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The Final PhiIOSOphy of the Veda 257
over which they stumble. In brief, the nearer or remoter analogies of human life which pervade, or seem to pervade all objects in nature present them- selves to early man as guarantees or suggestions of universal animation, of souls present in every shapen thing.
And now the passage of these souls from one kind of receptacle to another, from man to man, from man to animal, plant, or stock, or stone, follows inevitably. The records of primitive beliefs are full of it. I will merely remind you of the belief in wer- wolves as one instance of this kind. In the final outcome of all these notions some peeples, eager to account for the destiny of man after death, have assumed a chain of variegated existences. And with this goes very generally some notion of evolution forward or backward. The character of the creature in a. certain given existence controls the degree of the next existence. This last bit of logic has flowered out in India as the important doctrine of karma or “ deed.”‘
As far as India is concerned one thing is certain: real metempsychosis does not enter into the higher thought of India, or, at least, is not stated unmis- takably until we come to the Upanishads. When,
however, this belief has finally taken shape we find in
1 See below p. 259. 3'7
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