The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1866-06-14

IL IS not very possible, that previously
to this life, tie human 8oui has passed
through d,fcreat phases Of existence, and
that it is destined to pass through many
more before it arrives at its final rest
Thus, Pythagoras recollected his former
self in the majestic person Of herald
named Kthalides; Euphorbus, the Tro-
jan; and others; and he even pointed
out, in the temple Of Juno, at Argos,
the shield he used when he attacked
Patroclus
"Milton, who inbibed from his COL
lege friend, Henry More, an early bias
to the study of Plato, hints at the same
opinion in his 'Comus:'
The soul grows dotted by contaHon
lmbodes and imbrutes till she quite lose
! The dtr1He property Of her frIt bring.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
| OFT seen In chanal voults and sepulchers,
| Lingering and sitting by new-made grave
| As 10th to leave the bodytha 1t loved
SIN the first volume Of Dodsley's Mis-
cellaneous Poems is poem in Mitonic
blank verse, entitled 'Pre.existence.'
Gray called it nonsense in all her atti-
tudes;' but it contains some fine things
in the midst of great deal Of wild tur-
gidity. (AAas, May 20, 1889
'In Chambers Edinburgh Journal, No.
SO, New Series, this Sentiment Of Pre-
existence is stated to have been first
described by Sir Walter Scott: this may
be correct as TO the expression, but not as
to the phenomenon to which it is ap-
piled, as we have already shown. Scott,
it will be remembered, was highly sus-
cept,Jle upon psychological matters.
The description is thrown into the
mouth Of Henry Bertram on his return
to Ellangowan Castle: How often,'
he says, do we find ourselves in society
which we have never before met, and
yet feel impressed with a mysterious
and ill-defned consciousness that neither
the scene, the speakers, nor the subject
are entirely new; nay, feel as if we
could anticipate that part of the conyer-
sation which has not yet taken place.
awe find the following entry in
Scott's diary, under the date February
II, 1928:
IL can not, l am sure, tell if it is
worth marking down, that Yesterday at
dinner time, l was strongly haunted by
what | would call the sense Of pre-exist-
ence, in confirmed idea that nothing
which passed was said for the first timei
that the same topics had been discussed,
and the same persons had stated the
same opinions on them. The sem
sation was so strong as to resemble
what is called a mirage in the desert, or
a calenture on board a ship. 1t
was very distressing yesterday, and
brought to my mind the fancies of
Bishop Berkely about an ideal world.
There was avile sense of want of reality
in all did and said.-LockharfS Life Of
Scot.
"It appears from a passage in the
Wool gatherer,' tale by James Hogg,
that that extraordinary son of genius
was occasionally conscious of the same
feeling.
"Sir Bulwer Lytton, in his "Godol-
phin,' thus notices this day-dream:
"How strange it is that at times
feeling comes over us, as we gaze upon
certain places, which associates the
scene either with some dim remembered
and dream-like images of the Past, or
with prophetic and fearful omen Of the
future! 4. Every one has known
similar strange, indistinct feeling, at
certain times and places, and with sim
liar inability to trace the cause.
Elsewhere the same writer describes
the same feeling of reminiscence as that
strange kind Of inner and spiritual mem
ory which often recalls to us places and
persons we have never seen before, and
which Platonists would resolve to be the
unquenched, and struggling conscious
ness Of former life
ain fewer words, the feeling may be
described as seeing and hearing, appa-
rently for the first time, what we have
seen or heard before, though our reason
assures us of the contrary. Can any,
thing be more expressive of the samenesS
of human existence?
Moreover something is, or seems,
That teaches ME with mystic CLEANS,
Like glimpses Of forgotten Dreams
! OF something felt, ike something here;
Ofsomethlng done, know not where
Such as no language may declare.-TenHyson.
"Mr. Dickens, in his Pictures from
Italy, mentions this instance on his
first sight of Ferrara:
"On the foreground was group of
silent peasant girls, leaning over the
parapet of little bridge, looking now
up at the sky, now down into the water
in the distance a deep bell; the shadow
of approaching night on everything
If l had been murdered there OH some
former life | could not have seemed to
remember the place more thoroughly,
or with more emphatic chilling OF the
blood; and the real remembrance of it
acquired in that minute is so strength
ened by the imaginary recollection, that
l hardly think l could forget it."
DR.. Wigan, in a curious and original
book entitled duality Of Mind" addu-
ces the impression of pre-existence as an
evidence in favor of the double struc-
ture of the mind, corresponding with
the duplieity of the brain. He says:
"'Itis a sudden feeling, asif the scene
we have just witnessed (although from
the very nature of things it could never