were really the _self-same_ divine
persons who had been promised as the seed of the woman,
successively animating various human bodies."[44:5]

We have stated as our belief that the vision which the writer of the
twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis has made Jacob to witness, was intended
to strengthen the belief in the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, that he
was simply seeing the souls of men ascending and descending from heaven
_on a ladder_, during their transmigrations.

We will now give our reasons for thinking so.

The learned Thomas Maurice tells us that:

The _Indians_ had, in remote ages, in their system of theology, _the
sidereal ladder of seven gates_, which described, in a symbolical
manner, the _ascending and descending of the souls of men_.[45:1]

We are also informed by Origen that:

This descent (_i. e._, the descent of souls from heaven to
enter into some body), was described in a symbolical manner,
_by a ladder which was represented as reaching from heaven to
earth_, and divided into _seven_ stages, at each of which was
figured a gate; the eighth gate was at the top of the ladder,
which belonged to the sphere of the celestial firmament.[45:2]

That souls dwell in the _Galaxy_ was a thought familiar to the
_Pythagoreans_, who gave it on their master's word, that the souls that
crowd there, _descend and appear to men as dreams_.[45:3]

The fancy of the _Manicheans_ also transferred pure souls to this column
of light, _whence they could come down to earth and again return_.[45:4]

Paintings representing a scene of this kind may be seen in works of art
illustrative of _Indian Mythology_.

Maurice speaks of one, in which he says:

"The souls of men are represented as ascending and descending
(on a ladder), according to the received opinion of the
sidereal Metempsychosis in Asia."[45:5]

Mons. Dupuis tells us that:

"Among the mysterious pictures of the _Initiation_, in the
cave of the Persian God Mithras, there was exposed to the view
_the descent of the souls to the earth, and their return to
heaven_, through the seven planetary spheres."[45:6]

And Count de Volney says:

"In the cave of Mithra _was a ladder with seven steps_,
representing the seven spheres of the planets by means of
which _souls ascended and descended_. This is precisely the
ladder of Jacob's vision. There is in the Royal Library