" says Varuna to his son, "from which all created
beings proceed, in which, having proceeded, they live, toward which they
tend, and in which they are at last absorbed, that Spirit study to know:
it is the Great One." Since a multitude of moral considerations assure
us of the existence of evil in the world, and since it is not possible
for so holy a thing as the spirit of man to be exposed thereto without
undergoing contamination, it comes to pass that an unfitness may be
contracted for its rejoining the infinitely pure essence from which it
was derived, and hence arises the necessity of its undergoing a course
of purification. And as the life of man is often too short to afford the
needful opportunity, and, indeed, its events, in many instances, tend
rather to increase than to diminish the stain, the season of
purification is prolonged by perpetuating a connexion of the sinful
spirit with other forms, and permitting its transmigration to other
bodies, in which, by the penance it undergoes, and the trials to which
it is exposed, its iniquity may be washed away, and satisfactory
preparation be made for its absorption in the ocean of infinite purity.
Considering thus the relation in which all animated nature stands to us,
being a mechanism for purification, this doctrine of the transmigration
of the soul leads necessarily to other doctrines of a moral kind, more
particularly to a profound respect for life under every form, human,
animal, or insect.

[Sidenote: The religious use of animal life.]

The forms of animal life, therefore, furnish a grand penitential
mechanism for man. Such, on these principles, is their teleological
explanation. In European philosophy there is no equivalent or
counterpart of this view. With us animal life is purposeless. Hereafter
we shall find that in Egypt, though the doctrine of transmigration must
of course have tended to similar suggestions, it became disturbed in its
practical application by the base fetich notions of the indigenous
African population. Hence the doctrine was cherished by the learned for
philosophical reasons, and by the multitude for the harmony of its
results with their idolatries.

[Sidenote: Of proper modes of devotion.]

From such theological dogmas a religious system obviously springs having
for its object to hasten the purification of the soul, that it may the
more quickly enter on absolute happiness, which is only to be found in
absolute rest. The methods of sho