180 ON THE INTERACTION OF NATURAL FORCES. 



family, and the forebodings of poetic fancy. The cos- 

 mogony of ancient nations generally commences with 

 chaos and darkness. Thus for example 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, par- 

 ticularly 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 firmament and 

 waters below the firmament, resembled the chaotic com- 

 ponents of the world : — 



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



' And the earth was without form, and void ; and dark- 

 ness 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, 

 and in the new red-hot liquid earth of our modern cosmo- 

 gony 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. 



Our earth bears still the unmistakeable traces of its 

 old fiery fluid condition. The granite formations of her 

 mountains exhibit a structure, which can only be pro- 



