Knowing nothing of the planetary system, early man had to
account in his own way for the apparent fixity of the earth, and
as the Greeks invented the giant Atlas, the Hindus contrived
a huge turtle to bear the world upon its patient back. What
sustained the giant or the monster, the ancient mind inquired
not. To make everything out of anything and believe with
implicit faith in his own creations was the happy faculty of
early man, not entirely fallen from possession in these days
of all-questioning. The first Egyptians knew that the heavens
and the earth were formed by the breaking of the cosmic egg,
an idea suggested by the resemblance of the skies to the half
of an eggshell. That is as poetic and more agreeable than the
Norse idea of a giant dashed to pieces to make earth, water, and
starry firmament. The Mexican legend as to the creation of man
resembles the Hebraic, clay and the breath of life admitted.
But the North American Indians explain the mixt nature of man
by declaring that the daughter of the Great Spirit, living in
the wigwam, Mount Shasta, stole forth one day, was seized by a
patriarchal grizzly, who took her home and wedded her to his
son. Man was the result of this union. As a punishment for
the sacrilege in contaminating the race of the Great Spirit,
grizzlies were deprived the power of speech and made to wander
ever after on all fours.--Chicago _Inter-Ocean_.
(590)
=Cosmopolitanism=--See AMERICANISM, TRUE.
=Cosmopolitanism in Education=--See EDUCATION BY TRAVEL.
=Cost of Disease=--See HEALTH AND SCIENCE.