Originally Posted by
qimissung
I found this on our own website:
"Anchises replied by explaining the plan of
creation. The Creator, he told him, originally made the material
of which souls are composed, of the four elements, fire, air,
earth, and water, all which, when united, took the form of the
most excellent part, fire, and became FLAME. This material was
scattered like seed among the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and
stars. Of this seed the inferior gods created man and all other
animals, mingling it with various proportions of earth, by which
its purity was alloyed and reduced. Thus the more earth
predominates in the composition, the less pure is the individual;
and we see men and women with their full-grown bodies have not
the purity of childhood. So in proportion to the time which the
union of body and soul has lasted, is the impurity contracted by
the spiritual part. This impurity must be purged away after
death, which is done by ventilating the souls in the current of
winds, or merging them in water, or burning out their impurities
by fire. Some few, of whom Anchises intimates that he is one,
are admitted at once to Elysium, there to remain. But the rest,
after the impurities of earth are purged away, are sent back to
life endowed with new bodies, having had the remembrance of their
former lives effectually washed away by the waters of Lethe.
Some, however, there still are, so thoroughly corrupted, that
they are not fit to be entrusted with human bodies, and these are
made into brute animals, lions, tigers, cats, dogs, monkeys, etc."