286 W. p. JAMES; ESQ. 



ment. At other times tliey are merely the weathered relics 

 o£ an almost-forgotten religious system. The New Zealanders 

 may be taken as a fairly-known example. According to their 

 own admission, they have arrived by sea in their present 

 homes, and Mr. Gisborne (in the ninth edition of the Encyclo- 

 pcedia Britannica) says that probably not more than five 

 centuries have elapsed since that event took place. It is 

 obvious that they must have brought their traditions with 

 them, and, as a matter of fact, what cosmology they possess 

 seems only a variation of a widespread Eastern form of emana- 

 tion. 'Vo go to savages for the opinions of primeval man is a 

 grotesque paradox, and can only be justified by a thorough 

 misconception of the past. This unhistorical method has led 

 the Rev. T. K. Cheyne into some crude statements in his 

 article on " Cosmology,^^ in Enctjc. Brit, (ninth edition).* 



3. Theories of Creation admit of being roughly classed as — 

 (I.) Those which bear traces of a primeval tradition, and in 



form resemble historical documents. 



(II.) Those which have a mythological stamp, and probably 

 arose from the hardening of symbolical language. 



(III.) Those which appear to have sprung from independent 

 speculation, the philosophical or metaphysical cosmogonies. 

 But it must be distinctly understood that these classes cannot 

 be separated by any sharp line of demarcation. On the con- 

 trary, they run into each other, and it is still possible that a 

 cosmology mainly philosophical or mythological may retain 

 traces of old tradition. 



4. Egyiot. — The immense antiquity of civilisation in the 

 Valley of the Nile makes it a matter of course that we should 

 begin with Egypt. But here we meet with great difficulty 

 in getting at any consistent theory of Egyptian religion. 

 According to most authorities there were many local sets of 

 gods, and in consequence of this multiplicity of cults it is not 

 likely that there was any uniform and generally acknowledged 

 account of creation. Canon Rawlinson tells us [Hist, of 

 Ancient Egypt, vol. i., p. 313) that Egyptian religion had 

 " two phases or aspects, — one that in which it was presented 

 to the general public, or vast mass of the population ; the 

 other, that which it bore in the minds of the intelligent, the 

 learned, the initiated. To the former it was a polytheism of 

 a multitudinous, and in many respects of a gross, character ; 



* The most obvious defect of this article is the omission of Hindoo and 

 Greek cosmology ; but many readers will regret what seems to them its lack of 

 reverence and insight. 



