"What is absurd and revolting in this dogma is, in the main, as I said, the simple outcome of Jewish theism with its 'creation out of nothing,' and the really foolish and paradoxical denial of the doctrine of metempsychosis which is involved in that idea, a doctrine which is natural to a certain extent, self-evident, and, with the exception of the Jews, accepted by nearly the whole human race at all times.... Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life." In _The World as Will and Idea_, he also says: "What sleep is for the individual, death is for the Will (character). "It flings off memory and individuality, and this is Lethe; and through this sleep of death it reappears refreshed and fitted out with another intellect, as a new being." In _Parerga and Paralipomena_, vol. 2, chap. 10, he adds: "Did we clearly understand the real nature of our inmost being, we should see how absurd it is to desire that individuality should exist eternally. This wish implies that we confuse real Being with one of its innumerable manifestations. The individuality disappears at death, but we lose nothing thereby, for it is only the manifestation of quite a different Being--a Being ignorant of time, and, consequently, knowing neither life nor death. The loss of intellect is the Lethe, but for which the Will would remember the various manifestations it has caused. When we die, we throw off our individuality, like a worn-out garment, and rejoice because we are about to receive a new and a better one." Edgar Allen Poe, speaking of the dim memories of bygone lives, says: "We walk about, amid the destinies of our world-existence, encompassed by divine but ever present Memories of a Destiny more vast--very distant in the bygone time and infinitely awful. "We live out a Youth peculiarly haunted by such dreams, yet never mistaking them for dreams. As Memories we _know_ them. During our _Youth_ the distinction is too clear to deceive us even for a moment. "But now comes the period at which a conventional World-Reason awakens us from the truth of our dream ... a mis-shapen day or a misfortune that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life...." (_Eureka._) Georges Sand, in _Consuelo_, sets forth the logic of Reincarnation; and G. Flammarion expounds this doctrine in most of his works: _Uranie_; _Les Mondes Imaginaires et les Mondes Reels_; _La Pluralite des Mondes Habites_, etc. Professor William Knight wrote in the _Fortnightly Review_ for September, 1878: