118 PROF. H. LANGHORNE ORCHARD, M.A., B.SC., ON 
of the Ani Papyrus, a Theban recension of the very ancient 
Egyptian Book of the Dead. In it the god speaks thus of 
himself and of creation : — 
“I am he who evolved himself. I, the evolver of the evolutions, 
evolved myself, the evolver of all evolutions and developments 
which came forth out of mry mouth . I 
developed from the primeval matter which I had made.”* 
According to Sakyamuni (Gautama Buddh) the basis of the 
universe is matter, and, in modern times, a similar idea has 
been advanced by Buchner. Be Mallet (in the eighteenth 
century) claims to have had a revelation that all things came 
from water. An unknown gentleman named Higgins, described 
as “ the Inventor of Evolution,” affirmed (in 1798) his belief 
that “ the filament of organization ” is protoplasm. Andrew 
Lang says 
“ that Higgins, with unequalled modesty, put forth his epoch- 
making conjecture in a periodical publication, and in a mere foot- 
note to a poem.” Protoplasm is introduced as “ the filament of 
organization.” “ This filament, after an infinite series of ages, 
would begin (why not ?) to ramify, and its viviparous offspring 
would diversify their forms and habits so as to conform themselves 
to their various incunabula (or environments).” . . . “ Upon 
this view of things,” continues Higgins, “ it seems highly probable 
that the first effort of nature terminated in the production of 
vegetables, and that these, being abandoned to their own energies, 
by degrees detached themselves from the surface of the earth, and 
supplied themselves with wings or feet. . . . Others would 
become men who in time would restrict themselves to the use of 
their hind feet. Their tails would gradually rub off by sitting in 
their caves or huts. They would invent language.” 
A somewhat similar commencement is assigned to man in 
Mr. A. R. Dewar’s recent book, A Magnetic Theory of the 
Universe. Here we are told that 
“ Man’s first progenitors . . . probably appeared on the earth 
as spontaneously produced protoplasmic cells or ovules, hundreds or 
thousands in number, developed by sexual and magnetic affinities 
from a flux of the chemical elements in some ambrosial inlet of 
water.” 
Multiple Origin. — The theory just outlined maybe regarded 
as an example of an endeavour, more or less plausible, to trace 
all things to a multiple, generally dual, origin. About 600 B.c. 
* See Budge , p. 99, and note 
