THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY, 33 
organic creation, and the coming into existence of the many 
animal and vegetable species. In doing this I have no inten- 
tion of entertaining the reader with a statement of all 
the innumerable stories about the creation which have 
been current among the different human species, races, or 
tribes. However interesting and gratifying this task would 
be, from an ethnographical pot of view, as well as in a 
history of civilization, it would lead us here much too far 
from our subject. Besides, the great majority of all these 
legends about creation bear too clearly the stamp of arbi- 
trary fiction, and of a want of a close observance of nature, to 
be of interest in a scientific treatment of the history of crea- 
tion. I shall therefore only select the Mosaic history from 
among those that are not founded on scientific investigation, 
on account of the unparalleled influence which it has gained 
in the western civilized world; and then I shall immedi- 
ately take up the scientific hypothesis about creation, which 
originated with Linnzus as late as the commencement of 
last century. 
All the different conceptions which man has ever formed 
about the coming into existence of the different animal and 
vegetable species may conveniently -be divided into two 
great contrasted groups—the natural and supernatural his- 
tories of creation. 
These two groups, on the whole, correspond with the two 
different principal forms of the human notions of the uni- 
verse which we have already contrasted as the monistic and 
the dualistic conception of nature. In the usual dualistic or 
teleological (vital) conception of the universe, organic nature 
is regarded as the purposely executed production of a Creator 
working according to a definite plan. Its adherents see in 
VOL. I. — 5 
