The Maoris, when first discovered by Europeans, were in a comparatively advanced stage of barbarism. Their society had definite ranks, from that of the Rangatira, the chief with a long pedigree, to the slave. Their religious hymns, of great antiquity, have been collected and translated by Grey, Taylor, Bastian and others. The mere possession of such hymns, accurately preserved for an unknown number of years by oral tradition, proves that the mythical notions of the Maoris have passed through the minds of professed bards and early physical speculators. The verses, as Bastian has observed (_Die Heilige Sage der Polynesier_), display a close parallel to the roughest part of the early Greek cosmogonies, as expounded by Hesiod. Yet in the Maori hymns there are metaphysical ideas and processes which remind one more of Heraclitus than of Hesiod, and perhaps more of Hegel than of either. Whether we are to regard the abstract conceptions or the rude personal myths of gods such as A, the Beyond All, as representing the earlier development of Maori thought, whether one or the other element is borrowed, not original, are questions which theorists of different schools will settle in their own way to their own satisfaction. Some hymns represent the beginning of things from a condition of thought, and Socrates might have said of the Maori poets as he did of Anaxagoras, that compared with other early thinkers, they are "like sober men among drunkards". Thus one hymn of the origins runs thus:-- From the conception the increase, From the increase the swelling, From the swelling the thought, From the thought the remembrance, From the remembrance the desire. The word became fruitful, It dwelt with the feeble glimmering, It brought forth Night. From the nothing the begetting, It produced the atmosphere which is above us. The atmosphere above dwelt with the glowing sky, Forthwith was produced the sun. Then the moon sprang forth. They were thrown up above as the chief eyes of heaven, Then the heavens became light. The sky which floats above dwelt with Hawaiki,* And produced (certain islands). * The islands of Hawaiki, being then the only land known, is put for Papa, the earth. Then follow genealogies of gods, down to the chief in whose family this hymn was traditional.* * Taylor, New Zealand, pp. 110-112. Other hymns of the same character, full of such metaphysical and abstract conceptions as "the proceeding from the nothing," are quoted at great length.