bject copiously treated,
and all the materials furnished, in the "Myvyrian Archaology of
Wales," a work in two huge volumes, published at London at the
beginning of the present century. After the introduction and
triumph of Christianity in Britain, for several centuries the two
systems of thought and ritual mutually influenced each other,
corrupting and corrupted.4 A striking example in point is this.
The notion of a punitive and remedial transmigration belonged to
Druidism. Now, Taliesin, a famous Welsh bard of the sixth century,
locates this purifying metempsychosis in the Hell of Christianity,
whence the soul gradually rises again to felicity, the way for it
having been opened by Christ! Cautiously eliminating the Christian
admixtures, the following outline, which we epitomize from the
pioneer5 of modern scholars to the Welsh Bardic literature,
affords a pretty clear knowledge of that portion of the Druidic
theology relating to the future life.

There are, says one of the Bardic triads, three circles of
existence. First, the Circle of Infinity, where of living or dead
there is nothing but God, and which none but God can traverse.
Secondly, the Circle of Metempsychosis, where all things that live
are derived from death. This circle has been traversed by man.
Thirdly, the Circle of Felicity, where all things spring from
life. This circle man shall hereafter traverse. All animated
beings originate in the lowest point of existence, and, by regular
gradations through an ascending series of transmigrations, rise to
the highest state of perfection possible for finite creatures.
Fate reigns in all the states below that of humanity, and they are
all necessarily evil. In the states above humanity, on the
contrary, unmixed good so prevails that all are necessarily good.
But in the middle state of humanity, good and evil are so balanced
that liberty results; and free will and consequent responsibility
are born. Beings who in their ascent have arrived at the state of
man, if, by purity, humility, love, and righteousness, they keep
the laws of the Creator, will, after death, rise into more
glorious spheres, and will continue to rise still higher, until
they reach the final destination of complete and endless
happiness. But if, while in the state of humanity, one perverts
his reason and will, and attaches himself to evil, he will, on
dying, fall into such a state of animal existence as corresponds
with the baseness of his soul.