260 



COSMOGONY. 



tradition, which they would naturally communicate to 

 their families and dependents, and thus diffuse it over 

 the face of the earth: and whilst Moses gave a cor- 

 rect and true account under the guidance of inspira- 

 tion ; others, receiving their information, through the 

 uncertain channel of tradition, might give accounts 

 bearing various shades of resemblance to the truth. 

 (See Antediluvians.) We are not under the necessity 

 then, of supposing that even the heathen have borrow- 

 ed from Moses when their accounts approximate the 

 truth ; except when the resemblance is so striking that 

 it cannot be accidental ; though there is every reason 

 to think that they have borrowed much more frequent- 

 ly than is generally supposed. 



The writer alluded to above was cured of his scepti- 

 cism, so far at least as to confess that he had been de- 

 ceived as to the great antiquity of the Indian record, on 

 which he had laid so much stress as to set it in this 

 respect on a footing of equality with the Bible. The 

 passages relating to the creation, however, are curious; 

 and the work from which they are taken is unquestion- 

 ably ancient : they exhibit striking features of the Mo- 

 saic account, blended with the refinements of meta- 

 . physical philosophy. They are thus given in an adver- 

 tisement, prefixed to the fifth volume of the Asiatic 

 Researches, and are intended as a supplement to a for- 

 mer treatise on the Hindoo religion. 



" This universe existed only in the first divine idea, 

 yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, impercep- 

 tible, undefinable, undiseoverable by reason, and un- 

 discovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed 

 in sleep, (ch. i. 5.); 



" When the sole self-existing power, himself undis- 

 cerned, but making this world discernible, with five 

 elements and other principles of nature, appeared with 

 undiminished glory, expanding his idea, or dispelling 

 the gloom, (ib. 6.) 



" He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose 

 essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible 

 parts, who exists from eternity, even he, the soul of all 

 beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth 

 in person, (ib. 7.) 



" He, having willed to produce various beings from 

 his own divine substance, first with a thought created 

 the waters, (ib. 8.) 



Cf The waters are called nara, because they are the 

 production of Nara, or the spirit of God ; and since 

 they were his first ay ana, or place of motion, he thence 

 is called Narayana, or moving on the waters. 



" From that which is, the first cause, not the object 

 of sense, existing every where in substance, not exist- 

 ing to our perception, without beginning or end, was 

 produced the divine male. (ib. 1 i.) 



" He framed the heaven above, and the earth be- 

 aieath : in the midst he placed the subtile ether, the 

 eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters, 

 (ib. 13.) 



" He framed all creatures, (ib. 1 6.) 



" He too first assigned to all creatures distinct names, 

 distinct acts, and distinct occupations, (ib. 21.) 



" He gave being to time, and the divisions of time, 

 to the stars also and the planets, to rivers, oceans, and 

 mountains ; to level plains, and uneven valliee. (ib. 

 24.) 



" For the sake of distinguishing actions, he made a 

 total difference between right and Avrong. (ib. 26.) 



" Having divided his own substance, the mighty power 

 became half male, half female, (ib. 32.) 



" He whose powers are incomprehensible having Cosmos 

 created this universe, was again absorbed in the spirit, ny. 

 changing the time of energy for the time of repose." "*" 

 (ib. 56.) 



In these passages, we have evidently a philosophical 

 comment on the account of creation as given by Moses; 

 or as transmitted from one generation to another by 

 oral tradition : and it would not detract in the least 

 degree from the credit of Moses, were we even to sup- 

 pose the Hindoo account to be more ancient than his ; 

 of which, however, there is not the shadow of proba- 

 bility. 



We also see in these passages the rudiments of the 

 Platonic philosophy, the eternal ideas in the Divine 

 mind, &c. ; and were any question to arise respecting 

 the original author of these notions, we should have 

 little hesitation in giving it against the Greeks. They 

 Were the greatest plagiaries both in literature and phi- 

 losophy, and they have scarcely an article of literary 

 property which they can cab 1 then own, except their 

 poetry. Their sages penetrated into Egypt and India, 

 and on their return stigmatised the natives of these 

 countries as barbarians, lest they should be suspected 

 of stealing then inventions. The same principle led 

 both Egyptians and Indians to conceal the source from 

 which they derived then knowledge, and to appropri- 

 ate to themselves all the information which they had 

 gleaned by their intercourse with more enlightened 

 people. Hence the extravagant pretensions of both 

 these nations to antiquity, both as to then - bterary pro- . 

 ductions and their political establishments ; pretensions- 

 which now shrink into very limited dimensions, and 

 excite the derision rather than the wonder of the learn- 

 ed. 



After the account which has been given of the prin- 

 cipal systems of cosmogony, and of their respective 

 merits, it will not be necessary to dwell long on those . 

 which are formed on similar principles. The Chaldean 

 cosmogony, according to Berosus, in his Babylonica, 

 as preserved by Syncellus, when divested of allegory, 

 seems to resolve itself into this, that darkness and wa- 

 ter existed from eternity ; that Belus divided the hu- 

 mid mass, and gave birth to creation ; that the hu- . 

 man mind is an emanation from the divine nature. 



The cosmogony of the Persians is very clumsy in its 

 structure. They introduce two eternal principles, the 

 one good, called Oromasdes, the other evil, called Ari- 

 manius ; and they make these two principles contend 

 Avitli each other in the creation and government of the 

 world. Each has Ins province, which he strives to en- 

 large, and Mithras is the mediator to moderate their , 

 contentions. This is the most inartificial plan that has- 

 been devised to account for the existence of evil, and 

 lias the least pretensions to a philosophical basis. 



The Egyptian cosmogony, according to the account 

 given of it by Plutarch, seems to bear a strong resem- 

 blance to the Phenician, as detailed by Sanehoniatho. 

 According to the Egyptian account, there was an eter- 

 nal chaos, and an eternal spirit united with it, whose 

 agency at last arranged the discordant materials, and 

 produced the visible system of the universe. 



The cosmogony of the northern nations, as may be 

 collected from the Edda, supposes an eternal principle 

 prior to the formation of the world. 



The Orphic Fragments state every thing to have ex- 

 isted in God, and to proceed from him. The notion 

 implied in this maxim is suspected to be Pantheistic, 

 that is, to hold the universe to be God,^ 



