The last of these destructions was generally blended with the notion of the emergence of the solid land from the primeval waters; and this is the origin of the Deluge Myth, the story of the Universal Flood, which we find in so many primitive peoples. It has excited especial attention, and by writers has been explained as the remembrance of some local overflow, or the recollection of the Hebrew tradition. Its real origin, purely psychic and derived from the myth of the Epochs of Nature, I explained thirty years ago in discussing its prevalence among American tribes.[147] _4. The Earthly Paradise._—Associated with this cycle is the myth of the terrestrial Paradise, watered by its four rivers, and enclosing the tree of life,—the happy abode of early man. The four rivers are the celestial streams from the four corners of the earth, watering the tree as the emblem of life. Thus we find it among the American Indians, the Sioux and the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Polynesians, the ancient Aryans and Semites, etc.[148] Its origin is purely psychic, and though we can easily understand how the writer of the Book of Genesis sought to identify these mythical streams with some known to him, it is strangely out of date for scholars of to-day to follow his footsteps in that vain quest.[149] _5. The Conflict of Nature._—Another great cycle of psychic myths arose from the conflict of nature as apprehended by the primitive mind. Everywhere it seems to be raging around us. The hourly struggle of light with darkness; of day with night; of sunshine with storm; of summer with winter; of youth with age, of health with disease; of life with death; of all that makes toward good with all that makes toward evil—this endless battle of two principles underlies all movement and is forever stirring the soul to throw itself into the fray. In a thousand forms this eternal combat was portrayed in myths, all pregnant with one meaning, bodying it forth in varied symbol and expression. The world-wide stories of the conflict of the first two brothers, of men with gods, of giants with heroes, of the deities among themselves, arose from this perception of the unceasing interaction of natural forces, imagined as a war between conscious existences. _6. The Returning Saviour._—Out of this imagined turmoil and slaughter grew the wonderful mythical cycles concerning the Deliverer and Saviour. He would come from afar, out of the morning light or the distant sky, or he would be born of a virgin and the son of a god. He would lead his people to happiness and power, crushing by his might the enemies who afflicted them, whether on earth or among the envious gods. Blond-bearded and light-haired, even among Polynesians and Americans, we cannot err in seeing in this majestic figure the personified idea of Light, transferred from the plane of physical phenomena into that of psychical anticipation.[150]