"Reasoning from the common course of nature, what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth, and if the former existence in noway concerned us, neither will the latter.... Metempsychosis is, therefore, the only system of this kind that philosophy can hearken to." (The Immortality of the Soul.)
Young, in his Night Thoughts (Night the Sixth), has the following lines:
"Look nature through, 'tis revolution all;
All change, no death. Day follows night; and night
The dying day; stars rise, and set, and rise;
Earth takes th' example ...
. . . All, to reflourish, fades;
As in a wheel, all sinks, to re-ascend.
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires."
"It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in Nature is resurrection," said Voltaire.
Delormel, Descartes, and Lavater were struck with the tremendous importance of the doctrine of Palingenesis.
The Philosophy of the Universe, of Dupont de Nemours, is full of the idea of successive lives, as a necessary corollary of the law of progress; whilst Fontenelle strongly advocates it in his Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes.
It is needless to state that these ideas formed part of the esoteric teachings of Martinez Pasqualis, Claude Saint-Martin, and their followers.
Saint-Martin lived in times that were too troubled for him to speak freely. In his works, however, not a few passages are found in which there can be no doubt that reincarnation is hinted at, to anyone able to read between the lines. (Tableau nat., vol. i, p. 136; L'homme de Désir, p. 312.)
In his Œuvres Posthumes (vol. i, p. 286) appears this remarkable passage: