METEM'PSYCHO'SIS (Lat., from Gk. spi;-xcecrts, from gerqgfruxofiv, metempsychoun, to maLe the soul pass front one body to another, from gera, meta, over + /Alkuxo0v, cmpsychoun, to animate, from '441.9cos, empsychos, animate, from h, en, ink- .fruxh, psyche, soul). Transmigration of souls, or, more accurately, the reincorporation of a soul. In a crude form this is the usual belief of all animistic forms of religion, and is not a religious, but a philosophical opinion. That is to say, it is not believed that any religious factors, such as the state of the soul, or the will of the deity, decide the soul's fate, but that every soul necessarily finds another habitation after death in a body similar to the one it has just. quitted or has been accustomed to occupy. To the primi tive mind the soul is air. breath, and nt death disappears from one body either to be lost in general air or to hold together, as before, sepa rated from other air and screened by a new body. But as any soul during a man's life may enter at will the body of a beast, so after death the soul of the departed may find shelter either in a man's body or in the frame of a beast. Some savages believe that at the instant when one dies one's soul enters a new body. Others believe that the spirit can remain for some time disembodied, and that it seeks reinearnatiott, not from neces sity. lint for pleasure. At the same time it is be lieved that souls may take quite different habita tions. stub as trees, streams. and stars. sometimes remaining, then- forever, and sometimes descend ing or aseemling to he been again. The next stage is where this animistie belief appears sporadical ly in a much more developed environment and is evidently a reversion. Thus in the midst of the nature-gods of the Teutons we find once in legend and often in folklore a reversion to the belief that men are often liable to be reborn on earth -Wier in human or in animal bodies. Sometimes no rebirth is necessary. but the soul.leaps from one
body and drives out the soul of the animal whose body it enters. .111 these beliefs, more or less confused and vague. but persistent through va rious stages of social development. are found in Europe. India. Asia. and Atneriea, while in Ar m ien, where very little social change has taken place. and in Polynesia, where the same holds good. it luny be said to be in its crudest form the usual faith of the people.
Quite different are the complex systems of metempsychosis built upon this animistie basis. Three such systems are known. The latest. in time, that of ~reeks, has been derived by various scholars from the Egyptian system on the one hand, and from the Hindu system on the other. Others hold that it was indigenous. The correct opinion must be based upon considera tions often neglected in the discussion. These are, first, that the Greek belief differs essentially from both the Hindu and Egyptian systems; sec ond, that Pythagoras traveled in the East, but did not invent the notions nor borrow the plan of his own system; third, that metempsychosis to the Greeks was always as a system a matter of poetry and philosophy, whereas in India and in EKvpt it was a national belief. Herodotus says that the Greek system was derived from the 4.-yptian; but he adds that the Greeks have made it their own, and in this he is probably right. The chief differences between the three systems are as follows: The Hindu system is an outgrowth front a general belief in transmi gration of souls. There was at first no notion of retribution connected with this belief. The soul that. sinned perished. The good soul per sisted in a new body, or, if it chose, lived in heaven in a 'body of light.' About the seventh century however. arose the doctrine of Ear ma (q.v.), whieh turns this belief into a system .! based on morality. According to this system, the soul is doomed to expiate by future rebirths in low forms of life the sins committed in this life.