But, with man’s conception of spiritual things, already existing[704] (however he came by it), and with the existing belief that the blood is the life, or the soul, or the nature, of an organism, the idea of the transmigration of souls as identical with the transference of blood, is a very natural corollary. The blood being the life, or the soul, of man and of beast, if the blood of man passes into the body of a beast, or the blood of a beast passes into the body of a man, why should it not be inferred that the soul of the man, or of the beast, transmigrated accordingly? If the Hindoo, believing that the blood of man is the soul of man, sees the blood of a man drunk up by a tiger, is it strange that he should look upon that tiger as having within him the soul of the Hindoo, which has been thus appropriated? If the South African supposes that, by his drinking the blood or eating the heart of a lion, he appropriates the lion’s courage,[705] is it to be wondered at that when he sees a lion licking the blood and eating the heart of a South African, he should infer that the lion is thereby the possessor of whatever was distinctive in the Zulu, or the Hottentot, personality? Indeed, as has been already stated, in the body of this work, there is still a question among physiologists, how far the transference of _blood_ from one organism to another carries a transmigration of _soul_ (of the _psyche_, not of the _pneuma_).[706] However this may be, the popular belief in such transmigration is fully accounted for, by the recognized conviction that the blood is the soul. In this view of the case, there is an added force in the Mosaic prohibition--repeated as it is in the Apostolic Encyclical--of the eating, or drinking, of the blood of the lower animals; with the possibility of thereby being made a partaker of the lower animal nature. And what fresh potency is given to Elijah’s prophecy against Ahab and Jezebel, by this conception of the transference of nature by the transference of blood! “Thus saith the Lord [to Ahab] Hast thou killed [Hast thou taken the blood of Naboth?], and also taken possession [of Naboth’s vineyard]?... Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.... And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the ramparts of Jezreel.” The blood, the life, the soul of royalty, shall become a portion of the very life of the prowling scavenger dogs of the royal city. And it came to pass accordingly, to both Ahab and Jezebel.[707] THE BLOOD-RITE IN BURMAH.