Good—now observe the possibilities in that kind of “reasoning”: The fact that a pig can conceive the idea of a turnip implies that the pig is climbing a tree bearing turnips—which is strong evidence that the pig is a fish. In each of the gentleman’s _dicta_ the first part no more “implies” what follows than it implies a weeping baboon on a crimson iceberg. Of the same unearthly sort are two more of this innocent’s deliveries: “The fact that we do not remember our former lives is no proof of our never having existed. We would remember them if we had accomplished something worth remembering.” Note the unconscious _petitio principii_ involved in the first “our” and the pure assumption in the second sentence. “We all know that character, traits and habits are as distinct in young children as in adults. This shows that if we had no pre-existence all men would have the same character and traits and appearance, and would be turned out on the same model.” As apples are, for example, or pebbles, or cats. Unfortunately we do not “all” know, nor does any of us know, nor is it true, that young children have as much individuality as adults. And if we did all know it, or if any of us knew it, or if it were true, neither the fact itself nor the knowledge of it would “show” any such thing as that the differences could be produced by pre-existence only. They might be due to the will of God, or to some agency that no man has ever thought about, or has thought about but has not known to have that effect. In point of fact, we know that such peculiarities of character and disposition as a young child has are not brought from a former life across a gulf whose brinks are death and birth, but are endowments from the lives of others here. They are not individual, but hereditary—not vestigial, but ancestral. The kind of “argument” here illustrated by horrible example is not peculiar to religious nor doctrinal themes, but characterizes men’s reasoning in general. It is the rule everywhere—in oral discussion, in books, in newspapers. Assertions that mean nothing, testimony that is not evidence, facts having no relation to the matter in hand, and (everywhere and always) the sickening _non sequitur_: the conclusion that has nothing to do with the premises. I know not if there is another life, but if there is I do hope that to obtain it all will have to pass a rigid examination in logic and the art of not being a fool. II