funeral rites appears to have been connected among the Egyptians with the doctrine of transmigration; as this was supposed to be the lot of those whose crimes had led to their non-burial. Although, however, the duration of transmigration was dependent on the extent of crime, yet, says Sir Gardner Wilkinson, "when the devotion of friends, aided by liberal donations in the service of religion, and the influential prayers of the priest, had sufficiently softened the otherwise inexorable nature of the Gods, the period of this state of purgatory was doubtless shortened." 1 The doctrine of transmigration received its supplement in the teaching of the Egyptians that the soul, after its series of changes, returns to the same human body as that to which it had formerly been united. When this happened, the soul completed what was called "the cycle of necessity." The period named by Herodotus as that during which, according to Egyptian teaching, the soul was undergoing transmigration after departure from its human body, is three thousand years. This doctrine, with others relating to metempsychosis, was adopted from the Egyptians by Pythagoras, and it is explained by Plato, who says:-"Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul can return to the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in less; only the soul of a philosopher, guiltless and true, or the soul of a lover, who is not without philosophy, may acquire wings in the third recurring period of a thousand years; and if they choose this life three times in succession, then they have their wings given them, and go away at the end of three thousand years. But the others receive judgment when they have completed their first life, and after the judgment they go, some of them to the houses of correction, which are under the

1 Wilkinson, op. cit., vol. v., p. 428.

2 Do., vol. v., p. 440 seq. Euterpe II., c. 123.

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earth, and are punished; others to some place in heaven, whither they are lightly borne by justice, and there they live in a manner worthy of the life which they led here when in the form of men. And at the end of the first thousand years the good souls and also the evil souls both come to cast lots and choose their second life, and they may take any that they like. And then the soul of the man may pass into the life of a beast, or from the beast again into the man." The "cycle of necessity" would seem to have extended over a thousand years, at the end of which period it again commenced. This, no doubt, was intended by Pindar when he said, "They who steadfastly, during three migrations, keep their soul free from contamination, accomplish their way on the path of Jupiter to Saturn, where the gentle breezes of the ocean blow around the island of the blessed.'

2

According to Plato's teaching, the soul was never in the first generation implanted in the form of a beast. It became a man occupying a position agreeing with its intellectual condition. Thus the soul which had seen the most of truth would become a philosopher, an artist, a musician, or a lover; that which has seen truth in the second degree would enter into the form of a righteous king, warrior, or commander; the third would be a statesman, an economist, or a merchant; the fourth, one who loves gymnastic exercises, or a physician; the fifth, a prophet, or one connected with the mysteries; the sixth will be best adapted to a poetic life; the seventh to a mechanical or agricultural life; to the eighth the life of a sophist or demagogue; to the ninth that of a tyrant. 3 It is evident that this gradation shows only Plato's own estimate of the several positions or occupations specified. The Greek philosopher elsewhere de

1 "Phædrus," Jowett, vol. i., p. 583.

3 Do., p. 582.

2" Olymp.," Od. II.

scribes the lower condition into which the soul afterwards sinks in a passage which throws a curious light on the ideas entertained by the ancients as to the relation between man and the animal kingdom. Thus he says: -"Of the men who came into the world, those who are cowards, or have led unjust lives, may be fairly supposed to change into the nature of women in the second generation. . . Thus were created women and the female sex in general. But the race of birds was created out of innocent, light-minded men, who, although their thoughts were directed towards heaven, imagined in their simplicity that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight; these were transformed into birds, and they grew feathers instead of hair. The race

of wild pedestrian animals, again, came from those who had no philosophy in all their thoughts, and never considered at all about the nature of the heavens, because they had ceased to use the courses of the head, and followed the guidance of those parts of the soul which surround the breast. And the most foolish of them, who trailed their bodies entirely upon the ground, and have no longer any need of feet, he made without feet to crawl upon the earth. The fourth class were the inhabitants of the water: these were made out of the most entirely ignorant and senseless beings, whom the transformers did not think any longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which was made impure by all sorts of transgression; instead of allowing them to respire the subtle and pure element of air, they thrust them into the water, and gave them a deep and muddy medium of respiration; and hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and other aquatic animals, which have received the most remote habitations as a punishment of their extreme ignorance.'

" 1

1 "Timæus," Jowett, vol. ii., p. 585.

The story of Pythagoras and his transmigrations is well known. According to Heraclides Ponticus, as preserved by Diogenes Laertius (De clarorum philosophorum vitis, &c.), he was first Aethalides, a reputed son of Mercury, who on his petition granted him the power of remembering after his death all that happened to him during life. Some time after he appeared as Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus in the Trojan war. Then he appeared as Hermotimus, and at the death of Hermotimus as Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos, and finally as Pythagoras. The apology of Appolonius, on his trial before Domitian, says of the Samian sage, whom it supposes to have received his doctrines from the Brahmans of India through the gymnosophists of Egypt, "He came into the world in the age when Troja was besieged on account of Helen; he was the most beautiful of the sons of Panthus, and the most richly dressed; he died so young that Homer lamented his untimely fate. After migrating in accordance with the law of Adrastea, which requires the migration of the soul through different bodies, he reassumed the human form, and was born of Mnesarchus the Samian, changed from a barbarian into a sage, and from a Trojan into an Ionian, and rendered so immortal, that he never forgot he was Euphorbus." That the immortality of the soul was connected in the Greek mind with the doctrine of metempsychosis is evident from this statement. So, also, Ovid, when speaking of Euphorbus and Pythagoras, makes the latter declare that "souls are not subject to death, and after leaving their former habitation, they for ever inhabit new dwellings, and live on.” 2

Considering the origin usually assigned to the Hindu Aryas, it may seem strange that, as Prof. Max Müller

1 "Philostrati de Tyanensi Appolonio " Lib. viii., 7.

2 "Metamorph." Lib. XV., Fab. iii.

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asserts, there is no trace in the Vedas of the doctrine of transmigration. It by no means follows, however, that the authors of the Vedas bad no belief in that doctrine. Various Aryan tribes rejected the Vedic religion,2 from which we may suppose that it was not Hindu so much as Brahmanic; and the silence of the Vedas on the subject of transmigration proves nothing more than that the composers of the sacred hymns believed themselves not to be subject to its operation. Mr Spence Hardy makes the ingenious observation, that "there appears to be an intimate connection between the institution of caste, and the doctrine of transmigration of souls." In confirmation of this notion he adds-" Almost in every place where the former has existed, we can trace the presence of the latter. of the latter. Indeed, the custom of caste is so contrary to right reason, that its establishment seems to be impossible without calling in the aid of some supernatural power to assist in its confirmation." 3 That there is a connection between that custom and the doctrine of transmigration is supported by a fact noted by Sir Gardner Wilkinson in connection with this doctrine as held by the Egyptians. In later ages the Egyptian priests taught that the souls of good men, instead of passing through a series of transformations, are, after judgment, at once admitted to the presence of Osiris, whose mysterious name they then assumed. At an

4

earlier period, however, this name was only given to kings and priests, the assumption being that the members of the sacred caste to which they belonged, were originally alone thought to be perfectly pure, and therefore not subject to transmigration. Taking the name

1 "Chips," vol. i., p. 45; see also J. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire in "Journal des Savants," 1854, pp. 113, 212.

2 Muir's "Sanskrit Texts," part ii., pp. 368, 377, 383, &c.

3 "Manual of Buddhism," p. 77.

4 Rawlinson's " Herodotus," vol. ii., p. 198-Note.