INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 7 



the incessant re-creation of complete organisms to be somewhat 

 too improbable an hypothesis, he takes refuge in the theory 

 that all living beings, man included, originated in eggs created 

 by the Supreme Power. 



The Koran requires no such sworn evidence. In the fif- 

 teenth Sura it is written : " God said to the angels : ' I will 

 make man out of dry earth and black clay, and after that I 

 have made his form perfect and breathed my spirit into him 

 then shall ye fall down and worship him ' ". 



The first Arabian philosophers, Alkendi, Alfarabi and Ibn 

 Sina, in spite of their acquaintance with the Aristotelian phil- 

 osophy, were orthodox dogmaticians, and even among the later 

 sects none would have ventured to question the teaching of the 

 Koran ; indeed, the orthodox members of the Hanifilic sect 

 even maintain that all strife and contention over the articles 

 of faith laid down by the Koran is expressly forbidden by 

 Mahomet. The truth of this assertion is supported by the fact 

 that among Mohammedans the creation of man is sometimes 

 discussed, but never his origin. 



The conception of a simple, natural origin of man can 

 as well arise in the mind of the untaught savage as in the 

 highly cultivated brain of a philosopher. Hence we find 

 among savages traditions that in their essence bear a strong 

 analogy to the teachings of the natural philosophers of all 

 times. 



Certain tribes of Eastern Asia settle the matter with ad- 

 mirable simplicity by saying that the first man came into 

 existence of his own free will. The majority of primitive 

 peoples, however, who believe in a simple origin of man, 

 endeavour nevertheless to give some satisfactory interpretation 

 thereof, choosing one or other substratum whence man is 

 supposed to have arisen. In the Mautewa Islands of East 

 Africa a demon fished a case, containing human forms, out of 

 the sea, and they grew into men, and the amiable demon turned 

 into a leguan in order to protect them from vermin. On the 

 banks of the Bramapootra the story goes that out of p. swelling 

 on the hand of Kalia Adeo issued the twelve families of the 

 Gonds, who, however, in consequence of an evil smell attaching 

 to them were shut up in a cave by the god Mahadeo, only 



