evious lives
certain predispositions and these after being developed and modified in
the course of that child's life are transmitted to its next existence.

As to the method of transmission there are various theories, for in
India the belief in reincarnation is not so much a dogma as an instinct
innate in all and only occasionally justified by philosophers, not
because it was disputed but because they felt bound to show that their
own systems were compatible with it. One explanation is that given by
the Vedanta philosophy, according to which the soul is accompanied in
its migrations by the _Sukshmasarira_ or subtle body, a counterpart of
the mortal body but transparent and invisible, though material. The
truth of this theory, as of all theories respecting ghosts and spirits,
seems to me a matter for experimental verification, but the Vedanta
recognizes that in our experience a personal individual existence is
always connected with a physical substratum.

The Buddhist theory of rebirth is somewhat different, for Buddhism even
in its later divagations rarely ceased to profess belief in Gotama's
doctrine that there is no such thing as a soul--by which is meant no such
thing as a permanent unchanging self or _atman_. Buddhists are concerned
to show that transmigration is not inconsistent with this denial of the
_atman_. The ordinary, and indeed inevitable translation of this word by
soul leads to misunderstanding for we naturally interpret it as meaning
that there is nothing which survives the death of the body and _a
fortiori_ nothing to transmigrate. But in reality the denial of the
_atman_ applies to the living rather than to the dead. It means that in
a living man there is no permanent, unchangeable entity but only a
series of mental states, and since human beings, although they have no
_atman_, certainly exist in this present life, the absence of the
_atman_ is not in itself an obstacle to belief in a similar life after
death or before birth. Infancy, youth, age and the state immediately
after death may form a series of which the last two are as intimately
connected as any other two. The Buddhist teaching is that when men die
in whom the desire for another life exists--as it exists in all except
saints--then desire, which is really the creator of the world, fashions
another being, conditioned by the character and merits of the being
which has just come to an end. Life is like fire: its very nature is to
burn its fuel.