Note 146 — APPENDICES. (continued 3)

In discussion, whenever expedient, with a Brahmin, or even Buddhist, the belief in a modified metempsychosis would form a bond of sympathy (see last A. Q. R.), whilst the survival “of the most adapted,” rather than that of “the best,”—without, however, the loss of any individual or type,—would be connected with the notion of a certain fixed number of souls in evolution from “the beginning” and ever recurrent in living form. “The beginning,” however, would be a mere term applying to this or that revealed condition, for behind what may be called “the terrestrial gods,” behind Allah in whatever form, Deity or Deities, there was The Being that existed without a beginning and whose first manifestation was the “Word” with its Replica as the type of the apostle and his fellow that ever succeeded itself throughout the generations of this world. If the visible Deity, preferring to show itself in human, rather than any other, form, is incorporated in the lineal descendant of the 7th Imám, it is, apparently, because humanity requires such an unbroken link in order to convert into certainty its hope of the deliverer, the Messiah, the Mahdi, the second [advent of] Jesus, who will similarly be the Deity in the shape of a man, reconciling the various expectations of all religions in one manifestation. That few, if any, Muláis, or even the most “initiated” Druses, should know every variety of their belief, is natural, not only in consequence of varying degrees of mental ability and of corresponding “initiation,” but also because of varied historical or national surroundings, circumstances which underlie the guiding principle of all Mulái belief and practice. I venture to indicate, as purely my personal impression, that this principle, which need not be further explained in this place, is the real secret of that faith. In my humble opinion, the disjecta membra, so to speak, of that faith form, if reconstituted, an embodiment of the religious thought of the World that seeks to reconcile all differences in one Philosophy and in one Policy.