METEMPSYCHOSIS

P/m. Epist.); and the farmer thus holding was also termed colonus partiarius. It now prevails extensively in the south and middle of France, throughout Italy, in parts of Spain, and, it is said, in the East. For a very valuable summary of the character and effects of this agricultural system, the reader may be referred to Mr. Jones's E ay on Wealth; and for a highly-coloured view of the state of the peasantry under it in some parts of Italy, to M. Sismondi^s Etwies sur V Economic Politique. METEMPSYCHOSIS.(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) A Greek word denoting the migrations of the soul through different succe ive bodies. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls has existed in the belief of various religious and philosophical sects from the remotest antiquity. It formed the leading doctrine of one of the most celebrated schools of philosophy in the whole heathen world (see Pythagorean Philosophy); it was said too to have found numerous adherents in Egypt; but it is chiefly among the Indians that this doctrine has taken deep and permanent root. With them it appears to have been an article of faith from the period at which we can first perceive any trace of their existence as a nation; and it is not going too far to say that not only all the opinions, but even all the manners of the Indians, are at this hour built upon this doctrine. The Indian doctrine of metempsychosis rests on the supposition that all beings derive their origin from God, and are placed in this world in an altogether degraded condition, from which they all, but more particularly the human race, must either decline into still lower degradation, or rise gradually to a higher state more accordant, with their divine original, according as they give ear to the vicious or the virtuous suggestions of their nature. It must be remarked, however, that the Indians make a wide distinction between the future desMny of those who have pa ed through life tainted by the usual vices and infirmities of human nature, and those whose lives have been spent in the constant discharge of religious duties. In the latter case, the soul does not pa through different stages of existence; " but proceeds directly to reunion with the Supreme Being, with which it is identified, as a river at its confluence with the sea merges therein altogether. His vital faculties, and the elements of which his body consists, are absorbed completely and absolutely; both name and form cease; and he becomes immortal, without parts or members." (See Mr. Colebrooke's translation of Extracts from the Brahma- Sutias, in the Transac. of the Roy. As. Soc, vol. ix.) [s. 749]