This creation scheme of the Phœnicians has a peculiar interest for the Western world, because of the intimate relations that existed between the Phœnicians and the Jews. For a similar reason the ideas of the Babylonians and the Assyrians, as recorded on the so-called creation tablets exhumed at Nineveh, have fascinated the Bible scholars. Trending still further to the East, one finds with the Hindus a slightly different cast of thought couched in a no less poetic diction. Thus in one of the sacred books, Brahma, the Eternal Worker, is represented as creating the earth while seeing his own reflection in the ocean of sweat that had fallen from his brow (Réclus). The Chinese scheme of cosmogony is presented in the form of alleged answers to questions, by Confucius. Here is a characteristic excerpt as translated by M’Clatchie: “At the beginning of Heaven and Earth, before chaos was divided, I think there were only two things, Fire and Water; and the sediment of the water formed the Earth. When we ascend a height and look down, the host of hills resemble the waves of the sea in appearance; the Water just flowed like this: I know not at what period it coagulated. At first it was very soft, but afterward it coagulated and became hard. One asked whether it resembled sand thrown up by the tide? He replied, Just so: the coarsest sediment of the Water became the Earth, and the most pure portion of the Fire became Wind, Thunder, Lightning, Sun, and Stars. “Being asked: From the commencement of Heaven and Earth to the present time is not 10,000 years; I know not how it was before that time? He replied, Before that there was another clear opening (_i.e._ another Heaven and Earth) like the present one. Being further asked whether Heaven and Earth can perish altogether, he replied, They cannot: but, when mankind totally degenerate, then the whole shall return to Chaos, and Men and things shall all cease to exist; and then the World shall begin again. Some one asked how the first Man was generated; and he replied by the transmutation of the Air; the subtle portions of the Light and Darkness and the Five Elements united and produced his form. The Buddhists call this transmuting and generating. At present things are transmuted and generated in abundance like lice.