I present these questions and doubts, not—as I have said—for the purpose of discrediting the possibility of Reincarnation, but by way of showing how complex and difficult the problem is, and how much _some_ exact thought and definition is needed in dealing with it. At the same time, in pleading for exact thought I would also urge that in avoiding the whirlpools of sentimentalism we should be careful not to fall upon the rocks of a dry and barren formalism. Systems of hard and fast doctrines on these subjects—even though issued with all the authority of ancient tradition, and enunciated in a long-dead jargon—are the most unfruitful and uninspiring of things. They seem to contain no germ of vitality and are liable to paralyze the mind that feeds upon them. Besides the drawback—as I have pointed out before—that all such systems are inevitably false. Nature does not, in any department, work upon a cut-and-dried system; and while at the outset of an investigation we often seem to discern something of that kind, further study invariably discloses an astounding variety of order and method. It may be well therefore to be prepared to find a general principle of Reincarnation in operation in the world, but worked out, in actual fact, in a great variety of ways. Certainly there comes into our minds, at a certain grade of their development, a deep persuasion of the truth, in _some_ sense, of reincarnation—that “the Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, hath had elsewhere its setting.” It blossoms, this persuasion, in a curious way, in the very depths of the mind; and in moments of inner illumination, or deep feeling, is discerned in a way that seems to leave no room for doubt. At the same time, it not only has this intuitive sanction, but it commends itself also to the intellect, because at a certain stage we perceive very clearly both how vast is the whole curve of progress which the soul has to cover from its first birth to its final liberation, and how tiny is the arc represented by a single lifetime—the two thoughts almost compelling us to believe in a succession of lives as the only explanation or solution. We are compelled towards a practical belief in Reincarnation, and yet (as above) we have to confess that our conception of what it really is, or what we mean by it, is only vague. This, however, is no more than what happens in a hundred other cases. The young bird starts building a nest for the first time, driven by some strange instinct to do so, and yet it can only have a very dim notion of the meaning and uses the nest will subserve when finished. And _we_ found our lives on deep intuitions—of social solidarity, of personal responsibility, of free will, and so forth—and yet it is only later and by degrees that we learn what these things actually mean.