TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. The belief that at death the soul passes into another body has been widely held. According to Herodotus (II., 123) the Egyptians believed that the soul at death entered immediately upon another existence. " After three thousand years, during which it had experienced all the various forms of life that exist on land, in the water and in the air, it would once more re-enter a human being " (Adolf Erman, Handbook). But though Herodotus describes the belief correctly, he is perhaps wrong, as Erman thinks, in ascribing it to the Egyptians. In any case, it is held by Brahmans, Buddhists, and Greeks, is found to prevail among certain primitive people, and is even cherished by many individuals in modern civilised countries. The Hindu " feels himself at one with all about him; he thinks that his soul, before animating his body, may have existed in beings of every kind, organic and even inorganic, and believes that, after his death, it will pass into a great variety of bodies " (Reinach). The doctrine was one of the distinguishing marks of the Greek Pytha goreans (q.v.). And the Orphics (q.v.) believed that by initiation into the Orphic Mysteries their souls were spared the " cycle of reincarnation." The Romans to some extent borrowed the belief from the Greeks. There
are traces of it also among the ancient Celts. The Algonquins believed that the soul of a dead child might enter another mother and be born again. Natives of Africa and Australia sometimes think that white men are the reincarnations of the souls of black men. Red skins, Esquimaux, and Zulus believe that the souls of dead men enter animals. The doctrine of the trans migration of souls as taught In Europe and America (United States) has naturally changed its character to some extent. " Animals, birds, fish, and reptiles are re embodied. To deny a spirit to one form of Intelligence is to deny it to all forms, man included. The animal re-appears in a series of births, each birth giving to Its spirit a new form. Each of these is a slight improve ment on the last, if the animal is in its wild or natural state. Progression, improvement, and continual change from a coarser to a finer organisation. are not confined to man. . . The spirit of an animal can actually be re-embodied in a man or woman, and its prominent character will appear in that man or woman " (Prentice Mulford, The Gift of the Spirit. 1908). See F. J. Gould, Concise Hist. of Rel., vol. I., 1907; Reinach, O.