NATIVR IDEAS OF COSMOLOGY. 



By Rev. Samuel S. Dornax, M.A., F.G.S.. F.R.G.S. 



Theories of cosmology are held to he indicative of a fairly 

 advanced stage of thought, and also of considerahle knowledge of 

 the natural world. While this is true as a: general rule, there are 

 notable exceptions. We have elaborate cosmological theories 

 amongst the Babylonians, Fgyjjtians, and Indians, whose thinking, 

 especially that of the latter, was of a high order. In a still greater 

 degree this may be asserted of the (ireeks, though probably their 

 ideas came from the East, as the theories of cosmogony enun- 

 ciated by Hesiod, and later by ( )vid, bear a strong resemblance to 

 the Indian. But we have similar cosmological tlieories amongst 

 such widely separated peoi)les as the Mexicans, Zulus, and Poly- 

 nesians, who, compared to the Greeks or Babylonians, would be 

 classed as barbarians. However widely separated the people who 

 liold these theories may be. from a geographical jxjint of view, 

 their explanations, when closely examined, have several features 

 in common. Not that these resemblances prove derivation from 

 one parent story, but simply that primitive peoples of similar 

 environment think much alike. The idea of creation among the 

 Babylonians was in reality a contest between terrible demons, 

 and the actual fact of creation was merely an ei)isode in that great 

 contest. The gods themselves were but glorified demons, and 

 retained traces of their demoniacal origin long after they had 

 been elevated to supreme power. They only gradually emerged 

 from the demoniacal stage as the consciousness of their wor- 

 shippers deepened. More and more s])iritual attributes became 

 attached to them as time went on. We see such a process in the 

 pantheon of the Greeks, and in the ( )ld Testament there is an 

 immeasurable difference between the apprehension of God in the 

 mind of the j^rophet Isaiah and that disclosed in the Book of 

 Genesis. 



In the case of the Greeks, as late as the time of Pindar, we 

 find the gods accused of cannibalism, and the poet refuses to 

 repeat the slander.* This proves that the Greeks themselves were 

 barbarians and very probably cannibals at no great distance of 

 time from Pindar's day, and that Zeus and other gods had not 

 even then lost all trace of their demoniacal origin. Amongst the 

 Mexicans human sacrifice and cannibalism were common, and 

 had a religious signification. The gods enjoined the practice, 

 and the Mexicans could not understand why the .Spanish con- 

 querors looked upon the ]:)ractice with such horror. Cannibalism 

 as a religious rite is probably not long extinct in South Africa. 

 \\'here it exists to-day in West Africa and Congoland it has a 

 distinctly religious meaning. Cannibalism w^as found in Basuto- 

 land about 80 years ago, but it was not definitely connected with 

 religion. The people had been driven to it by war and privation. 



* Pindar : " Olympian Odes," I. 



