Gods, demons, and heroes are emanations of the Supreme,
and there is a fourth emanation, the human soul. This is immortal,
and when freed from the fetters of the body passes to the
habitation of the dead, where it remains till it returns to the
world, to dwell in some other human or animal body, and at last,
when sufficiently purified, it returns to the source from which it
proceeded. This doctrine of the transmigration of souls
(metempsychosis), which was originally Egyptian and connected with
the doctrine of reward and punishment of human actions, was the
chief cause why the Pythagoreans killed no animals. Ovid
represents Pythagoras addressing his disciples in these words:
"Souls never die, but always on quitting one abode pass to
another. I myself can remember that in the time of the Trojan war
I was Euphorbus, the son of Panthus, and fell by the spear of
Menelaus. Lately being in the temple of Juno, at Argos, I
recognized my shield hung up there among the trophies. All things
change, nothing perishes. The soul passes hither and thither,
occupying now this body, now that, passing from the body of a
beast into that of a man, and thence to a beast's again. As wax is
stamped with certain figures, then melted, then stamped anew with
others, yet is always the same wax, so the soul, being always the
same, yet wears, at different times, different forms.
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