COSMOGONIES 113 



Brahmin legend, again, taught that the earth 

 floated like a full-blown lotus on the surface of 

 mighty water. " The two peninsulas of the 

 Ganges and the other Asiatic countries are the 

 expanded flower, the isles scattered over the ocean 

 are the half-open buds, distant lands are the softly- 

 spreading leaves. The Ghauts and the Neil- 

 gherries are the stamens of the immense flower, 

 while in the centre culminates the lofty Himalayas, 

 the sacred pistil, in which are organised the seeds 

 of the world. Man, like the tiny insect which 

 sees infinity in a rose, builds his imperceptible 

 cities near the honey-cup of the flower, and some- 

 times spreads his wings to glide over the sea, from 

 the corolla of the Indies to that of Ornuez and 

 Socotra. The stalk of the plant disappears in the 

 depth of the ocean, and descending from abyss to 

 abyss, at last buries itself in the very heart of 

 Brahma." — (The Earthy Reclus.) 



We need not recapitulate here more of these 

 primitive cosmologies : they were based on im- 

 agination, not on reason, and have no genetic 

 relation with the later and more scientific attempts 

 to solve the riddle of the universe. On such 

 fanciful cosmology only fanciful cosmogonies 

 could be founded. Not till astronomy became 

 a science — not, at least, till men realised that 



the world did not end at the Pillars of Hercules, 



8 



