The same physico-theology appears in the Orphean verses, I swear by those, the generating powers, Whence sprang the gods that have eternal being; Fire, Water, Earth, and Heaven, the Moon and Sun, Great Love effulgent, and the sable Night! and in another fragment, preserved by Eusebius: (Præparat. Evang. iii. 9.) Fire, water, earth, and ether, night and day, Metis, first sire, and all-delighting Love. Metis is Minerva or Vulcan, the mind of the universe already noticed. From a general view of the Ægyptian and Orphic theogonies, they would appear to consist in an atheistic materialism; for although they acknowledge a certain divine, or active, principle pervading and animating passive matter, nothing can be inferred from this, superior to a physical operative energy. Jablonski indeed contends that, exclusive of the worship of the signs of the zodiac, and the solar and lunar phenomena, the more ancient Ægyptians recognized an _intelligent_ power, or infinite Eternal Mind, on whose wisdom the operations of the _sensible_ or visible divinities depended. But it may be doubted whether this controlling intelligence were any thing different from the before described emanation of the supposed ethereal spirit of holy dæmons, or deified men. Hesiod begins his poem on the generation of the gods with certain cosmogonical principles. Chaos first exists; then Earth; and thirdly Love. Erebus and Night spring from Chaos, and generate Ether and Day; and Earth produces Heaven. But we search in vain through the rest of the work for the subtile intelligence of the Orphic philosophy. It has been attempted, indeed, to reduce the whole into a consistent scheme of theogonic physiology, by allegorizing the supernatural battles into volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and earthquakes; but much would still remain incapable of being wrested to a physical sense. On certain crude principles of cosmogonical tradition, and lineal generations of gods, intermingled with the generation of the world, the theogonist has ingrafted ancient legendary histories, and poetical and moral allegories. The historical mythology is alone significant; for every thing respecting the nature of the gods was in Hesiod’s time perverted and misunderstood. The bard was no longer clothed in the robe of the hierophant.