76 
THE COSMOGONY 
what source this creation arose, and whether any one created 
it or not !" All he can affirm with confidence is that " He 
who is in the highest heaven is its ruler, He verUy knows or 
(even) He does not know." Another poet in the same 
melancholy strain of ignorance and uncertainty asks, " What 
was the forest, what was the tree, from which they fashioned 
the heaven and the earth? Enquire mentally, ye sages, what 
that was on which he took his stand when estabhshing 
the worlds " (R.V., X. 31, 7) ; and similarly another poet, 
" Which of these two (heaven and earth) was the fii'st and 
which the last ? How have they been produced ; declare, 
sages, who knows this ?" (R.V., I. 185, 1). What a sad com- 
ment this is on the words of the Apostle Paul — " The world 
by wisdom knew not Grod !" (1 Cor. i., 21). Speculative and 
religious truths beyond the range of experience cannot be 
known with that degree of certainty which can satisfy the 
human mind, except by an authoritative revelation from the 
Author of our being. Even Socrates declared that he knew 
only this, that he knew nothing ! 
This is the most ancient and the most vivid reproduction 
of the primitive faith respecting the origin of the universe. 
It contains all the essential elements of the Mosaic nan-a- 
tive, differing only in being more vague and given with less 
certainty. The fundamental idea that the eternally self- 
existent One created the world by the power of his own 
will without pre-existent matter, and the chronological order 
— first, will or desire, then chaos or undigested matter, and, 
lastly, this beautiful world, — axe identical in both. Now 
this idea of creation from nothing cannot be accounted for 
on natural grounds, for there is nothing in natui-e to indicate 
that something can be produced from nothing. The consti- 
tution of the human mind is such that it cannot think of 
anything beginning to exist in essence, but only in form. It 
is evident, therefore, that the idea of creation from nothing is 
not the product of reason, but of divine revelation. 
