in Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, Sufiism and ultimately in the Jewish Kabbala seems a rivulet from the same source.  Recent research discredits the theory that metempsychosis was an important feature in the earlier religion of Egypt or among the Druids[38].  But it played a prominent part in the philosophy of Pythagoras and in the Orphic mysteries, which had some connection with Thrace and possibly also with Crete.  A few great European intellects[39]—­notably Plato and Virgil—­have given it undying expression, but Europeans as a whole have rejected it with that curiously crude contempt which they have shown until recently for Oriental art and literature.

Considering how fixed is the belief in immortality among Europeans, or at least the desire for it, the rarity of a belief in pre-existence or transmigration is remarkable.  But most people’s expectation of a future life is based on craving rather than on reasoned anticipation.  I cannot myself understand how anything that comes into being can be immortal.  Such immortality is unsupported by a single analogy nor can any instance be quoted of a thing which is known to have had an origin and yet is even apparently indestructible[40].  And is it possible to suppose that the universe is capable of indefinite increase by the continual addition of new and eternal souls?  But these difficulties do not exist for theories which regard the soul as something existing before as well as after the body, truly immortal a parte ante as well as a parte post and manifesting itself in temporary homes of human or lower shape.  Such theories become very various and fall into many obscurities when they try to define the nature of the soul and its relation to the body, but they avoid what seems to me the contradiction of the created but immortal soul.

The doctrine of metempsychosis is also interesting as affecting the relations of men and animals.  The popular European conception of “the beasts which perish” weakens the arguments for human immortality.  For if the mind of a dog or chimpanzee contains no element which is immortal, the part of the human mind on which the claim to immortality can be based must be parlously small, since ex hypothesi sensation, volition, desire and the simpler forms of intelligence are not immortal.  But in India where men have more charity and more philosophy this distinction is not drawn.  The animating principle of men, animals and plants is regarded as one or at least similar, and even matter which we consider inanimate, such as water, is often considered to possess a soul.  But though there is ample warrant in both Brahmanic and Buddhist literature for the idea that the soul may sink from a human to an animal form or vice versa rise, and though one sometimes meets this belief in modern life[41], yet it is not the most prominent aspect of metempsychosis in India and the beautiful precept of ahimsa or not injuring living things is not, as Europeans imagine, founded on the