402 SUMMARY. 



have found something which can yield them pleasure, 

 so the ascetic rejoices that he has found something 

 which can yield him pain. 



In the preceding sketch, which is taken from the 

 writings of others, I have told how a hot cloud 

 vibrating in space, cooled into a sun rotating on its 

 axis, and revolving round a point, to us unknown ; and 

 how this sun cast off a piece, which went out like a 

 coal that leaps from the fire, and sailed round the 

 sun a cinder wrapped in smoke ; and how as it cooled, 

 strange forces worked within it, varied phenomena 

 appeared upon its surface ; it was covered with a salt 

 sea ; the smoke cleared off; the sunlight played upon 

 the water ; gelatinous plants and animals appeared ; 

 at first simple in their forms, becoming more complex 

 as the forces which acted on them increased in com- 

 plexity ; the earth wrinkled up ; the mountains and 

 continents appeared ; rain-water ascended from the 

 sea, and descended from the sky ; lakes and rivers 

 were created ; the land was covered with ferns, and 

 gigantic mosses, and grasses tall as trees ; enormous 

 reptiles crawled upon the earth, frogs as large as ele- 

 phants, which croaked like thunder ; and the air, 

 which was still poisonous and cloudy, was cleared 

 by the plants feeding on the coaly gas; the sun 

 shone brightly ; sex was invented ; love was born ; 

 flowers bloomed forth, and birds sang ; mammoths 

 and mastodons revelled upon the infinity of pas- 

 tures ; the world became populous ; the struggle for 

 life became severe ; animals congregated together ; 

 male struggled against male for spouses, herd struggled 

 against herd for subsistence ; a nation of apes, possess- 

 ing peculiar intelligence and sociability, were exposed 

 to peculiar dangers ; as a means of resistance, they 



