Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

269
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
Metempsychosis.
611. Is not the common origin of the intellectual principle of living beings a consecration of
the doctrine of the metempsychosis?
"Two things may have the same origin, and yet not resemble one another at a later period.
Who could recognise the tree, with its leaves, flowers, and fruit, in the shapeless germ
contained in the seed from which it has issued ? From the moment when the principle of
intelligence has reached the necessary degree of development for becoming spirit, and for
entering upon the human phase, it has no longer any connection with its primitive state, and is
no more the soul of the beasts than the tree is the seed. In man, there is no longer anything of
the animal but his body, and the passions which are the joint product of his body and of the
instinct of self-preservation inherent in matter. It cannot, there-fore, be said that such and
such a man is the incarnation of such and such an animal; and consequently the doctrine of
the metempsychosis, as commonly understood, is not true."
612. Can a spirit which has animated a human body be incarnated in an animal?
"No; for such an incarnation would be a retrogradation; and a spirit never retrogrades. The
river does not flow back to is source." (118.)
613. However erroneous, may be the idea attached to the doctrine of the metempsychosis,
may not that doctrine be a result of an intuitive reminiscence of the different existences of
man?
"That intuitive reminiscence is seen in this belief as in many others; but, like the greater part
of his intuitive ideas, man has perverted it."
The doctrine of the metempsychosis would be true if by that Word Were understood the progression of
the soul from a lower state to a higher state, in which it acquires the new development that will transform
its nature; but it is false when understood as meaning that any animal can transmigrate directly into a
man, and a man into an animal, which would imply the idea of a retrogradation or of a fusion. The fact
that fusion is not possible between corporeal beings of two different species is an indication of their being
of degrees that are not assailable, and that such must be the case, also, with the spirits that animate them.
If the same spirit could animate them alternately, it would imply the existence, between them. of an
identity that would manifest itself by the possibility of corporeal reproduction. Reincarnation, as now
taught by spirits, is founded, on the contrary, upon the ascensional movement of nature and upon the
progression of man in his own specie,, which detracts nothing from his dignity. 'What really degrades
man is the evil use he makes of the faculties which God has given him for his advancement. And, at all
events, the antiquity and universality of the doctrine of the metempsychosis, and the number of eminent
men who have professed it, proves that the principle of reincar-