Of course I am not meaning, by these remarks, to say that reincarnation is in itself impossible or absurd; that would be prejudging the question. All I mean at present is that if we are going to study this subject, or theorize upon it, it is really necessary to define in some degree the terms which we use. I do not say that you, the reader, might not be reincarnated, but I think it is clear that if you were, we should have a good deal of trouble in following and finding you! It is clear that the _you_, so reappearing, would not be your well-known local and external self, but some deep nucleus, difficult perhaps for your best friend to recognize, and possibly even unknown or unrecognized by yourself at present. And similarly of some friend that you love for a thousand little tricks and ways. We all have such friends, and at times cherish a sentimental romance of their being restored to us in some future æon habited in their old guise and with their well-worn frocks and coats. But surely it is no good playing at hide-and-seek like that. The common difficulties about the conventional heaven—the difficulty about meeting your old friend who used to be so good at after-dinner stories, about meeting him with a harp in his hand and sitting on a damp cloud—is no whit the less a difficulty whatever future world may be the _rendezvous_. He would be changed (externally) and we should be changed, and it might well happen that if we did seem to recall any former intimacy we should both feel like strangers, and be as shy and tentative in our approaches to each other as school-children. What do we mean by the letter “I”? and what do we mean by the word Reincarnation? These two questions wait for a reply.