III. REINCARNATION
Various forms of this doctrine are transmigration,
metempsychosis,
palingenesis, and rebirth. It does not
necessarily imply the eternity of
the soul since
Buddhism, which teaches reincarnation, denies it. The
belief that the soul of a dead individual reenters im-
mediately (or as in the Tibetan book of the dead, the
Bardo Tödol, after 49 days) that of a
newborn child
eliminates the difficulty of visualizing a totally disem-
bodied soul and the question of its
destiny after it leaves
the body. The doctrine of reincarnation seems to
have
originated in India, possibly in prehistoric times. Many
primitives in various parts of the world believe that
man possesses several
souls, one of which reincarnates
in a descendent of the deceased, a notion
which may
have been suggested by the sometimes striking resem-
blance between a child and his dead
relative. It is
interesting, however, that no traces of the belief in
reincarnation can be found among the ancient Egyp-
tians or the Assyro-Babylonians. There is also no hint
of it in
Homer, or Hesiod, and no mention of it in
the Old Testament. Among the Jews
we find it much
later, and the sect of the Pharisees which adopted it
had been obviously influenced by their Greek contem-
poraries. In Greece itself, the doctrine of
reincarnation
was first taught by Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C.
and is usually assumed to be of orphic origin. Some
scholars, however,
claim that the doctrine was
“invented” by Pherecydes
of Syros and base their
opinion on a passage in Cicero's Tusculan Disputations.
Others point out that to trace it to
Orphism of which
little is known is to beg the question of an even
earlier
source.
It is tempting to seek it in the influence of Indian
thought if it were not
for the difficulty of finding
concrete evidence for such a connection.
Moreover,
there is a basic difference between the Hindu version
of the
doctrine and that of Pythagoras. While the latter
considers successive
reincarnations as the opportunity
for the purification and perfection of
the soul, for the
Hindus, Brahmanists and Buddhists alike,
reincarnation
represents merely a continuous repetition of the
suffering and misery of earthly existence. It is tied in
with the doctrine
of cosmic eternal recurrence and the
periodic disappearance and
reappearance of humanity
during which the soul transmigrates without end. And
while, for
the Hindu, salvation consists in an escape
from the wheel of rebirths, in
the Greek version the
soul is ultimately united with God.
In the Western world, the doctrine of reincarnation
has never achieved
popularity. The Pythagorean
brotherhoods were secret societies, and
subsequently
only sectarian and heretical movements like the Jewish
Cabalists, the Christian Gnostics, and the Cathars
embraced it. It fared
somewhat better among philoso-
phers. Aside
from Pythagoras, one has to mention
Empedocles and, in particular, Plato
who gave a more
or less systematic account of the doctrine of the trans-
migration of the soul in several of
his dialogues (Gorgias
525C-526B; Phaedrus 248A-B; Phaedo 82A, 113E,
114A-B;
Republic X, 614C-625A; Theaetetus 117A;
Timaeus 91D, 92A-B). Plotinus incorporated this doc-
trine into his philosophical system. Soon
thereafter it
was completely displaced by the Christian doctrine of
resurrection. It reappears again in the Renaissance
among the Italian
Platonists of the fifteenth century,
in the Cambridge Neo-Platonists in the
seventeenth
century, and is sympathetically considered by Giordano
Bruno, and later on by Leibniz. Even the skeptical
Hume felt that if there
were immortality, “metem-
psychosis is the only system of this kind that philosophy
can
hearken to” (“Of the Immortality of the
Soul,”
op. cit.). In the twentieth century, McTaggart
argued
in its favor, and C. J. Ducasse considers it the most
plausible
hypothesis.
Apart from metaphysical considerations, what are
the most important
arguments for reincarnation? Here
again we have to distinguish between the
Hindu and
Western proponents of this doctrine. In the West it
is but
one of several answers to the question of man's
post-mortem destiny, and
unless it is accepted un-
critically, it
adds the burden of proving multiple incar-
nations of the soul to the already sufficiently taxing
task of
proving its immortality. In Hindu thought, for
which (with the exception of
a few materialist philoso-
phers) the
immortality of the soul is axiomatic, its
reincarnation is most often
equally so. And if one
should, nevertheless, want proofs, these are
usually
based on the soul's “obvious” immortality.
Thus the
leading contemporary philosopher (and ex-president)
of India,
S. Radhakrishnan, advances the following
argument: since souls are eternal,
and since their nor-
mal condition is to be
associated with a body which
is perishable, it is plausible to assume that
in order
for the soul to remain in its normal condition, it must
inhabit an unending succession of bodies.
But the Western mind is not impressed and prefers
empirical proofs. Among
these, one of the favorite
arguments is the undeniable fact that some children
exhibit certain instinctive capacities, and a few are
even
geniuses at a very early age. This is supposed
to prove that there must be
reincarnation, since other-
wise the
possession of such extraordinary gifts remains
totally uncomprehensible.
Another argument is the occurrence of the phenom-
enon known as déjà
vu. But the most popular and
supposedly clinching argument is
that some people
apparently remember their previous existences, some-
times without extraneous help, though
usually under
hypnosis.
The obvious counterarguments, as far as genius in
children and the déjà vu phenomena are concerned,
is that although they are difficult to explain, the re-
course to such an extreme as the preexistence and
reincarnation of the soul seems unjustified. And re-
garding people who claim to remember their previous
lives, not
only can the information elicited not be
reliably verified, but such people
are exceedingly few
and far between.
It remains to mention the reply of the adherents of
the reincarnation
doctrine to the last counterargument.
They contend that death is a
traumatic experience of
such a force that it seriously affects or
obliterates
memory. But this argument tacitly assumes the immor-
tality of the soul, since only in such
a case can one
speak of the consequences of the traumatic experience
of death. And while dying may well be traumatic for
many, on all available
evidence it appears to be the
last experience of a person.
Substitute Immortalities.
Some of those who bring
forth arguments against immortality of the
soul (or
resurrection of the body) propose other kinds of
“immortality,” thus giving this term a broader and
often misleading meaning. There is, first of all, what
may be called the
doctrine of impersonal immortality:
the spirit, or mind of man, is not
destroyed at death
but returns to and merges with the universal or
divine
Soul, or mind. This is the possible meaning of Aris-
totle's hint about the eternity of the
active intellect.
The main representatives of this view are
Averroës,
Bruno, Spinoza, and the German and English romantic
poets and philosophers of the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth
centuries. Of this kind of immortality, Ma-
dame
de Staël remarked somewhat sarcastically that
“if the
individual inner qualities we possess return to
the great Whole, this has a
frightening similarity to
death.”
Another kind of “immortality” which is intended to
console, as well as to justify death, is “biological”
immortality of our germ plasm (genes). The prospect
to live on in one's
children has, however, lost much
of its comforting power since the
realization that man-
kind itself will some day
disappear, and particularly
now that the atomic and hydrogen bombs have made
such an
outcome not infinitely remote but a very real
and even immediate
possibility. It might not neces-
sarily
affect Santayana's “ideal” immortality which is
reminiscent of Goethe's view that the “traces on one's
earthly
days cannot be erased in Aeons.” Nor would
it affect what is
known as “cosmological” immortality,
according to
which our energy-matter does not cease
to exist but is only transformed and
dispersed. But to
both of these “immortalities,”
Madame de Staël's criti-
cism equally
applies. Of course, many people would
be satisfied with mere
“social” or “historical” immor-
tality—to have left traces
of one's passage on earth
in the form of an artistic achievement,
scientific dis-
covery, or other remarkable
accomplishments. “How
can he be dead, who lives immortal in the
hearts of
men?” asks Longfellow in speaking of
Michelangelo.
This was the meaning of immortality for the great men
of
Ancient Rome. In modern times, this kind of
“immortality” was first suggested by M. J. de Con-
dorcet in his
Outline of
the Progress of the Human
Mind, and, with particular force, by
Ludwig
Feuerbach. The least ambitious immortality would be
to live on
for a short time in the memory of one's family
and friends. Very probably
this is the only kind of
“immortality” that the
overwhelming majority of peo-
ple will ever have.
But for many people, this is not
a completely satisfactory thought.
