THE preceding chapters having, it is believed, established the fact that man has a center of consciousness, or soul, quite independent of the body for its existence, or conscious functions - except as the sense organs of the latter relate it to the molecular portion of the Cosmos, - those remaining will be devoted to a study of the nature of the relations sustained by this soul to the body. Standing first and foremost among these is the fact of its reincarnation, or its successive occupation of many bodies during its evolution through matter.

Reincarnation is quite distinct from metempsychosis, when this is understood to mean the return of the soul to earth through human or animal bodies indifferently; for it emphatically denies that, having once attained the human state, the soul can ever retrograde into an animal condition. A human soul has developed, as we have seen in the study of its evolution, certain qualities and potencies which are as incapable of functioning in an animal body as the tissues of a giant oak are incapable of being mechanically recompressed within the limits of the original acorn out of which it grew.

A correct conception of Reincarnation recognizes that the body, as such, has no part in the soul's return to earth; that the connection of the body with the soul is, primarily, to furnish sense organs to relate the latter to a state so far beneath its own spiritual nature as to be reached only by this means; and, secondarily, in the matter of which the body, or bundle of sense organs, is constructed reside certain "qualities" the nature of which it is essential to the intellectual progress of the soul that it learn. For it is only by experiencing its "opposite" that true knowledge of any "quality" in nature, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, can be obtained. Matter upon the fourth plane of any world is said to be "kamic," or full of "rajas" or desire. Hence, anger, passion, malice, envy, ambition, and a host of similar " qualities" of matter, are brought directly to the cognizance of the soul by means of its incarnating in a body full of them. Out of the experience of these, so undergone, it acquires a knowledge of the true nature of their opposites; and evolves a wisdom it could never gather but for this association with a body.

This will be more fully explained in the chapter upon the Reincarnating Ego.

To Western minds, Reincarnation is both unfamiliar and distasteful. The unfamiliarity is due, perhaps, to the materialistic tendencies of its great thinkers, especially in the domain of science. Most scientists have been, and are, unwilling to admit the existence of a soul in man, to say nothing of its reincarnating.

That the idea should be distasteful to the unphilosophic mind, especially if trained to base all concepts, whether human or divine, upon personality and separateness, is not surprising. The superstructure of modern civilization is erected upon a foundation of individualism, and this in its lowest and most material sense. To succeed in life is its one object, and by success is understood the acquirement of wealth or fame. The view which involves a succession of lives in its perspective is necessarily lost sight of with horizons rigidly defined by matter. "When we are dead it is for a long time," a remark by a French cynic, fairly presents the conception of life from the modern materialistic and utilitarian standpoint. That he who does not make the most of it is missing opportunities which will never again offer, is generally accepted. From this it necessarily follows that strong personalities should evolve as the soul returns, life after life, with its longing for riches, fame, or power strengthened and confirmed by successive partial realizations.

Therefore, when Western people are told that death ends the career of Mr. Smith, who has amassed millions, or of Mr. Brown, who has become a great general, and that all that really survives in any life are certain higher, spiritual thoughts and aspirations which have become foreign to the very motive of our Western civilization, they are naturally repulsed. The Christian heaven, with its guarantee of the eternal persistence of the entire Mr. Smith, minus his body but plus a pair of wings, seems much more desirable.

But that Reincarnation should be unsatisfactory to the philosophic mind is unaccountable. For materialistic philosophy deliberately parts with life at the death of the body; and in view of the utter blank beyond the grave - the terrible, awful conception of ceasing to be - it would seem reasonable that it should seize eagerly upon any tenable hypothesis which promises an extension of being. Yet, of all classes, materialists are the most eager to prove that when the curtain falls at death the play is over, except to new audiences.

The proofs of the Reincarnation of the soul follow, logically, as a corollary to the evidence of its existence as an entity independent of the body; for a soul shown to possess powers superior to its tenement must have brought such faculties and powers with it, and will necessarily take them when it departs. The only remaining evidence required, then, is to connect the source of this superiority with Reincarnation in successive bodies, such as, or similar to, those we now possess. This evidence may be conveniently studied under its logical, or philosophical, and scientific aspects.

Taking up, primarily, then, the logical and philosophic portion of our inquiry, it may be said that there are three hypotheses concerning the origin and destiny of the soul, under which almost every possible form of belief may be classified. The first, and that which is held by a very large majority of the human race, is Reincarnation, or the repeated descent of the soul into material bodies. The second is the one-birth theory, which supposes the creation of a new soul at each birth, and having its chief representative in modern - not ancient - Christianity. It also includes most of the believers in Spiritualism. The third looks upon the soul as the product of the molecular and chemical activities going on within the body, and holds that the cessation of these activities necessitates its destruction. This is the theory of modern materialism. Now, if we apply the crucial test of an hypothesis - that of accounting for all the phenomena included within its own proper territory - we shall be at once in a position to judge of the truth or falsity of each of these three concerning the soul.