611. Is not the common origin of the intellectual principle of living beings a consecration of
the doctrine of the metempsychosis?
"Two things may have the same origin, and yet not resemble one another at a later period.
Who could recognise the tree, with its leaves, flowers, and fruit, in the shapeless germ
contained in the seed from which it has issued ? From the moment when the principle of
intelligence has reached the necessary degree of development for becoming spirit, and for
entering upon the human phase, it has no longer any connection with its primitive state, and is
no more the soul of the beasts than the tree is the seed. In man, there is no longer anything of
the animal but his body, and the passions which are the joint product of his body and of the
instinct of self-preservation inherent in matter. It cannot, there-fore, be said that such and
such a man is the incarnation of such and such an animal; and consequently the doctrine of
the metempsychosis, as commonly understood, is not true."
