Ecclesiastical Literature. New York, 1867–1877. (See Gnostics,
Metempsychosis, Pre-existence, Origen, etc.)

Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of
Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. New York, 1877. (See
references in index to Metempsychosis, Reincarnation and
Transmigration.)

Frith, J. Life of Giordano Bruno, the Nolan. London and Boston, 1887.

Meyer, Isaac. Qabbalah. The Philosophical Writings of Solomon Ben
Yehudah Ibn Gebirol or Avicebron, and their connection with the Hebrew
Qabbalah and Sepher haz-Zohar, etc. Philadelphia, 1888.

V. ENGLISH. (TRANSLATIONS.)

Manu, The Institutes of. The Twelfth Book treats of Transmigration.
Trans. by Sir Wm. Jones. Vol. VIII. of his Works. 1807.

Rig Veda. Vishnu Purana. Translated by Prof. H. H. Wilson. London,
1840.

Sacred Books of the East. Translated or edited by Max Müller. Oxford.
See especially Upanishads, Vol. I.; Sacred Laws of the Aryas, Vol.
II.; Bhagavadgita, Vol. VIII.

Picart, Bernard. Ceremonies and Religious Customs of all the People of
the World. 6 vols. London, 1733–37. Vol. IV. Part II. pp. 159–187,
describe Hindu Transmigration. See also Vol. I. Part II. p. 23 seq.;
Vol. II. Part I. p. 157 seq.

Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Monadology. Trans. by F. H. Hedge. In the
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I. pp. 129. New York, 1867.

Hafiz. Persian Lyrics. London, 1800.

Bibliothèque Orientale. London, 1692. (See the essay on
Transmigration.)

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. The Education of the Race. Trans, by Rev.
F. W. Robertson. London, 1855.

Fichte, J. G. The Destiny of Man. In Dr. Hedge’s “Prose Writers of
Germany.” Philadelphia, 1848. New York, 1856. (See pages 58–59,
above.)

Helmont, F. M. von. Seder Olam: or the Order of All the Ages of the
Whole World; also the Hypothesis of the Pre-existency and Revolution
of Human Souls. Translated by J. Clark, M.D. London, 1694.

Herder, John. Dialogues on Transmigration. Translated by F. H. Hedge
in his “Prose Writers of Germany” (pp. 248 et seq.). Philadelphia,
1848. New York, 1856. (See pp. 59–63, above.)

Plotinus. Select Works. Translated by Thomas Taylor. London, 1817.
Five Books. (See especially “The Descent of the Soul.”) Translated by
Thomas Taylor. London, 1794.

Virgil. Eneid. Translated by William Morris. Boston, 1876. Trans. by
C. P. Cranch. Boston, 1872. (See latter part of the sixth Eneid.)

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Pythagorean Philosophy. Translated by Dryden.
London and New York.

Plato. Phædro. Translated by B. Jowett. New York, 1871. Also in Bohn’s
Classical Library.

Plutarch. Essay on the Delay of Heavenly Justice. In his Miscellaneous
Essays. London and New York.

Origen, The Writings of. Translated by Rev. Frederick Crombie. 2 vols.
Edinburgh, 1869. In Clark’s Ante-Nicene Christian Library.

Richter, Jean Paul. Levana. London, 1848. (p. 346.)

Israel, Manasseh Ben. Conciliata. Translated by Dr. Linde. (A rich
mine of information concerning the Kabala, and Jewish preëxistence.)

Fourier, Charles. Passions of the Human Soul. Translated by Hugh
Dougherty. London, 1851. (For Fourier’s ideas on immortality see
Introduction, pp. xiv-xviii.)

Herodotus. Book II. cap. 123.

Timæus, the Locrian. (A Pythagorean.)

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Idea. Translated by R. B.
Haldane and I. Kemp. 3 vols. London, 1883–86. (See Vol. III. p. 468.)
Essay on Death and Immortality. Translated by C. L. Bernays in the
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I. 1867.

Talmud, The. J. Barclay. 1878. Selections from the Talmud. H. Polano.
1848.

Figuer, Louis. The To-morrow of Death. Translated by S. R. Crocker.
Boston, 1872.

Bonnet, Charles. Philosophic Palingenesis. Paris.

Hen, Llywarch. Heroic Elegies. Translated by Owen. (Welsh Poems of
Druidism.)

Diogenes Laertius. Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers of
Antiquity. Translated by C. D. Yonge. In Bohn’s Standard Library.
London, 1853. (See Plato, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Hierocles.)

Dacier, A. Life of Pythagoras, with his Symbols and Golden Verses.
From the French. London, 1797. Hierocles, upon the Golden Verses of
the Pythagoreans. Trans, by J. Moor. Glasgow, 1756. Life of
Pythagoras, with his Symbols and Golden Verses, together with the Life
of Hierocles and his Commentaries upon the Verses. From the French.
London, 1721.

Müller, Julius. Christian Doctrine of Sin. Trans. by Wm. Pulsford. In
Clark’s Foreign Theological Library. Edinburgh.

Hagenbach, Karl R. History of Doctrine. Trans. by Carl W. Buch. In
Clark’s Foreign Theological Library. Edinburgh. (For Patristic
Preëxistence see pp. 143-, 285-.) New York, 1863.

Schlegel, W. F. von. Æsthetics and Miscellaneous Works. In Bohn’s
Library. 1849. (See p. 468.)

Kuenen, A. National Religions and Universal Religions. (Hibbert
Lectures, 1882.) Trans. by Rev. P. H. Wicksteed. New York, 1882.
(Lecture V. is upon Buddhism.)

Renouf, P. Le Page. The Religion of Ancient Egypt. (Hibbert Lectures
for 1879.) New York, 1879.

Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology. See the article on Transmigration, Vol.
II. pp. 655, 826.

Oldenberg, Hermann. Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine, his Order.
Translated by William Hoey. London, 1882.

Buddhist Birth Stories. Edited by Faurboël. Translated by Rhys David.

VI. FICTION.

Rossetti, D. G. St. Agnes of Intercession. An autobiographical story.
In Rossetti’s Collected Works. London. (Vol. I. p. 399.)

Willis, N. P. A Revelation of a Previous Life. An autobiographical
sketch. In his “Dashes at Life.” New York, 1841.

Macnish, R. The Metempsychosis by a Modern Pythagorean. In Tales,
Essays, and Sketches. London, 1844. Also in Blackwood’s Magazine, XIX.
496; Littell, LVII. p. 500; Tales from Blackwood, Vol. II.; Good
Stories, Part II.

Confessions of a Metempsychosian. Fraser’s Magazine, XII. 496.

Cooke, Rose Terry. Metempsychosis. Atlantic Monthly, II. 59.

Fielding, Henry. A Journey from this World to the Next. In his
Complete Works. London.

Sinnet, A. P. Karma. Boston, 1886.

Hogg, James. The Wool Gatherer. In his Winter Evening Tales. Glasgow.

Stevenson, R. L. The Adventures of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. New York,
1887.

Hawthorne, Julian. Archibald Malmaison. New York, 1885.

Flammarion, Camille. Stories of Infinity. Trans. by S. R. Crocker.
Boston, 1873.

Duchess, Emilia. Boston, 1887.

Hunt, Mrs. E. B. The Wards of Plotinus. London and New York, 1881. (In
this historical novel Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists of his time are
the principal figures, though not much of their philosophy of
preëxistence appears.)

Balzac, Honoré de. Peau de Chagrin. Paris, 1839.

Erckman, E., and Chatrian, A. L’Illustre Docteur Mathéus. Paris, 1859.

Fechner, Gustav T. Dr. Mises. Leipzig.

(These stories of doubles may also be added, as showing more or less
the impersonation of the higher and lower self in separate
embodiments:)

Fouqué. Sintram and his Companion.

Andersen, Hans C. The Shadow.

Browning, Mrs. E. B. The Romaunt of Margret.

Gautier. Le Chevalier Double.

Hale, E. E. My Double and How he undid me.

Poe, E. A. William Wilson.

VII. ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS, PAMPHLETS, ETC.

Bowen, Prof. Francis. Christian Metempsychosis. Princeton Review, New
Series, VII. 315. (May, 1881.)

Alger, Wm. R. The Transmigration of Souls. North American Review,
LXXX. 58. (January, 1855.)

Glanvil, Joseph, wrote a long letter full of curious learning to
Richard Baxter, in defense of the soul’s preëxistence, which is among
the Baxter MSS. in the Red-Cross Street Library, Cripplegate.

Sentiment of Pre-existence. Chamber’s Journal. (May 17, and Oct. 11,
1845.)

Doctrine of Pre-existence. The Radical, III. 517.

Pre-existence of Souls. American Presbyterian Review, II. 546. (March,
1854.)

Knight, Prof. William. Doctrine of Metempsychosis. Fortnightly Review,
XXX. 422. (See p. 96, above.)

Pontius, J. W. Transmigration of Souls. Reformed Quarterly Review,
XXVIII. 625.

Pre-existence of Souls. Bibliotheca Sacra, XII. (Jan., 1855.) From
Keil’s Opuscula Acad.

Pre-existence. Methodist Review, Oct., 1853.

Concerning Preëxistence. Penn Monthly, VIII. 655. Sept., 1877.

Rust, Dr. Bishop of Dromore. A Letter of Resolutions concerning Origen
and the Chief of his Opinions. Republished in the collection of Tracts
called the Phœnix.

Oliphant, Lawrence. The Land of Gilead. A Remarkable Narrative of a
Child who remembered previous Lives. Blackwood’s Magazine, Vol. CXXIX.
Jan., 1881.

Pythagoras. University Magazine. Sept., 1879.

Preëxistence. Notes and Queries. Second Series, Vol. II. 453, 517;
III. 50–52, 132; IV. 157, 234, 298; V. 303; VII. 319; XI. 341–343.

Transactions of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, No. 5. A
paper on Reincarnation by Miss Anundale, with comments by Mohini M.
Chatterji. London, 1886.

Sense of Preëxistence. Littell’s Living Age, LIV. 222.

Metempsychose chez les Babis. Journal Asiatique, VIII. 488.

Metempsychose chez les Tibétains. Journal Asiatique, XIV. 409.

VIII. PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOSOPHICAL MAGAZINES.

The Path. Edited by W. Q. Judge. New York.

The Theosophist. Ed. by H. P. Blavatsky. Adyar, India.

Lucifer. Ed. by Mabel Collins and H. P. Blavatsky. London.

The Occult World. Ed. by Mrs. J. W. Cables. Rochester, N. Y.

The Religio-Philosophical Journal. Chicago, Ill.

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. New York.

Journal des Savants. Paris.

La Revue Philosophique. Paris.

Journal Asiatique. Paris.

Revue de l’Histoire des Religions. Edited by Jean Reville. Paris.

Le Lotus. Ed. by K. Gaboriaux. Paris.

Les Jours Nouveaux. Ed. by Duchess de Poma. Paris.

L’Aurore. Paris.

Die Sphinx. Hübbe-Schleden. Münich.

Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik. Dr. Krohn und
Rich. Falckenberg. Halle.

Jamai-ul-Uloom. Urdu. India.

Arya Magazine. Lahore, India.

The Occult Magazine. Glasgow.

INDEX.

[Including authors in the Appendix.]

Addison, Joseph, 153, 276, 322, 335.

Adept, quotation from an, 324.

Adepts, 264.

African transmigration, 276.

Aldrich, T. B., poems by, 134, 136.

Alexander the Great, 5, 197.

Alford, Dean, poem by, 148.

Alger, Wm. R., 100, 337, 342.

Alternate consciousness, 54.

American poets, 129–145.

Ammonius Saccas, 229.

Analogy favoring reincarnation, 22.

Andersen, Hans C., 342.

Anecdotes, 36–46.

Anonymous quotations, 10, 23, 224, 321, 323, 325.

Apollonius of Tyana, 39, 76, 243, 338.

Appendix, 329–343.

Arguments for reincarnation, 20–48, 88, 103.

Aristobulus, 210.

Aristotle, 81.

Arnobius, 223.

Arnold, Edwin, 126, 240, 250, 252, 256, 262, 298, 303, 321, 337.

Arnold, Matthew, 168.

Ashton, Eugene, 42.

Astronomical reincarnation, 66.

Atomic hypothesis, 247, 284.

Atoms, transmigration of, 284, 285.

Augustine, 236.

Augustinian original sin, 32.

Bacchic processions, 6.

Bailey, Philip T., 153, 288, 308.

Balzac, H., 341.

Barrow, Isaac, 329.

Basilidians, 72.

Bastian, A., 331.

Beaumont and Fletcher, 298.

Beausobre, I., 333.

Bede, 17.

Beecher, Edward, 7, 35, 47, 67, 337.

Beecher, Henry Ward, 67, 298.

Borrow, Capel, 335.

Bertram, J. F., 330.

Beyond, poem by J. T. Trowbridge, 141.

Bhagavadgita, 10, 339.

Bible, The, and reincarnation, 34, 72, 83, 113, 114, 214–221.

Bibliography of reincarnation, 329–343.

Bibliothèque Orientale, 334.

Björnsen’s poem “Salme,” 169.

Blake, Wm., 94.

Blavatsky, H. P., 338, 343.

Bode, 66.

Boehme, Jacob, 7, 65.

Boethius, 81, 272.

Bogomiles, 227.

Bonaventura, 65.

Bonds of action, 301.

Bonnet, Charles, 333, 340.

Boullier, 27.

Bowen, Prof. Francis X., 34, 42, 67, 102.

Boyesen, H. H., 170.

Brahman, a, upon transmigration, 284.

Brahman reincarnation, 195, 241, 243–245, 274.

Brahmans, the, 6, 80, 87.

Brewster, David, 7, 66, 337.

British poets, 146–168.

Brocklesby, Richard, 335.

Brodie’s psychological inquiries, 54.

Brooks, Phillips, 67.

Browne, Sir Thomas, 16, 67, 82, 272.

Browning, E. B., 126, 342.

Browning, Robert, 155, 298.

Bruno, Giordano, 7, 65, 169, 229, 330, 338;
quoted, 27, 317.

Bruch, J. F., 331.

Bruyère, De la, 288, 328.

Buckle’s History of Civilization, 31.

Buddhism, 69, 70, 196, 242–247, 274.

Bulstrode, W., 335.

Bulwer-Lytton, 37, 97, 126.

Bunsen, C. J., 336.

Burnouf, E., 334.

Butler, Wm. Archer, 50, 96, 209, 336.

Cabala, 6, 80, 211, 336, 338, 340.

Cæsar, Julius, 5.

Cardan, 81.

Cambridge Platonists, 6, 65, 179.

Campanella, T., 65, 177.

Carlyle, T., ii, 308, 328.

Carpenter’s Mental Physiology, 54.

Cathari, 227.

Cato, 228.

Cebes, 81, 104.

Channing, W. H., 337.

Chapman, George, ii.

Chasseaud, G. W., 338.

Children, 33, 40, 77.

Christian metempsychosis (Prof. F. Bowen), 103.

Christianity teaching reincarnation, 72, 225, 227.

Christianity married to reincarnation, 317.

Christina (Robert Browning), 155.

Church fathers, 6, 86, 87, 226, 232, 275.

Cicero, 81.

Clarke, James Freeman, x, 67, 97, 240, 337.

Clemens Alexandrinus, 226, 232.

Coleridge, S. T., 35, 54, 156, 229.

Collins, Mabel, 338.

Concord of Ages (Dr. Beecher), 47, 67.

Conflict of Ages (Dr. Beecher), 47, 67.

Continental poets, 168–177.

Conzius, C. P., 331.

Cooke, Rose T., 341.

Cox, E. W., 336.

Crookes, Prof., 4.

Cudworth, Ralph, 20, 65, 334.

Dacier’s Life of Pythagoras, 282, 340.

Damascius, 229.

Davies, E., 337.

De Profundis (Tennyson), 151.

Death, 289–296.

Death in Esoteric Oriental thought, 269.

Death, Prof. Bowen on, 116.

Death, Schopenhauer on, 67.

Death, The Secret of (Sanskrit poem), 252.

Delitzsch, 216, 226, 332.

Denton’s Soul of Things, 284.

Descent of the Soul (Plotinus), 229.

Destiny of Man (Fichte), 74.

Disraeli, Benjamin, 298.

D’Israeli, Isaac, 10, 337.

Dialogues on Metempsychosis (Herder), 75.

Dickens, Charles, 41.

Diogenes Laertius, 340.

Disquisition on a Præexistent State (Jenyns), 87.

Döllinger, J. J. I., 332.

Doppert, J., 329.

Dorner, Dr., 7, 47, 66.

Dowden’s Life of Shelley, 92.

Dravard, L., 334.

Dream of Pythagoras (E. Tatham), 156.

Druids, 5, 6, 71, 275, 337.

Druses, 39, 276.

Duchess, The, 341.

Duguet, C., 333.

Dunton, John, 334.

Dupont de Nemours, 97.

Du Prel, Baron, 54.

Eastern poetry, 251–260.

Eastern reincarnation, 7, 240.

Ebers, George, 282.

Edda, 71.

Education of the Human Race (Lessing), 72.

Egypt, 5, 80, 197.

Eleusinian mysteries, 6.

Emerson, R. W., 7, 16, 23, 98, 126, 178, 190, 214, 229, 277, 298, 312,
324.

Empedocles, 5.

English divines, 6, 67.

English books upon reincarnation, 334–338.

Enoch, 269, 291.

Erckmann-Chatrian, 333, 341.

Erigena, 65.

Ernesti, 7.

Esoteric Oriental reincarnation, 263–270.

Essenes, 210.

Euclid, 81.

Euripides, 81.

Evidences of reincarnation, 15–48, 88, 103.

Evil, origin of, 32, 85, 116.

Evolution, 4, 19, 24.

Experiences requiring reincarnation, 36–46.

Facing Westward (W. Whitman), 143.

Fawcett, Edgar, 31.

Fechner, G. T., 21, 332, 342.

Fernelius, J., 81.

Fichte, I. H., 65, 74, 331.

Fichte, J. G., 331, 339.

Fielding, H., 341.

Fiquier, Louis, 7, 340.

Final Thought, The (M. Thompson), 139.

Flammarion, C., 7, 66, 341.

Fleury, 338.

Folk-lore, 276.

Fontenelle, 66.

Fouqué, 342.

Fourier, 66, 340.

French books upon reincarnation, 333.

Frith, J., 338.

Froschammer, J., 26, 332.

Future punishments, 35.

Galen, 81.

Garrett, J., 336.

Gauls, 5.

Gates Between, The (E. B. Phelps), 292.

Gautama, 298.

Gautier, 342.

Gazzali, 308.

Genius explained by reincarnation, 59, 314.

German books upon reincarnation, 330–332.

Ginsburg, Dr., 336.

Glanvil, Joseph, 66, 91, 214, 334, 342.

Gnostics, 6, 72, 226, 227.

Goethe, 7, 175.

Golden verses of Pythagoras, 281.

Goodwin, J., 335.

Gosse, Edmund W., 146.

Greek philosophers, 20, 200, 201, 226.

Grimm, 341.

Grosse, C., 331.

Gymnosophists, 5, 80, 87, 196.

Haeggroth, Nic., 329.

Haffner, G., 329.

Hafiz, 259, 339.

Hagenbach, K. A., 340.

Haldred, 337.

Hale, E. E., 342.

Hardy, R. S., 246, 337.

Hartmann, F., 10, 337.

Haupt, E. D., 330.

Hawthorne, Julian, 55, 341.

Hayne, Paul H., 129, 291.

Heaven and Hell, 288.

Hedge, F. H., x, 120, 331, 338, 339.

Hegel, 65.

Helmont, F. M., 65, 329, 334, 339.

Hen, L., 340.

Henrici, H., 329.

Herder, J. G., 7, 65, 75, 330, 339.

Heredity, 58.

Heretics advocating reincarnation, 72, 225.

Herodotus, 197, 340.

Heusse, M., 329.

Hewlett, H. G. (Sonnet), vi.

Hierocles, 46, 229, 281.

Hilarius, 236.

Hindu reincarnation, 7, 39, 246. See _Brahmanism_ and _Buddhism_.

Hippocrates, 81.

Hodge, Dr., 34.

Hodson, B. H., 338.

Hofmann, Josef, 313.

Hogg, James, 41, 92, 341.

Holmes, O. W., 126.

Hone, William, 38.

Horace, 126.

Houghton, Lord, 150.

Hudson, C. F., 336.

Hugo, Victor, 171.

Hume, David, 16, 65, 71, 94, 336.

Hunt, E. B., 341.

Hunt, Helen, 288.

Huygens, C., 66, 329.

Hymns, 190, 191.

Iarchas, 76.

Identity (T. B. Aldrich), 136.

Identity of the soul, 29, 113.

Immortality and reincarnation, 20, 226.

Immortality, Emerson on, 325.

Immortality, Hume on, 94.

Immortality, Schopenhauer, 65.

Immortality of the Soul (Dr. More), 67.

Innate ideas, 31.

India, 5, 240.

Injustice of reincarnation, 57.

Intimations of Immortality (Wordsworth), 146.

Introduction, 3.

Irhove, Wm., 329.

Isis, rites of, 6.

Israel, M. B., 340.

Jamblichus, 81, 229, 282, 329.

Jennings, H., 336.

Jenyns, Soame, 34, 64, 66, 87, 335.

Jerome, 224, 225, 236.

Jesus, 6, 18, 84, 112, 218.

Jewish preëxistence, 210, 340.

Jews, 6, 72.

John the Baptist, 6, 114, 218.

Johnson, Samuel, 337.

Jones, Sir W., 338.

Josephus, 210, 217.

Judgment day, 302.

Justin Martyr, 232.

Kabala. See _Cabala_.

Kalidésa, 251, 278.

Kant, Em., 7, 35, 65, 66, 109, 300.

Karma, 299.

Karsten, S., 332.

Katha Upanishad, 252.

Keil, C. A. G., 329, 342.

Kemble, Frances A., 308.

Kern, 332.

Kindness of the Orient toward animals, 279.

King, C. W., 338.

King, Dr. William, 277.

Klewitz, A. W., 331.

Knight, William X., 10, 50, 52, 67, 95, 323, 342.

Koeppen, C. F., 330.

Krug, W. T., 331.

Kuenen, A., 340.

Lancaster, A. E., 312.

Larcom, Lucy, 310.

Later books on reincarnation, 329, 330.

Law, William, 64, 66.

Law of Causation, 299.

Laws of Manu, 245, 272, 273, 275, 338.

Leaves of Grass (W. Whitman), 144.

Lecky’s European Morals, 279.

Leibnitz, 7, 54, 65, 108, 331, 339.

Leland, C. G., 137.

Leroux, P., 66, 333.

Lessing, 7, 35, 72, 65, 71, 72, 330, 339.

Lewes, George Henry, 31.

Leyden, Dr., 156.

Lichtenberg, 71.

Liddon, H. P., 336.

Light of Asia, 126, 240, 256, 262, 298, 303, 339.

Light on the Path (Collins), 264, 338.

Lillie, A., 337.

Lindsay, Lord, 41.

Linner, J. R., 333.

Longfellow, H. W., 142, 288.

Lotze, Hermann, vii, 26.

Lowell, J. R., 142.

Lux Orientalis (Glanvil), 91, 334.

Macdonald, George, 50.

Macnish, R., 341.

Magazines, philosophical and theosophical, 343.

Magi, 5, 80, 87.

Mahatmas, 264.

Man: Fragments of Forgotten History, 264, 337.

Manichæans, 6, 72, 225, 226, 227.

Manu, laws of, 245, 272, 273, 275, 338.

Marcionists, 72.

Marcus, J., 332.

Materialism, ix, 19.

Mazzini, 308.

McClintock and Strong, 338.

Mede, 335.

Memory of past lives, 51.

Memory, On (Tupper), 154.

Metempsychosis. See _Reincarnation_.

Metempsychosis, Dialogues on (Herder), 75.

Metempsychosis of the Pine (Bayard Taylor), 131.

Metempsychosis, The (T. B. Aldrich), 134.

Mexico, 6, 276.

Meyer, I., 338.

Meyer, J. B., 331.

Meyer, J. F., 331.

Michelet, 272.

Miller, J. G., 332.

Milnes, R. M., 150, 250.

Milton, 16, 180, 181.

Mohammedan reincarnation, 6, 71, 247.

Montaigne, 321.

Moore, Thomas, 194.

More, Dr. Henry, 6, 34, 64, 65, 78, 179, 180, 334, 340.

Mosheim, J. L., 337.

Mozley, J. B., 336.

Mulford, Elisha, 26.

Müller, 332.

Müller, Julius, 7, 35, 47, 66.

Müller, J. T., 331.

Müller, Max, 339.

Mulock, D. M., vi.

Myers, F. W. H., 338.

Mysteries, Eleusinian, 6.

Mystic, The (P. J. Bailey), 153.

Nature of the soul requires reincarnation, 29, 120.

Nemesis, 302.

Nemesius, 226, 236.

Neo-Platonism, 5, 226, 228, 282.

New truths the oldest, 4.

Newcomb, Th., 335.

Nirvana, 244, 306, 309.

Notes and Queries, 40, 343.

Novalis, 26.

Nürnberger, J. C. S., 331.

Objections to reincarnation, 51–61.

Oetingen, F. C. von, 52.

Oldenberg, H., 341.

Oliphant, Lawrence, 40, 342.

Olivier, J., 332.

One Thousand Years Ago (C. G. Leland), 137.

One Word More (Robert Browning), 155.

Origen, 6, 34, 66, 81, 86, 123, 226, 233, 339.

Original sin, 32, 85, 116.

Orpheus and Eurydice, 295.

Osiander, J. A., 329.

Ovid, 5, 23, 168, 194, 200, 272, 278, 339.

Paracelsus, 50, 65.

Paradise, 83, 221.

Parker, S., 334.

Parsons, Thomas W., 145.

Paul, Jean, 75, 272, 288.

Paul, St., 85, 116, 221.

Paulicians, 227.

Paulinus, 17.

Pelagian sin, 32.

Periodic year, 82, 247.

Persian Magi, 5, 80, 87.

Persian poem, 257.

Persian reincarnation, 199, 247, 274.

Personality, 26.

Peru, 6.

Pezzani, A., 66, 97, 333.

Pfellus, 81.

Phædrus of Plato, 201.

Phelps, E. S., 292.

Philo, 6, 81, 210, 224, 332.

Philolaus, 194.

Picart, B., 333, 339.

Pilgrimage philosophy, 60, 61.

Plato, 5, 27, 71, 81, 104, 126, 201, 280, 339.

Platonic poets, 178.

Platonists, 7, 178.

Platonists, Cambridge, 6, 65, 179.

Plato’s year, 82, 247.

Plotinus, 5, 51, 81, 224, 228, 229, 274, 334, 339.

Plurality of the Soul’s Lives (Pezzani), 97.

Plurality of worlds, 66.

Plutarch, 339.

Poe, Edgar A., 38, 338, 342.

Poetry of Reincarnation:
American, 129–145;
British, 146–168;
Continental, 168–177;
Eastern, 251–260;
Platonic, 178–191.

Pomponatius, 81.

Pontius, J. W., 342.

Porphyry, 66, 196, 229, 282, 329.

Preëxistence. Argued by F. H. Hedge, 120;
argued by Prof. Knight, 95;
articles upon, 342;
books upon, 329–343;
Disquisition on (Jenyns), 87;
Dr. Hodge on, 34;
experiences of, 36–47;
Hayne’s (Paul H.) poem on, 129;
in the Bible, 215–221;
Milton’s poem on, 181, 335;
Plato’s, 96, 201, 209;
seven pillars of, 92.
See _Reincarnation_.

Prevalence of reincarnation, 4–7, 65, 70.

Priesthood, 280.

Priestly rites, 6.

Priscillians, 225, 227.

Proclus, 5, 81, 229, 275.

Prodigies, 313.

Prose writers upon reincarnation, 65–123; Appendix.

Prudentius, 237.

Psychical research, 19.

Psychological proofs of reincarnation, 29–31, 120.

Psychometry, 284.

Ptolemy, 18.

Pythagoras, 5, 39, 71, 76, 78, 80, 194, 200, 274, 280, 298.

Pythagoras, Dream of (poem), 158.

Pythagoras, Life of, 282, 340.

Quarles, ii.

Rabbins, 6.

Rain in Summer (Longfellow), 142.

Ramsay, Chevalier, 34, 66, 83, 335.

Recognition of friends in the future, 60, 292, 295.

Record, A (W. Sharp), 154.

Regnaud, P., 334.

Reincarnation, ancient, 195–212;
answers problems of original sin, 32;
curious experiences, 36–46;
evil, 46, 116;
nature of the soul, 29, 120;
arguments for, 20;
Biblical, 25–221;
Christian, 225–237, 317, 318;
Eastern, 241–247;
Eastern poets on, 251–260;
Esoteric, 263–270;
objections to, 51–61;
optimistic, 320;
prevalence of, 3–7, 70;
probability of, 117;
science confirming it, 19;
summary, 309–325;
transmigration through animals, 273;
Western evidences, 11;
Western authors upon, poetic, 127–191,
prose, 65–123;
What is it?, 11.

Religio Medici, 67, 82, 272.

Remembrance, A (Dean Alford), 148.

Renouf, P. L., 341.

Repulsiveness of reincarnation, 59–61.

Retreat, The (Henry Vaughan), 189.

Returning Dreams (Milnes), 150.

Reynaud, Jean, 66, 333.

Richter, Jean Paul, 75, 272, 288, 340.

Rig Veda, 338.

Ritgen, F., 331.

Robertson, F. W., 72, 322, 339.

Roman Catholic Purgatory, 6, 35.

Rossetti, D. G., 16, 42, 153, 341.

Rowe, Mrs. Elizabeth, 190.

Rückert, 7.

Ruffinus, 226.

Rust, Dr., 342.

Sagas of Iceland, 169.

Sakoontala, 251.

Sanskrit books, 338, 339.

Sanskrit poetry, 251–256.

Schelling, 7, 26, 65.

Schiller, 175.

Schilling, W. H., 329.

Schlegel, 16, 340.

Schlosser, J. G., 330.

Schopenhauer, 7, 65, 67, 288, 332, 340.

Schubert, G. H., 331.

Schubert, J. E. von, 64, 330.

Science, 7, 19, 25, 27.

Scott, Sir W., 36, 214.

Scott’s Christian Life, 67.

Scotus, 7.

Scriptural Reincarnation. See _Biblical_.

Secret of Death (Sanskrit), 252.

Secret of Reminiscence (Schiller), 175.

Sedermark, P., 330.

Senses, seven, 267.

Separation from friends, 60, 292, 295.

Seven in Oriental philosophy, 265.

Shakespeare, 272.

Sharp, William, 154.

Shelley, P. B., 64, 298;
anecdote of, 92;
poetry of, 187, 188.

Sibbern, F. C., 329.

Simonists, 72.

Simrock, K., 332.

Sin, original, 32, 85, 116.

Sinnet, A. P., 337, 341.

Smedley, 338.

Socrates, 7.

Solomon, 84, 216.

Song of the Earth Spirits (Goethe), 175.

Soul, immortality of the, 20, 94.

Soul, nature of the, 29, 120.

Soul of Things (Denton), 284.

Southey, 94.

Spencer, Herbert, 19, 28.

Spenser, 16.

Spiesz, E., 332.

Stahl, G. E., 26, 27.

Stanzas (T. W. Parsons), 145.

St. Bernard, 298.

Stevenson, R. L., 55, 341.

Stewart and Tait’s Unseen Universe, 17, 289.

Stories of reincarnation, 41, 42, 55, 341.

Successful Search (Poem), 260.

Sudden Light (D. G. Rossetti), 153.

Sufis, 247, 251, 259.

Swedenborg, 7, 65.

Symbols of reincarnation, 282.

Synesius, 81, 236.

Syrianus, 275.

Talmud, 6, 72, 340.

Tatham, Emma, 158.

Taylor, Bayard, 131, 133, 308.

Taylor, Isaac, 16, 50, 288.

Taylor’s (Isaac) Physical Theory of a Future Life, 19, 29, 336.

Tennyson, A., 151, 152, 309, 320.

Theologians, 6, 7, 18, 32, 47, 66, 86.

Thompson, Maurice, 139.

Through the Gates of Gold, 16, 264, 338.

Timæus, 201, 340.

Timbs, John, 336.

To my Daughter (E. W. Gosse), 147.

Translations into English, 338.

Transmigration (H. H. Boyesen), 170.

Transmigration of Souls (Béranger), 173.

Transmigration through animals, 77, 87, 273–285.

Tredwell, D. N., 338.

Trench, R. C., 257.

Trinius, J. A., 330.

Trismegist, 80.

Triple form of teaching by the priesthood, 280, 282.

Trowbridge, J. T., 141.

Tulloch, John, 336.

Tupper, 154.

Twesten, C., 332.

Twilight (J. R. Lowell), 142.

Two Voices (Tennyson), 151.

Tyler, E. B., 338.

Ungern-Sternberg, C. F., 331.

Upham, E., 337.

Valentinians, 72.

Valentinus, 228.

Vane, Sir Harry, 7.

Vangerow, W. G., 330.

Vaughan, Henry, 189.

Virgil, 5, 81, 168.

Voltaire, 328.

Waddington, ii.

Warren, E., 335.

Wasseljew, W., 330.

Ways of the Spirit (F. H. Hedge), 120.

Weber, 332.

Webster, D., 300.

Wedekind, G., 331.

Welsh Triads, 6, 169, 275.

Wendel, Z. A., 330.

Wernsdorf, G., 330.

Western writers upon Reincarnation:
prose, 65–123 and Appendix;
poetical, 127–191.

What is Reincarnation?, 11.

Wheeler, J. T., 336.

Whitman, Walt, 143, 144, 308, 328.

Whittier, J. G., ii, 130.

Wigan’s (Dr.) Duality of the Mind, 44.

Wilkinson, Sir J. G., 282, 336.

Willis, N. P., 41, 141, 341.

Wilson, H. H., 337, 338.

Wordsworth, W., 146, 328.

World as Will and Idea, The, 67.

Young, Thomas, 16.

Zohar, the, 212.

Zoroaster, 80, 194, 199, 247, 274.

-----

Footnote 1:

See the publications of the Society of Psychical Research of London
and Boston and New York.

Footnote 2:

Dryden’s Translation.

Footnote 3:

We purposely use the term _Personal_ in preference to spiritual, for
the word should be rescued from its confusion of meanings to the old
classical one, in connection with the soul. As Hermann Lotze
beautifully unfolds, “Personality is the key to existence,” using
the word in its first sense from _persona_, a mask, parallel to the
Hebrew analogy which calls man the image of Jehovah. Mulford also
presents the thought grandly in _The Republic of God_ and _The
Nation_, drawing his suggestion from the Germans Stahl and
Froschammer. In this sense humanity is the shadow of Deity, the veil
through which the Absolute tries to reveal Himself, casting about in
the multiplicity of natural forms after an expression through
physical means of His own nature. In this sublime conception God is
the life of the universe, who, in Schelling’s phrase, “sleeps in the
stone, breathes in the plant, moves in the animal, and wakes up to
consciousness in man.” It is this thought which makes Novalis so
reverent to a human being as a Microdeus, and elevates the dignity
of the soul above all else. For as the purpose of nature is to
personify the Invisible, human souls are the Persons (or masks) by
which the leading parts are here acted with many changes of scenery.

Footnote 4:

This idea is grandly stated in Isaac Taylor’s _Physical Theory of a
Future Life_. In demonstrating the assurance that the future
existence is in material bodies, and showing the glorious extensions
to which the coming bodily powers will probably be developed, the
author approaches strangely near the philosophy of reincarnation.

Footnote 5:

H. T. Buckle, _History of Civilization_, vol. i. p. 166.

Footnote 6:

See pages 233 _et seq._

Footnote 7:

See page 66.

Footnote 8:

See page 72.

Footnote 9:

See page 67.

Footnote 10:

Kant’s distinction between the Intelligible character and the
Empirical or acquired character, which is a metaphysical form of the
reincarnation view concerning the eternal Individuality and the
temporal Personality, is shown by Professor Bowen on pp. 102 _et
seq._

Footnote 11:

Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_ (first edition, vol. vii. p. 114).

Footnote 12:

As a physiological explanation of these instances, Dr. Wigan
published in 1844 a curious book entitled, “The Duality of the Mind”
(London), which excited animated discussions and called forth a
number of circumstances which the double structure of the brain
could not explain.

Footnote 13:

Professor William Knight, in the _Fortnightly Review_, 1878. See p.
95.

Footnote 14:

Leibnitz first directed attention to these singular phenomena. Sir
William Hamilton has collected a number of instances of such
wonderful revival of memory. Carpenter’s _Mental Physiology_, pp.
430 et seq., and Brodie’s _Psychological Inquiries_, Second Series,
p. 55, mention several cases. Coleridge cited from the German a
remarkable illustration, and commented upon it in his _Biographia
Literaria_, chapter vi.:—

“This fact (and it would not be difficult to adduce several of the
same kind) contributes to make it even probable that all thoughts
are in themselves imperishable; and that, if the intelligent faculty
should be rendered more comprehensive, it would require only a
different and apportioned organization, _the body celestial_ instead
of _the body terrestrial_, to bring before every human soul the
collective experience of its whole past existence. And this—this,
perchance, is the dread Book of Judgment, in whose mysterious
hieroglyphics every idle word is recorded! Yea, in the very nature
of a living spirit, it may be more possible that heaven and earth
should pass away than that a single act, a single thought, should be
loosened or lost from that living chain of causes to all whose
links, conscious or unconscious, the free will, our only absolute
Self, is co-extensive and co-present.”

Footnote 15:

A noble passage from one of the greatest of these may be found in
Scott’s _Christian Life_, chapter iii. section i. See also Dr. Henry
More’s _Immortality of the Soul_, Book II. chapter xvi., and Sir
Kenelm Digby’s remarks on Sir Thomas Browne’s _Religio Medici_.

Footnote 16:

A full list of the principal western writers on this subject is
given in the Appendix.

Footnote 17:

Haldane and Kemp’s Translation, vol. iii. pp. 299–306.

Footnote 18:

Translated in section 2 of this chapter.

Footnote 19:

_Religio Medici_, section vi. Professor Francis Bowen inclines to
this same view. See page 108 _et seq._

Footnote 20:

Gospel of John ix. 2.

Footnote 21:

Romans v. 12.

Footnote 22:

Ibid. v. 19.

Footnote 23:

See Scoones’s _English Letters_, p. 361.

Footnote 24:

Other extracts from Bulwer appear on page 37.

Footnote 25:

Paris, 1865, third edition, p. 405.

Footnote 26:

Other quotations from Emerson are on pages 23, 277.

Footnote 27:

_Jowett’s translation_, Am. ed. vol. i. p. 416.

Footnote 28:

See Matthew Arnold’s poem upon his father, Dr. Arnold, page 168.

Footnote 29:

See Dowden’s _Life of Shelley_, from which a suggestive incident is
quoted above, on page 93.

Footnote 30:

It will be noticed later that Plato reduced this term to one
thousand years.

Footnote 31:

Egyptologists disagree as to the real intent of embalming. We select
the explanations best adapted to the theological doctrines of the
Egyptians.

Footnote 32:

See the article on “Pre-existence,” in the _Penn Monthly_,
September, 1877.

Footnote 33:

From Jowett’s translation.

Footnote 34:

Proverbs viii. 22–31.

Footnote 35:

Jeremiah i. 5.

Footnote 36:

John ix. 34.

Footnote 37:

John ix. 2.

Footnote 38:

John v. 14.

Footnote 39:

Matt. xi. 14; also, Matt. xvii. 12, 13. See Professor Bowen’s
remarks upon these texts, page 115.

Footnote 40:

John vi. 38.

Footnote 41:

John iii. 13.

Footnote 42:

The close parallelism between Buddhism and Platonism peculiarly
facilitated this.

Footnote 43:

Matt. xxiv. 21.

Footnote 44:

Ephesians i. 4.

Footnote 45:

See page 273.

Footnote 46:

Beside these recent English books the Appendix gives many older
ones.

Footnote 47:

In the explicit phrasing from which this section is derived, there
are mentioned _seven_ planets, through each of which the soul makes
_seven_ rounds, each round including _seven_ races, and each race
_seven_ sub-races, and these again containing _seven_ branches,
multiplying the whole number of lives into a compound of seven.
Everywhere the sacred number appears, but contrary to the strict
interpretation of many students of oriental thought, we are certain
that these figures are only symbols. Just as the spectrum might be
split into only three essential components, or into a much larger
number than seven, so the dissection of these courses of the soul
into any one number seems to be an arbitrary mathematical
representation of the fact that each division must include such
components as will fit together in one indissoluble entirety.

Footnote 48:

This corresponds to the Hindu triple existence mentioned in the Laws
of Manu: “Souls endued with goodness attain always the state of
deities; those filled with ambitious passions, the condition of men;
and those immersed in darkness, the nature of beasts. This is the
threefold order of transmigration.”

Footnote 49:

From Addison’s _Spectator_.

Footnote 50:

Dr. William King, in the _Dreamer_, a series of satirical dreams,
which humorously illustrate the alleged doctrine of Pythagoras and
Plato, as well as the abuses of religion, etc.

Footnote 51:

From Dacier’s _Life of Pythagoras, with his Symbols and Golden
Verses, together with the Life of Hierocles, and his Commentaries
upon the Verses_, p. 335. London, 1721.

Footnote 52:

See the psychometric investigations recorded in Professor Denton’s
book _The Soul of Things_.

Footnote 53:

Stewart and Tait, in _The Unseen Universe_.

Footnote 54:

See _The Gates Between_, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

Footnote 55:

Perfect Justice.

Footnote 56:

From Lucy Larcom.

Footnote 57:

From A. E. Lancaster.

Footnote 58:

Professor William Knight.

Footnote 59:

An adept of India.

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