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TRANSMIGRATION & NIRVANA
121 It may be mentioned that according to Philo Judæus, tre interpreter of the Jewish allegories, the tabernacle meant the form of “ Wisdom."-Yonge's Philo Judæus vol. i. p. 119.
On the scientific side of the question, the soul's birth in this life could not possibly mean its first appearance in embodied form, for such an event would be absolutely lawless. As we shall see later on, a soul that is completely rid of matter cannot be reborn as an embodied being. Birth in the present form must, therefore, have been preceded by death elsewhere, and as a 'fall' into embodied condition is not possible after Nirvana, the condition of the soul now involved in the bondage of matter must have been the same throughout the past eternity of time.
As for the point whether the human soul may be reborn among animals and the lower kingdoms, regarding which there seems to be a conflict between some of the tests, the truth of the matter is that the soul of the knower of Truth does not, usually, descend into the hells or into any of the lower forms, but progresses on, changing always duly to the better, to use the language of Clement of Alexandria (A.N.C.L. vol. xii. p. 455), though the souls of others not endowed with Right Faith are all liable to fall into the lower grades of life, and may even be reborn in the hells. The seeming conflict is thus not a real conflict in any
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sense.
