rtment, originate a nonsense equally great of their own.
The error of concluding that the worlds of the universe are finite in
number, say the sacred books, is the heresy _antawada_; the error of
concluding that the world itself is infinite is the heresy _anantawada_;
the error of concluding that the world is finite vertically but infinite
horizontally is the heresy _anantanantawada_; and the error of
concluding the world to be neither finite nor infinite is the heresy
_nawantanantawada_. A name equally formidable would be, of course, found
for the students of modern astronomy and the other kindred sciences,
among the professed believers in Buddh, did not these contrive to get
over the difficulty by observing, "that certain things, as stated in
the _Sastras_, must have been so formerly; but great changes have taken
place in these in latter times; and for astronomical purposes
astronomical rules must be followed."

Believers in Buddhism may be still found by tens of millions on the
shores of the Yellow Sea. Let me select my third specimen of a
universe-fashioning mythology from a faith, long since extinct, that had
its seat on the opposite side of the Old World, along the coasts of the
Northern Atlantic. The old Teutonic religion professed to reveal, like
that of Buddh and of Brahma, _how_ the heavens and earth were formed,
and of _what_. Ymir, the great frost-giant, a being mysteriously
engendered out of frozen vapor, was slain by the god Odin and his
brothers; and, dragging his body into the middle of the universe, they
employed the materials of which it was composed in forming the earth. Of
his blood they made the vast ocean, and all the lakes and rivers; of his
flesh they constructed the land, placing it in the midst of the waters;
of his bones they built up the mountains; his teeth and jaws they broke
up into the stones and pebbles of the earth and shore; of his great
skull they fashioned the vault of the heavens; and, tossing his brains
into the air, they became the clouds. Earth, sea, and sky, however, thus
made, were supported by the great ash-tree Yggdrasill, which, with its
roots anchored deep in the primordial abyss, rose up through the vast
central mountains of the world, and, stretching forth its branches to
the furthest heaven, bore the stars as its fruit. Encircling the whole
earth like a ring, lay the huge snake Midgard,--always hidden in the
sea, save when half drawn forth on one occasion by the god Thor;