nists, though obliged to keep the esoteric teaching to
themselves, were permitted to throw light on certain points.

Timaeus of Locris, one of the masters of Plotinus, hinted at the
existence of a more profound doctrine in the following words:

"Just as by the threat of punishment imperfectly evolved souls are
prevented from sinning, so the transmigration of the souls of
murderers into the bodies of wild beasts, and of the souls of unchaste
persons into the bodies of swine, was taught; and the previous
punishment of these souls in the infernal regions was entrusted to
Nemesis (Karma)."

Certain modern commentators--though imperfectly instructed in the
teachings of palingenesis--have also seen that the masters of
philosophy in the past could not possibly have made a mistake which
less far-seeing minds would have avoided. Dacier[186] says:

"A sure token that Pythagoras never held the opinion attributed to him
lies in the fact that there is not the faintest trace of it in the
symbols we have left of him, or in the precepts his disciple, Lysis,
collected together and handed down as a summary of the master's
teachings."

Jules Simon also speaks as follows regarding Plotinus:[187]

"Here we have the doctrine of metempsychosis which Plotinus found all
around, among the Egyptians, the Jews, the Neoplatonists, his
predecessors, and finally in Plato himself. Does Plato take
metempsychosis seriously, as one would be tempted to believe after
reading the _Republic_? Did he mention it only to ridicule the
superstitions of his contemporaries, as seems evident from the
_Timaeus_?[188]

"However important Plato may have considered metempsychosis, it can
scarcely be imagined that Plotinus took it seriously.... Even granting
that this doctrine were literally accepted by Plotinus, the question
would still have to be asked whether the human soul really does dwell
in the body of an animal, or simply enters a human body, which, in its
passions and vices, recalls the nature of that particular animal."

The reasons mentioned by Dacier and Jules Simon form only a trifling
portion of the whole explanation, but if they are added to the
constant protests raised by the disciples of the Masters of the
Pythagorean and Platonic traditions, against those who said that their
instructors taught metempsychosis in all its crudeness, they assume
considerable importance, and show that, although the restrictions of
esoteric teaching travestied by th