53° THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



At the beginning of heaven and earth, before chaos was divided, I think 

 there were only two things — fire and water — and the sediment of the water 

 formed the earth. When one ascends a height and looks down, the crowd of 

 hills resemble the waves of the sea in appearance; the water just flowed like this. 

 I know not at what period it coagulated. At first it was very soft, but after- 

 ward coagulated and became hard. One asked whether it resembled sand thrown 

 up by the tide? He replied, just so; the coarsest sediment of the water became 

 earth and the purest portion of the fire became wind, thunder, lightning, sun 

 and stars. . . . Before chaos was divided the Yin-yang, or light-dark, air was 

 mixed up and dark, and when it divided the center formed an enormous and 

 most brilliant opening, and the two principles were established. Shao Kang- 

 tsieh considers one hundred and twenty-nine thousand six hundred years to be a 

 yuen, or Tcalpa; then, before this period of one hundred and twenty -nine thou- 

 sand six hundred years there was another opening and spreading out of the 

 world; and before that again there was another like the present; so that motion 

 and rest, light and darkness, have no beginning. . . . 



There is nothing outside heaven and earth, and hence their form has limits, 

 while their air has no limit. Because the air is extremely condensed, therefore 

 it can support the earth; if it were not so, the earth would fall down. 



Chu Hi's theory considers the world to be a plane surface — straight, 

 square and large — measuring each way about 1,500 miles and bounded 

 on the four sides by the four seas. The sun, moon and stars revolve 

 around it at the uniform distance of 4,000 miles. Estimates of the long 

 mythological periods antecedent to the appearance of Fuh-hi (the 

 monarch of " highest antiquity," 2852 B.C., according to Chinese annals) 

 vary from 45,000 to 500,000 years. 



These ancient Chinese writings are a curious mixture of sense and 

 nonsense, partially laying the foundation of a just argument and end- 

 ing with a tremendous non-sequitur, apparently satisfactory to them- 

 selves, but showing pretty conclusively how little pains they took to 

 gather facts and discuss their bearings. One thing is to be observed 

 concerning them, which is characteristic to-day, viz., there is no hier- 

 archy of gods brought in to rule and inhabit the world they made; no 

 transfer of human love and hate, passions and hopes, to the powers 

 above, as in the Greek or Egyptian mythology; all here is represented 

 as moving on in quiet order, the work of disembodied agencies or 

 principles. " There is no religion, no imagination ; all is impassible, 

 passionless, uninteresting." 



Perhaps the most sensible and orderly account of the creation to be 

 found in these writings is the following : 



Heaven was formless, an utter chaos; the whole mass was nothing but con- 

 fusion. Order was first produced 'in the pure ether, and out of it the universe 

 came forth ; the universe produced air and the air the milky way. When the 

 pure male principle yang had been diluted, it formed the heavens; the heavy 

 and thick parts coagulated and formed the earth. The refined particles united 

 very soon, but the union of the thick and heavy went on slowly; therefore the 

 heavens came into existence first and the earth afterward. From the subtle 



