before the lines between science, religion, and poetry
had been sharply drawn, recommending itself alike by its
simplicity and by its adaptedness to gratify curiosity and
speculation in the formation of a thousand quaint and engaging
hypotheses, would seem plausible, would be highly attractive,
would very easily secure acceptance as a true doctrine.

Secondly, the strange resemblances and sympathies between men and
animals would often powerfully suggest to a contemplative observer
the doctrine of the transmigration of souls.9 Looking over those
volumes of singular caricatures wherein certain artists have made
all the most distinctive physiognomies of men and beasts mutually
to approximate and mingle, one cannot avoid the fancy that the
bodies of brutes are the masks of degraded men. Notice an ox
reclining in the shade of a tree, patiently ruminating as if sadly
conscious of many things and helplessly bound in some obscure
penance, a mute world of dreamy experiences, a sombre mystery: how
easy to imagine him an enchanted and transformed man! See how
certain animals are allied in their prominent traits to humanity,
the stricken deer, weeping big, piteous tears, the fawning
affection and noble fidelity of the dog, the architectural skill
of the beaver, the wise aspect of the owl, the sweet plaint of the
nightingale, the shrieks of some fierce beasts, and the howls of
others startlingly like the cries of children and the moans of
pain, the sparkling orbs and tortuous stealthiness of the snake;
and the hints at metempsychosis are obvious. Standing face to face
with a tiger, an anaconda, a wild cat, a monkey, a gazelle, a
parrot, a dove, we alternately shudder with horror and yearn with
sympathy, now expecting to see the latent devils throw off their
disguise and start forth in their own demoniac figures, now
waiting for the metamorphosing charm to be reversed, and for the
enchanted children of humanity to stand erect, restored to their
former shapes. Pervading all the grades and forms of distinct
animal life there seems to be a rudimentary unity. The fundamental
elements and primordial germs of consciousness, intellect, will,
passion, appear the same, and the different classes of being seem
capable of passing into one another by improvement or deterioration.

Spontaneously, then, might a primitive observer, unhampered by
prejudices, think that the soul of man on leaving its present body
would find or construct another acc