METEMPSYCHOSIS (aFresoPxtetris), derived from a Greek word signifying the passage or transmigration of souls, forms a part of the philosophical or religious belief of many nations. The Hindus believe that the souls of men pass after death into different bodies, either of men or animals, unless an individual has lived a most holy and religious life ; in which case his soul is absorbed into the divine essence. " The soul passes from one state to another invested with a aubtile frame consisting of elementary particles, the seed or rudiment of a grosser body. Departing from that which it occupied, it ascends to the moon, where, clothed with an aqueous form, it experiences the recompense of its works; and whence it returns to occupy a now body with resulting influence of its former deeds. But he who has attained the true know ledge of God does not pans through the same stages of retreat, but proceeds directly to reunion with the Supreme Being, with which he is identified, as a river at its confluence with the sea merges therein altogether. His vital faculties and the elements of which his body consists are absorbed completely and absolutely ; both name and form cease ; and he becomes immortal without parts or members."
(' Extracts from the Brahma-30,as, or Aphorisms on the Vedanta doctrine, by Bldarayana; translated by Mr. Colebrook-o, in Trans. of the Roy. As. Soc.; vol. IL) The migration of souls from one body to another also formed, as is well known, a leading feature of the Pythagorean doctrine. This doctrine war also a part of the Egyptian religious system. The Egyptians, says Ilerodotts (ii. 123), are the first who believed in the immortality of the soul. As soon as the body begins to decay, the soul passe from one aoimal to another ; and what it has passed through the forms of all animals, terrestrial, a luatic, and winged, it again enters a human form This period of transmigration is completed to 3000 years. Some of the Greeks, he adds, both in early thus and more recently, have nuintalned this doctrine and claimed it as their own ; and though he could mention names, he declines to do so.