dvantages claimed by the advocates of Reincarnation which are worthy of
the careful consideration of students of the problem of the soul. We
shall give to each of these principal points a brief consideration in
this chapter, that you may acquaint yourself with the several points of
the argument.

It is argued that the principle of analogy renders it more reasonable to
believe that the present life of the soul is but one link in a great
chain of existences, which chain stretches far back into the past on one
side, and far out into the future on the other, than to suppose that it
has been specially created for this petty term of a few years of earth
life, and then projected for weal or woe into an eternity of spiritual
existence. It is argued that the principle of Evolution on the Physical
Plane points to an analogy of Evolution of the Spiritual Plane. It is
reasoned that just as birth on the next plane of life follows death on
the present one, so analogy would indicate that a death on past planes
preceded birth on this, and so on. It is argued that every form of life
that we know of has arisen from lower forms, which in turn arose from
still lower forms, and so on; and that following the same analogy the
soul has risen from lower to higher, and will mount on to still higher
forms and planes. It is argued that "special creation" is unknown in the
universe, and that it is far more reasonable to apply the principle of
evolution to the soul than to consider it as an exception and violation
of the universal law.

It is also claimed by some thinkers that the idea of future-existence
presupposes past-existence, for everything that is "begun" must "end"
some time, and therefore if we are to suppose that the soul is to
continue its existence in the future, we must think of it as having an
existence in the past--being eternal at both ends of the earth-life, as
it were. Opponents of the idea of immortality are fond of arguing that
there was no more reason for supposing that a soul would continue to
exist after the death of the body, than there was for supposing that it
had existed previously. A well-known man once was asked the question:
"What becomes of a man's soul after death?" when he evaded the question
by answering: "It goes back to where it came from." And to many this
idea has seemed sufficient to make them doubt the idea of immortality.
The ancient Greek philosophers felt it logically necessary for them to
assert the eter