The cosmogony of the ancient Egyptians, though more obscure, is given by Diodorus Siculus. “Damascius having inquired about what was the first principle in the world, gives this as an ancient Egyptian doctrine. The Egyptians have chosen to celebrate the first cause as _unspeakable_. They accordingly style it _darkness unknown_ and mention it with a three-fold acclamation. Again. In this manner the Egyptians styled the first principle _an inconceivable darkness; night and darkness past all imagination_.” This is perfectly consonant to passages from the same author, quoted by Dr. Cudworth. “There is one origin of all things, celebrated by the name of _unknown_ (incomprehensible) _darkness_.” Again. “They hold, that the first beginning or cause of things was _darkness beyond all conception; an unknown darkness_.” Hesiod mentions, “A chaos as first existing. Next was produced the spacious earth, the seat of the immortals; Tartarus hid within the recesses of the ample globe; and divine love, the most beautiful of the deities. From chaos sprung Erebus, and black night; and from the union of night and Erebus were born ether and the day.”[26] Zeno, of Cittium, the founder of the Stoics, said, Hesiod meant by the chaos, “Water, out of which all things were formed, which by concretion became firm earth.” In the work of Aristophanes, we meet with a similar passage. “Chaos, and night, and black Erebus, and wide Tartarus, first existed; at that time, there was neither earth, air, nor heaven. But in the bosom of Erebus, black-winged night produced an aërial egg; from which, in due season, beautiful Love, decked with golden wings, was born. Out of dark chaos, in the midst of wide-spreading Tartarus, he begot our race, and called us forth into the light.”[27] It is unnecessary to multiply quotations to prove, that the ancients were not only acquainted with the cosmogony of Moses, but received it as true; to which they added their own coloring. [It is now generally agreed by cosmogonists, commentators, biblical critics, and natural philosophers, that the _substance_ of the earth certainly, and probably the materials of the Solar System, was first created in a chaotic state, and subsequently arranged in order. This opinion is very ancient and almost universal, found in all nations. Ovid, an ancient heathen poet, has well described this chaos: Ante mare et terras, et, quod teget omnia, Cœlum, Unus erat toto naturæ vultus in orbe, Quem dixére Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles, Nec quicquam nisi pondus iners; congestaque eodem. Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball, And heaven’s high canopy that covers all: _One_ was the face of nature if a face: _Rather a rude and indigested mass: A lifeless lump, unfashioned and unframed, Of jarring seeds, and justly_ CHAOS _named_.--Dryden.