ON ACCOUNTS OF THE CREATION. 245 



Heraclitus, a daring thinker, wlio sought the first substance 

 in fire, shows a striking resemblance to Zoroastrianism. 

 Anaxagoras was the first who substituted the idea of a mind 

 apart from matter for the original hylogoism, which considered 

 matter as itself animated. In the language of philosophy, he 

 became a Dualist as opposed to the earlier Monists. His own 

 words were, " All things were together, and mind came and 

 separated them.''' But matter was to him eternal, and so it 

 continued to be through all the schools of Greek philosophy. 



The Greeks were never tired of saying, " Nothing comes 

 from nothing " : a law true of the usual course of nature, but 

 one which can easily be conceived as infringed at the begin- 

 ning of nature. As a matter of argument, moreover, the 

 eternity of matter presents as many speculative difficulties as 

 its original creation. The object of my paper being historical, 

 I need not pursue this part of the subject any further. 



It will be enough to bear in mind that when Xenophanes, 

 Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle reached the great truth of the 

 Unity of the Godhead, they did not advance to the further 

 truth of His Supreme Creative Power. Plato's Timmiis, 

 in parts, is a remarkable work, and amidst its crudenesses 

 and Oriental elements bears here and there a singular resem- 

 blance to Genesis. But the god of the Timceus is the artificer, 

 the moulder, the demiurge of matter, which existed from all 

 eternity, and is not quite obedient to him. Great confusion 

 of thought would follow if the convenient word ^'^ demiurge" 

 be used as a loose synonym for " ci^eator " : it should only be 

 employed in its proper platonic sense. 



9. The general conclusions to which I have been led are as 

 follow : — 



(1) In a few cosmologies the coincidences with Genesis are 

 astonishing. This is especially the case with reference to those 

 which present an historical form, but it occurs, though to a 

 less degree, in the mythological legends. In the meta- 

 physical systems all connexion with the traditional past is 

 cut off". 



(2) The cosmologies which resemble Genesis may be con- 

 sidered as representing, more or less, distorted forms of the 

 original primeval tradition handed down from the first patriarch. 

 No certain fact of history is opposed to this hypothesis, while 

 many favour it. 



(3) No existing account can be fairly described as parallel 

 to Genesis, chapter i. 



(4) The unique character of the account in Genesis arises 

 from many elements. Its pure Monotheism, the total absence 



