126 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



it is SO closely united with the body throughout the veins, flesh, sinews, 

 and bones, that the very teeth have a share of sense; as their aching 

 proves and the sharp twinge of cold water and the crunching of a rough 

 stone, when it has got into them out of bread. Wherefore, again and 

 again I say, we must beheve souls to be neither without a birth nor 

 exempted from the law of death; for we must not believe that they 

 could have been so completely united with our bodies, if they found 

 their way into them from without, nor, since they are so closely inwoven 

 with them, does it appear that they can get out unharmed, and unloose 

 themselves unscathed from all the sinews and bones and joints. But 

 if haply you beheve that the soul finds its way in from without and 

 is wont to ooze through all our limbs, so much the more it will perish 

 thus blended with the body; for what oozes through another is dis- 

 solved, and therefore dies. As food distributed through all the cavities 

 of the body, while it is transmitted into the limbs and the whole frame, 

 is destroyed and furnishes out of itself the matter of another nature, 

 thus the soul and mind though they pass entire into a fresh body, yet in 

 oozing through it are dissolved, whilst there are transmitted, so to say, 

 into the frame through all the cavities those particles of which this 

 nature of mind is formed, which now is sovereign of our body, being 

 born out of that soul which then perished when dispersed through 

 the frame. Wherefore the nature of the soul is seen to be neither with- 

 out a birthday nor exempt from death."' 



"Again for souls to stand by at the unions of Venus and the birth- 

 throes of beasts seems to be passing absurd, for them the immortals 

 to wait for mortal limbs in number numberless and struggle with one 

 another in forward rivalry, which shall first and by preference have 

 entrance in ; unless haply bargains are struck among the souls on these 

 terms, that whichever in its flight shall first come up, shall first have right 

 of entry, and that they shall make no trial of each other's strength."^ 



All similar views are summarily dismissed by Haeckel as merely 

 " psychogenetic myths worthy only of primitive races." His state- 

 ment runs as follows : 



'^The myth 0} the inplanting of the soul. — The soul existed inde- 

 pendently in another place, a psychogenetic store, as it were (in a 



' Pe R. N., Ill, 670-712. ' De R. iV., III. 775-783. 



