As we proceed we will find other doctrines of our author resembling those of writers and thinkers far removed from him in time and space. The illustrations given and referred to above will suffice to show that, in speculations about Nature and the great mystery of existence, we are little, if anything, superior to “the ancients.” The course of speculative philosophy seems to be circular—the same truths and errors appearing again and again, so that as Coleridge has said, “For many, very many centuries it has been difficult to advance a new truth, or even a new error, in the philosophy of the intellect or morals,”[43] or, he might have added, of theoretical physics. Is it true, after all, that the spirit of the long-deceased philosopher returns from the Elysian fields, forgetting by its Lethean draught all the truths and realities of the eternal, ever-the-same world, to inform again a human body? We know that Malebranche’s character was like that of Plato. Schelling, even in external appearance, resembled Socrates; Hegel is called the modern Proclus; and the soul of Lao-tzŭ may have transmigrated into Emerson. This last has been chained to “a weight of nerves,” and located in circumstances altogether unlike those of its former earthly existence, a fact which would account for many points of unlikeness. The informing spirit, however, has known no change in “its own deep self:” “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home.” [1] See Ch. 40. [2] See Preface to Tao-tê-ching-chie 道德經解. [3] See note in the Tʽai-chi-tʽu-shuo (太極圖說). Hsing-li-ta-chʽuan. Vol. I. [4] See Ch. 28, 46. [5] Yuan-chien, &c., p. 318. [6] Ch. 40. Compare with this Aristotle’s statement, “Nature spoken of as generation is the path to Nature.” See Essay V. in Grant’s Aristotle’s Ethics, vol. 1. [7] See his 全書, Ch. 85. [8] Ch. 2. [9] Ch. 25, see Pauthier, Chine Moderne, p. 359. [10] See Chs. 21, 25, compare Emerson Miscellanies, p. 32. [11] Ch. 51. [12] Chs. 6, 52. [13] Ch. 34. [14] See Chs. 37, 41, 43. [15] See Chs. 32, 39. [16] Ch. 42. [17] See Wu-chʽêng’s note to the passage. [18] See the note on this passage in the Tao-tê-ching-chie; compare also the peculiar interpretation given by Ta-chün. [19] Mémoire, &c., p. 36. [20] See Chs. 16, 39. [21] See Chs. 7, 5, 16, 25. [22] See Ch. 5; Julien, however, translates the passage, “L’être qui est entre le ciel et la terre resemble à un souffict de forge,” &c. [23] Ch. 39. [24] Ch. 23. [25] Ch. 5. [26] Ch. 51; but see the different interpretation given by Julien. [27] Ch. 12. [28] See Chs. 2, 11, 29, 36. Compare Emerson’s Essay on Compensation—_Essays_, vol. i.