When the Hindus told in ancient times to a wicked person, "Next time you are born it will be as a dog or monkey," it was to tell him, who did not know anything of life except himself, that his animal qualities would come again as the heritage of the animal world, so that he would not be known again to his human friends as a man, but as an animal. When they said, "Your good actions will bring you back as a better person," it was said so that the man who did not know the two extreme poles of his soul might understand that no good action could be lost; and for the man who had no hope in the hereafter, and who only knew of life as lived on the earth, it was a consolation to know that all the good he had done would come again. The theory which was thus explained was true in that sense.