drawn by
solar rays. This God was in fact the same as Zeus, Bacchus, and all the
rest of the sun and water Deities. It has been observed that, according
to the ancient cosmogonies, within water was contained the life
principle, and as a woman presided over it, or was the only being or
entity present, she must have been the self-existent Creator. From this
woman sprang all creation. According to the account in Genesis, the
Spirit of God moved on the face of the deep and creation began.

By all nations water has been employed as a symbol of regeneration,
and as it contained the beginning of things it was female. The Hindoos
regard it as sacred, and in one of their most solemn prayers it is thus
invoked: Waters, mothers of worlds, purify us!(78)

78) Quoted by Inman from Colbrook, vol. i., p. 85.

Doubtless it was from these ancient speculations regarding the
beginnings of things that Thales, the Milesian philosopher, received his
doctrine that water is the original principle. The ancient Egyptians
and the Jewish people to this day have the custom of pouring out all the
water contained in any vessel in a house where a death has taken place,
because of the idea that as the living being comes from water, so does
it make its exit through water. Hence "to drink or to use in any way a
fluid which contains the life of human beings would be a foul offense."

The fact is noted by Inman that in all Assyrian mythology the water
God Hea is associated with life and with a serpent. Although Rawlinson
declares that Hea is Babylonian rather than Assyrian, may she not, in
view of the facts concerning her, be not only Babylonian, but Egyptian,
Indian, Phrygian, Mexican, and all the rest?

It would seem that in this Deity, who is figured in connection with a
shield and serpent, as is Minerva, and who is worshipped near water--an
emblem which is sacred to her,--and whose titles correspond exactly
to those of Neith or Cybele, might be traced the remnants of a once
universal worship--a worship in which the female energy constituted the
Creator.

Although it is declared that "great obscurity surrounds the God Hea," no
one, I think, whose mind is free from prejudice, and who understands the
significance of the early god-idea, and the true meaning of the symbols
used in later ages to express it, can study the myths connected with
this Deity without at once recognizing her identity with the great
female God of Nature who was once wo