Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick.

  • James Bonwick
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    92/474 (page 78)
    RE-INCARNATION; OR, TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. BSURD as this notion may appear to a modern Euro- pean, there can be no doubt that it ranks among the very oldest entertained by man. It would seem, by the approximate universality of this opinion throughout the world, that it was not so out of joint with reason as some have supposed, or that it supplied a felt want. It is, after all, but a form of purgatory, or the intermediate state. Re-incarnation is the putting on of flesh again ; in other words, born again in another material form. The same in- dividual assumes various bodies, after a greater or lesser waiting for a new abode. Thus, according to some authors, Adam was reproduced in Noah, Elijah, and other Bible celebrities. Such writers note the silence of the Saviour, when asked by the disciples whether or no John the Baptist were Elijah come again ; and, whether the blind man were born blind because of his own sin ^ Many Christian ministers, at different times, have seen no diffi- culty in accepting re-incarnation as agreeable to Scripture truth. Poets might be excused uttering any sentiment; yet Southey once said, “ The system of progressive existences seems, of all others, the most benevolent.” But it is dis- tinctly founded upon the idea that this is not our only life on earth, accepting that as the sphere of probation. An infant may take one breath of outer air, and die ; a child may live only through the few years of supposed non-