It will perhaps surprise many of our readers to learn the extensive prevalence of such a doctrine, wondering as they must how it is possible to attach certainty to an existence which passes through the body of various men and animals—something perhaps like a draught of Lethe being administered at the moment of passage. But the antients, being unable to rise to a higher conception of a bodily future, were compelled to admit either this doctrine or one yet more absurd, namely, that the _very same body_ which was laid in the tomb will once more be animated by the spirit which formerly possessed it. It does not therefore surprise us that the antients, with the exception probably of a portion of the inhabitants of Egypt, and some of the Jews, should have preferred the doctrine of transmigration; but we are exceedingly surprised that the alternative doctrine, of manifestly Egyptian parentage, should have come to be accepted by the modern nations of Europe under the garb of Christianity. We shall return again to this subject, but meanwhile let us observe that, when men first began to ask the How of a future state, the reply was something extremely vague and unsatisfying. No wonder, then, that a class of men who had not unlimited confidence in God, and who could not believe in either of the doctrines of a future state, should have lapsed into philosophical infidelity and denied altogether the possibility of a future state. 29. We have thus arrived at a stage of development in which we may imagine the next step to be one which will throw some light upon this question of How—that is, which will give, or at any rate profess to give, some information regarding the conditions of a future life. The intellect of man had attempted to obtain such knowledge for itself, but the result was a conspicuous failure; the sword was not sharp enough, nor the arm which wielded it powerful enough, to hew down the thick and seemingly impenetrable barrier which closes the avenue to the world of spirits. ‘We cannot go to them,’ was the unanimous wail of the antient philosophers; till some of the more hopeful of them suggested as an alternative that they might come to us. For clearly, if A and B are separated from each other by a barrier, and there yet remains good-will between them, two courses are possible, and only two, if they are to be made acquainted with each other. One or other must surmount the barrier. If A be so weak as to be unable to do so, and if at the same time it would be a matter of importance to him to become better acquainted with B, then B may be expected to surmount the barrier if it be surmountable, and exhibit himself to A.