accordance with this, this doctrine is more correctly denoted by the word palingenesis than by metempsychosis. These constant new births, then, constitute the succession of the life‐dreams of a will which in itself is indestructible, until, instructed and improved by so much and such various successive knowledge in a constantly new form, it abolishes or abrogates itself. The true and, so to speak, esoteric doctrine of Buddhism, as we have come to know it through the latest investigations, also agrees with this view, for it teaches not metempsychosis, but a peculiar palingenesis, resting upon a moral basis which it works out and explains with great profundity. This may be seen from the exposition of the subject, well worth reading and pondering, which is given in Spence Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism,” pp. 394‐96 (with which compare pp. 429, 440, and 445 of the same book), the confirmation of which is to be found in Taylor’s “_Prabodh Chandro Daya_,” London, 1812, p. 35; also in Sangermano’s “Burmese Empire,” p. 6, and in the “Asiatic Researches,” vol. vi. p. 179, and vol. ix. p. 256. The very useful German compendium of Buddhism by Köppen is also right upon this point. Yet for the great mass of Buddhists this doctrine is too subtle; therefore to them simple metempsychosis is preached as a comprehensible substitute. Besides, it must not be neglected that even empirical grounds support a palingenesis of this kind. As a matter of fact there does exist a connection between the birth of the newly appearing beings and the death of those that are worn out. It shows itself in the great fruitfulness of the human race which appears as a consequence of devastating diseases. When in the fourteenth century the black death had for the most part depopulated the old world, a quite abnormal fruitfulness appeared among the human race, and twin‐births were very frequent. The circumstance was also very remarkable that none of the children born at this time obtained their full number of teeth; thus nature, exerting itself to the utmost, was niggardly in details. This is related by F. Schnurrer, “_Chronik der Seuchen_,” 1825. Casper also, “_Ueber die wahrscheinliche Lebensdauer des Menschen_,” 1835, confirms the principle that the number of births in a given population has the most decided influence upon the length of life and mortality in it, as this always keeps pace with the mortality: so that always and everywhere the deaths and the births increase and decrease in like proportion; which he places beyond doubt by an accumulation of evidence collected from many lands and their various provinces. And yet it is impossible that there can be a _physical_ causal connection between my early death and the fruitfulness of a marriage with which I have nothing to do, or conversely. Thus here the metaphysical appears undeniably and in a stupendous manner as the immediate ground of explanation of the physical. Every new‐born being indeed comes fresh and blithe into the new