le universe were
hidden in the "great deep"--that animal creation sprang from the earth
and the sea through the influence of the sun's rays.

It is now known that the philosophy of an older race involved a belief
in the Eternity of Matter. The abstruse doctrine of Reincarnation
and the Renewal of Worlds seems to have formed the basis of their
philosophy. According to these speculations, a portion of the earth was
destroyed or resolved into its primary elements every six hundred years,
while at the end of each Kalpia, or great Cycle of several thousand
years, the entire earth was renovated or absorbed into the two
fecundating principles of the universe. These two indivisible forces
represented by Vishnu rested in the water, or brooded on the face of the
deep. When stirred by love for each other they again became active, and
from the germs of a former world, which had been absorbed by themselves,
created again the earth and everything upon it. In other words, "the
earth sprang from the navel of Vishnu or Brahme." According to the
Buddhists of Ceylon, the universe has perished ten different times,
and each time has been renewed by the operations of Nature, or by the
preservation of germs from a former world. In their mythology these
germs are represented by a parent and a triplicated offspring. It is
perhaps unnecessary to add that this monad trinity is the Creator,
Preserver, and Destroyer with their great parent, the Mother of the
Gods, which in process of time came to be regarded as male. According to
Wilford, Hindoo chronology presents fourteen different periods, six of
which have already elapsed; we are in the seventh, which began with
the flood. Each of these periods is called a Manwantara, the presiding
genius or Deity of which is a Menu. At the close of each dynasty a total
destruction of the world takes place, everything being destroyed except
the ruler, or Menu, who "escapes in a boat." Each new world is an exact
counterpart of the one destroyed, and each Menu is a representation of
all preceding ones. Thus the history of one dynasty serves for all the
rest. This doctrine of a triplicated Deity appearing at the beginning of
a new creation may be traced in nearly every country of the globe. Among
the Buddhists of China, Fo is mysteriously multiplied into three persons
in the same manner as is Fo-hi, who is evidently Noah. Among the Hindoos
is observed the triad Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva springing from the monad
Bra