The doctrine of transmigration of souls into animal forms was given out for, and led to the same effects as, the doctrine of after-death punishment in hell. Timaeus Locrius, the teacher of Plato, said as much and observed that "if the mind will not be led by true reasoning, we restrain it by false." The Buddhist and Christian picture of the souls of murderers being burnt in the fires of the underworld serves the same warning and disciplinary purpose as the Hindu picture of those souls incarnating into the bodies of wild beasts. Transmigration of this kind is not to be taken literally. Brahmin priests who teach it publicly do not, if they are also initiates in philosophy, believe it privately. It is the exception, not the rule, and opposed to the evolutionary course of Nature.
-- Notebooks Category 9: From Birth to Rebirth > Chapter 2 : Rebirth and Reincarnation > # 182
