Note 139 — Chapter III · THE PHILOSOPHIC GROUP
Reading edition
Spectator, No. 343. At the opening of this essay Addison makes Will Honeycomb quote Sir Paul Rycaut’s account of Mahometan beliefs, including transmigration. The story of Pug’s adventures resembles that of the transmigrations of Fum-Hoam (Chinese Tales, cf. Chap. I., ante). The idea of metempsychosis was a favourite one in the early eighteenth century, witness Fielding’s Journey from this World to the Next.