and insensible to all things, in the midst of the astounding mysteries, the fabulous treasures and visions which it would have eternally to pass through without ever seeing or hearing anything; and that surely would be the worst death and the worst destiny that could befall us. We are, therefore, driven on all sides towards the theories of an universal consciousness or of a modified consciousness, both of which we shall examine presently. CHAPTER IV THE THEOSOPHICAL HYPOTHESIS 1 But, before broaching those questions, it were perhaps well to study two interesting solutions of the problem of personal survival, solutions which, although not new, have at least been lately renewed. I refer to the neotheosophical and neospiritualistic theories, which are, I think, the only ones that can be seriously discussed. The first is almost as old as man himself; but a popular movement, of some magnitude in certain countries, has rejuvenated the doctrine of reincarnation, or the transmigration of souls, and brought it once more into prominence. It cannot be denied that of all the religious theories, reincarnation is the most plausible and the least repellent to our reason. Nor must we overlook that it has on its side the authority of the most ancient and widespread religions, those which have incontestably furnished humanity with the greatest aggregate of wisdom and which we have not yet exhausted of their truths and mysteries. In reality, the whole of Asia, whence we derive almost everything which we know, has always believed and still believes in the transmigration of souls. As Mrs. Annie Besant, the remarkable apostle of the new theosophy, very rightly says: “There is no philosophical doctrine which has behind it so magnificent an intellectual ancestry as the doctrine of reincarnation; none for which there is such a weight of the opinion of the wisest of men; none, as Max Müller declared, on which the greatest philosophers of humanity have been so thoroughly in accord.”