56                         ALBERUNPS INDIA.

necessitates a retribution for him in a different shape
from that in which he has committed the thing, and if
between both stages there is a great interval of time
and the matter is forgotten, what then ? "

The master answers: "It is the nature of action to
adhere to the spirit, for action is its product, whilst
the body is only an instrument for it. Forgetting does
not apply to spiritual matters, for they lie outside of
time, with the nature of which the notions of long and
short duration are necessarily connected. Action, by
adhering to the spirit, frames its nature and character
into a condition similar to that one into which the soul
will enter on its next migration. The soul in its purity
knows this, thinks of it, and does not forget it; but the
light of the soul is covered by the turbid nature of the
body as long as it is connected with the body. Then
the soul is like a man who remembers a thing which he
once knew, but then forgot in consequence of insanity
or an illness or some intoxication which overpowered his
mind. Do you not observe that little children are in
high spirits when people wish them a long life, and
are sorry when people imprecate upon them a speedy
death ? And what would the one thing or the other
signify to them, if they had not tasted the sweetness of
life and experienced the bitterness of death in former
generations through which they had been migrating to
undergo the due course of retribution ? "
Quotations Tho ancicut Greeks agreed with the Hindus in this
an°dProeius. belief. Socratcs says in the book Phaedo : " We are
reminded in the tales of the ancients that the souls
go from here to Hades, and then come from Hades
to here; that the living originates from the dead, and
that altogether things originate from their contraries.
Therefore those who have died are among the living.
Our souls lead an existence of their own in Plades.
The soul of each man is glad or sorry at something, and
contemplates this thing.    This impressionable nature