“Monstrous!” I exclaimed with surprise—“it is the ne plus ultra, the climax of fatuity, the raving of a disordered imagination.”
“So you do not believe in Metempsychosis?” asked he with a smile.
“I would as soon believe in demonology, or magic. There is nothing I would not rather credit. Kenelm Digby’s sympathetic powder, the philosopher’s stone, the elixir vitæ, animal magnetism, metallic tractors, judicial astrology—anything, in fact, would more readily find a place in my belief than this nonsensical jargon, which is credited by nobody but the superstitious Brahmins of India. But perhaps you are a believer?” He shrugged up his shoulders at this last remark, stroked his chin, and, giving me a sarcastic look, said, with a familiar nod and smile, “Yes, I am a believer.”
“What!” said I, “you—you with your immense learning, can you put faith in such doctrines?”
“If I put faith in them,” said he, “it is my learning which has taught me to do so. If I were less learned, I might perhaps spurn at them as erroneous. Doubt is as often the offspring of ignorance as of credulity. Your great doubters are generally as ill-informed as your great believers, and much more self-conceited.”
“And do you really go all the lengths of Pythagoras?” I demanded.
“I not only go all his lengths, but I go much farther. For instance, he believed that the soul never left the body until the latter was dead. Now, my belief is, that two living bodies may exchange souls with each other. For instance, your soul may take possession of my body, and my soul of yours, and both our bodies may be alive.”
“In that case,” said I, laughing heartily, “you would be me, and I would be you.”
“Precisely so, my dear friend,” replied the little gentleman, laughing in his turn, and concluding with a sneeze.