The doctrine of _Metempsychosis_ has been abundantly ridiculed by men of science and rejected by theologians, yet if it had been properly understood in its application to the indestructibility of matter and the immortality of spirit, it would have been perceived that it is a sublime conception. Should we not first regard the subject from {9} the standpoint of the ancients before venturing to disparage its teachers? The solution of the great problem of _eternity_ belongs neither to religious superstition nor to gross materialism. The harmony and mathematical equiformity of the double evolution—spiritual and physical—are elucidated only in the universal numerals of Pythagoras, who built his system entirely upon the so-called “metrical speech” of the Hindu _Vedas_. It is but lately that one of the most zealous Sanskrit scholars, Martin Haug, undertook the translation of the _Aitareya Brahmana_ of the _Rig-Veda_. It had been till that time entirely unknown; these explanations indicate beyond dispute the identity of the Pythagorean and Brahmanical systems. In both, the esoteric significance is derived from the number: in the former, from the mystic relation of every number to everything intelligible to the human mind; in the latter, from the number of syllables of which each verse in the _Mantras_ consists. Plato, the ardent disciple of Pythagoras, realized it so fully as to maintain that the Dodecahedron was the geometrical figure employed by the _Demiurgus_ in constructing the universe. Some of these figures had a peculiarly solemn significance. For instance _four_, of which the Dodecahedron is the trine, was held sacred by the Pythagoreans. It is the perfect square, and neither of the bounding lines exceeds the other in length, by a single point. It is the emblem of moral justice and divine equity geometrically expressed. All the powers and great symphonies of physical and spiritual nature lie inscribed within the perfect square; and the ineffable name of Him, which name otherwise, would remain unutterable, was replaced by this sacred number ~4~ the most binding and solemn oath with the ancient mystics—the _Tetractys_.