The Egyptian philosophers pretended that man was made of the mud of the Nile.[33] In Aristophanes,[34] man is spoken of as πλάσματα πηλοῦ. Among some of the Chinese it is believed that man was thus formed:—“The book Fong-zen-tong says: When the earth and heaven were made, there was not as yet man or peoples. Then Niu-hoa moulded yellow earth, and of that made man. That is the true origin of men.”[35] And the ancient Chaldeans supposed man was made by the mixing of the blood of Belus with the soil.[36] 2. THE PRE-ADAMITES. In 1655, Isaac de la Peyreira, a converted Jew, published a curious treatise on the Pre-Adamites. Arguing upon Romans v. 12-14, he contended that there were two creations of man; that recorded in the first chapter of Genesis and that described in the second chapter being distinct. The first race he supposed to have peopled the whole world, but that it was bad, and therefore Adam had been created with a spiritual soul, and that from Adam the Jewish race was descended, whereas the Gentile nations issued from the loins of the Pre-Adamites. Consequently the original sin of Adam weighed only on his descendants, and Peyreira supposed that it was his race alone which perished, with the exception of Noah and his family, in the Deluge, which Peyreira contends was partial. This book was condemned and burnt in Paris by the hands of the executioner, and the author, who had taken refuge in Brussels, was there condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities. He appealed to Rome, whither he journeyed, and he was received with favour by Alexander VII., before whom he abjured Calvinism, which he had professed. He died at the age of 82, at Aubervilliers, near Paris, and Moreri wrote the following epigrammatic epitaph for him:— “La Peyrère ici gît, ce bon Israélite, Huguenot, catholique, enfin pré-Adamite. Quatre religions lui plurent à la fois; Et son indifférence était si peu commune, Qu’après quatre-vingts ans qu’il eut à faire un choix, Le bon homme partit et n’en choisit aucune.” The Oriental book Huschenk-Nameh gives a fuller history of the Pre-Adamites. Before Adam was created, says this book, there were in the isle Muscham, one of the Maldives, men with flat heads, and for this reason they were called by the Persians, Nim-ser. They were governed by a king named Dambac. When Adam, expelled the earthly Paradise, established himself in the Isle of Ceylon, the flat-heads submitted to him. After his death they guarded his tomb by day, and the lions relieved guard by night, to protect his body against the Divs. Footnote 19: Weil, Biblische Legenden der Muselmänner. Frankfort, 1845, pp. 12-16. Footnote 20: Geiger, Was hat Mohammed aus d. Judenthum aufgenommen? p. 99. Footnote 21: So also Abulfeda, Hist. Ante-Islamica, ed. Fleischer. Lipsiæ, 1831, p. 13. Footnote 22: Tabari, i. c. xxvi. Footnote 23: