the mammoth, the urus, the lion, and the hyena? Can we ever imagine a mammoth saying to himself, Who is my father? Who was my grandfather, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, the father of all fathers, our Father in heaven? Can we imagine even the most favoured specimen of the socalled Pithecanthropos, the ape-man, uttering the question, Whence comes this world? Yet in the earliest relics of ancient thought, in the hymns of the Rig-veda, that question is asked. I cannot enter here on the question how far the hymns of the Rigveda are modern or ancient. Let them be as modern as you like, yet to the historian they represent the earliest human thought within his reach. In that Rig-veda then, and I am quite willing to admit in a hymn which, compared with others, strikes me as decidedly more modern, the poet asks:

Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here, Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?'

That it sprang from somewhere, or, as we should say, that it was contingent on something non-contingent, is taken for granted. There is as yet no cosmological argument. But yet the question is there, and to my mind that question is far more important than all its answers. It is in that question, in the power of asking that question, that the true nerve of the cosmological argument lies. Man is so made that he cannot be satisfied with mere perceptions, but must proceed to ask whence they come. Philosophers may tell us that it is a very foolish and illogical question to ask; but it is not the fault of the nightingale that it sings, nor is it the fault of man that he asks Whence? There is no power on earth to

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stop that question, not even the power of logic. The answers themselves, as I said before, are far less important, but they are interesting nevertheless as showing us the historical development of the human mind when brought face to face with that Whence?

Answers to the Cosmological Question.

Every kind of answer, more or less childish to our mind, was given to that question in India, in China, in Palestine, and in Greece; and, what is important, some of the earliest answers did not suggest creation by a personal creator, but something very like what is now called evolution. In India, as in Greece, water was at first guessed to have been the beginning of all things, then fire and heat and every kind of element, but not yet a creator. Sometimes fire is placed first, as by Heraclitus, afterwards water, and then the earth, and the wind 1. We see here again that what is often supposed to be a very modern, is in reality a very ancient theory of the origin of the world, the theory of emanation, closely connected with the theory of evolution.

Emanation.

We can study it in its appearance and reappearance from century to century.

In the hymns of the Rig-veda the two ideas of an uncreated and self-developing world, and of a creator · or a maker, run side by side.

We find the first traces of a maker or creator in the Vedic deity, called Tvashtar, the carpenter, TéкTwv, then the maker, who is described as a clever workman (a pasâm apastamah X. 53, 9), having good

1 Heracliti Reliquiae, ed. Bywater, xxi.

hands (supâni III. 54, 12, sugabhasti VI. 49, 9); and even as a smith, forging the thunder-bolt for Indra (I. 32, 2). But he is also the maker of the world and of all creatures in it. Thus we read, Rv. III. 55, 19:

Devas tvashtâ savitâ visvarûpah
Puposha pragâh purudhâ gagâna,
Ima ka visvâ bhuvanâni asya,

The god Tvashtar, the enlivener, endowed with many forms, has nourished the creatures and produced them in many ways; all these worlds are his.' And again, Vâg. Samh. XXIX. 9:

Tvashtâ idam visvam bhuvanam gagâna,

Tvashtar has begotten this whole world.'

Another god who is often put prominently forward as the maker of the world is Visvakarman, literally the All-maker, who is afterwards called Pragâpati, lord of creatures (Sat. Br. VIII. 2, 1, 10). Of him we read, Rv. X. 81, 2:

'What was the stand on which he rested, how was it and where, from whence the all-seeing Visvakarman, creating the earth, disclosed the sky by his power?'

'The god who has eyes on every side, and a face on every side, and arms on every side, and feet on every side, when he creates heaven and earth, being alone, he forges them with his arms and with wings (used as bellows) 1.'

'What was the wood, what was the tree whence they fashioned heaven and earth 2? Search, O sages,

1 Muir, iv. 5.

"See also Rv. X. 31, 7, where the same line occurs followed by another, the two, heaven and earth, stand together and do not grow old for ever; but days and dawns have waxed old.'

in your mind for that on which he stood when establishing the worlds.'

Soon, however, the thought appears that all these questions are of no avail, and that no one can discover the secret of creation. Thus the poet of this very hymn finishes by saying:

You will not know him who produced these worlds; something else is within you; the chanters of hymns move about enveloped in mist, talking vaguely and enjoying life.'

Emanation or Srishti.

There is, however, a second stream of ideas which likewise comes to the surface in the Veda. The world is spoken of as having been originally water without light (salilam apraketam), and very soon water is mentioned as the beginning of all things. But in this very same hymn (X. 129), the poet admits that no one knows, and no one can declare whence this creation sprang. The gods even came after it, and he who is called the seer in the highest heaven, even he may know, or he may not know.

The very word which we generally translate by creation teaches us a lesson. It is visrishti, and comes from a root srig, which means simply to let out, so that visrishti comes much nearer to emanation or even evolution than to creation.

The idea that water was the beginning of the world became soon very popular. It is said in the Rig-veda 'the waters contained a germ from which everything else sprang forth' (Rv. X. 82, 5-6; X. 121, 7).

Golden Egg.

In the Brâhmanas we find it plainly stated that this (universe) was in the beginning water, 'Âpo ha vâ idam agre salilam âsa.' From the water arose a golden egg, which floated about for a year. Then a male arose and this was Pragâpati, the lord of creatures. He divided the golden egg and floated about in it for another year. He then spoke those words, bhûr, bhuvah and svar, and by them he created the earth, the firmament, and the sky. This golden egg too became a very favourite topic. Thus we read in the Khandogya-Upanishad III. 191: 'In the beginning this was not. It became, it grew. I turned into an egg. The egg lay for the time of a year. It broke open. The two halves were one of silver, the other of gold.

'The silver one became this earth, the golden one the sky, the thick membrane (of the white) the mountains, the thin membrane (of the yoke) the mist with the clouds, the small veins the rivers, the fluid the sea.

When

'And what was born from it was the sun. he was born shouts of hurrah arose, and all beings arose, and all things which they desired. Therefore whenever the sun rises and sets, shouts of hurrah arise, and all beings arise, and all things which they desire.'

The idea of the world beginning as an egg is so natural that we cannot be surprised when we meet with it again and again in different parts of the world where historical communication seems out of the

1 This is paraphrased in Manu I. 9–13.