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 of the route. The environment may favour this inheritance or may obstruct it. But such influence must be in the background so that there is a real transmission of the common element along the route.

In the case of men and animals, there are obviously routes of mind and routes of matter in the very closest connection, which we will consider more particularly in a moment. In the case of a bit of inorganic matter, any associate route of mentality seems to be negligible.

A belief in purely spiritual beings means, on this metaphysical theory, that there are routes of mentality in respect to which associate material routes are negligible, or entirely absent. At the present moment the orthodox belief is that for all men after death there are such routes, and that for all animals after death there are no such routes.

Also at present it is generally held that a purely spiritual being is necessarily immortal. The doctrine here developed gives no warrant