The oldest of the Greek myths of creation are to be found in Homer and Hesiod. For Homer, Oceanus is the father of the gods, while Tethys, called the suckling or nursing one, is the mother. Back of these august, generative powers, however, lies Night whom even Zeus is afraid to offend. We must remember that darkness is a presence for early man, as real as water or air, and that man feared it as mysterious and threatening. Always we must put aside the knowledge which science has given us and sink down into this vague world of the past, filled with tremendous shapes and forces. Hesiod's view is best given in his own words: "From chaos were generated Erebos and black Night, And from Night again were generated Ether and Day, Whom she brought forth, having conceived from the embrace of Erebos." Here we have the same sexual motive at work as among the Egyptians; a motive which, as we should expect, {35} is well-nigh universal. During the sixth century there was an efflorescence of creation myths among the Greeks. These are associated with the name of Orpheus, and are commonly classed together as Orphic cosmogonies. Soon after, philosophic speculation began to come into its own and the Greeks "left off telling tales." Burnet, a famous student of Greek culture, asserts that "history teaches that science has never existed except among those peoples which the Greeks have influenced." But we shall leave the Greeks for the present; it may be that we shall meet them, and their influence again. The Hindoos passed from crude views to more abstract and refined concepts just as the Egyptians and Greeks did. In the Vedic period, there are many contradictory statements about the creation of the world and of the gods. Heaven and earth are spoken of as the parents of the gods, and at the same time the gods are said to have built, or woven, the whole world. When we remember that there was little distinction at first between nature and the gods, we are not surprised at this contradiction. Moreover, as one writer suggests, this contradiction seems only to have enhanced the mystery of the conception. When religion enters, logic is not always desired.