PALINGENESIS (Gr. -raw, again, 14vevcr, becoming,

See also:

• BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

birth)  , a term used in philosophy, theology and biology . In philosophy it denotes in its broadest sense the theory (e.g. of the Pythagoreans) that the human soul does not die with the body but is " born again " in new incarnations . It is thus the equivalent of metempsychosis (q.v.) . The term has a narrower and more specific use in the system of Schopenhauer, who applies it to his doctrine that the will does not die but manifests itself afresh in new individuals . He thus repudiates the primitive metempsychosis doctrine which maintains the reincarnation of the particular soul . The word " palingenesis " or rather " palingenesia " may be traced back to the Stoics, who used the term for the continual re-creation of the universe by the Demiurgus (Creator) after its absorption into himself . Similarly Philo speaks of . Noah and his sons as leaders of a " renovation " or " re-birth " of the earth . Josephus uses the term of the national restoration of the Jews, Plutarch of the transmigration of souls, and Cicero of his own return from exile . In the New Testament the properly theological sense of spiritual regeneration is found, though the word itself occurs only twice; and it is used by the church fathers, e.g. for the rite of baptism or for the state of repentance . In modern biology (e.g . Haeckel and Fritz Muller) " palingenesis " has been used for the exact reproduction of ancestral features by inheritance, as opposed to "kenogenesis" (Gr .

Kawos new), in which the inherited characteristics are modified by environment .