218 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



What covered all? what sheltered ? what concealed? 



Was it the water'* fathomless abyss? 



There was not death yet was there nought immortal, 



There was no confine betwixt day and night ; 



The only One breathed breathless by itself, 



Other than It there nothing since has been. 



I>arkness there was, and all at first was veikd 



In irloom profound an ocean without light 



The germ that still lay covered in the husk 



Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. 



Then first came love upon it, the new spring 



Of mind yea, poets in their hearts discerned, 



Pondering, this bond between created things 



And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth, 



Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven ? 



Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose 



Nature below, and power and will above 



Who knows the secret ? who proclaimed it here, 



Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? 



The gods themselves came later into beinir 



Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? 



He from whom all this great creation came, 



Whether his will created or was mute. 



The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven, 



He knows it or perchance even He knows not." 



It is evident that in this hymn, the expression of the 

 moment when human thought was partly freed from 

 the earlier anthropomorphic ideas, the scientific faculty 

 which attempts a rational explanation of the world is 

 shown ; and although this is an isolated inspiration of 

 the prophet, yet it shadows forth the conclusions to 

 which the primitive Hellenic speculation came when 

 it was deliberately exerted to solve the problem of 

 creation. In fact, there is here an intimation of the 

 waters, of the void or deep abyss, as the beginnings of 

 the world ; of the breath of the One, the hidden germ 



