160 ON THE INTERACTION OF NATURAL FORCES. 



present time, where we pass from the darkness of hypothetical 

 views to the brightness of knowledge. In what we have said, 

 however, all that is hypothetical is the assumption of Kant and 

 Laplace, that the masses of our system were once distributed as 

 nebulae in space. 



On account of the rarity of the case, we will still further 

 remark in what close coincidence the results of science here 

 stand with the earlier legends of the human family, and the 

 forebodings of poetic fancy. The cosmogony of ancient nations 

 generally commences with chaos and darkness. Thus, for ex- 

 ample, Mephistopheles says : 



Part of the Part am I, once All, in primal night, 

 Part of the Darkness which brought forth the Light| 

 The haughty Light, which now disputes the space, 

 And claims of Mother Night her ancient place. 



Neither is the Mosaic tradition very divergent, particularly 

 when we remember that that which Moses names heaven, is 

 different from the blue dome above us, and is synonymous with 

 space, and that the unformed earth and the waters of the great 

 deep, which were afterwards divided into waters above the fir- 

 mament and waters below the firmament, resembled the chaotic 

 components of the world : 



' In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 



'And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness 

 was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved 

 upon the face of the waters.' 



And just as in nebulous sphere, just become luminous, ani 

 in the new red-hot liquid earth of our modern cosmogony light 

 was not yet divided into sun and stars, nor time into day and 

 night, as it was after the earth had cooled. 



'And God divided the light from the darkness. 



' And God called the light day, and the darkness He called 

 night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.' 



And now, first, after the waters had been gathered together 

 into the sea, and the earth had been laid dry, could plants and 

 animals be formed. 



