[257] Compare the following passage in the Bishop of Chalons' "Le Monde et l'Homme Primitif" (with reference to Gen. i.--the Creation). At p. 11 the Bishop says, "That when the Book of the Law of Manou and the Mahabarata relate that God, who contains within Himself his own principle in the first instance, the water, and gave it fecundity, and that the produce of this fecundity became _an egg_, ... can we see in this anything else than the fantastic translation of this phrase of Scripture, 'L'esprit de Dieu _couvait_ la surface des eaux--Rouha Elohim meharephet hal pene hammaïm.'" _Vide_ also p. 11 (as to universality of tradition) and p. 34 as to text also. J. G. Vance ("Archæol." xix.) says, upon the mundane egg "the whole system of ancient religion was based" (J. B. Waring, "Stone Monuments of Remote Ages," p. 5, 1870). It strikes me that it would be difficult to assign a Christian origin for the custom. It must then have been a custom which the Church diverted or sanctioned in giving it an innocent or Christian application; in which case, in so far as it is pagan, it may possibly be traced to a common origin with the practices in Khasia among the Lepchas. It would extend the inquiry too far to follow Sir J. Lubbock through all the cases adduced by him. I will conclude, therefore, with his account of the Andaman islander--who, with the Australians, Esquimaux, and Fuegians, dispute the point of being considered the lowest of mankind. It is said of the Andamans, "that they have no idea of a Supreme Being, no religion, or any belief in a future state of existence" (p. 346). It is, however, casually mentioned that, "after death, the corpse is buried in a sitting posture." Now this mode of burial is common to them with Esquimaux (p. 409), the Australians (p. 353), the Maories (p. 369), and the natives of the Feegee Islands (p. 361), among whom we seem to get a clue to this strange mode of burial; "the fact is, _they_ (the Feegee islanders) not only believe in a future state, but are persuaded that as they leave this life, so will they rise again." Sir J. Lubbock, in his "Introduction to Prof. Nillson" (xxxiii.), says that this was the common mode of burial in the Stone Age; and Prescott ("Hist. of Mexico," ii. 485) says, "Who can doubt the existence of an affinity, or at least an intercourse, between tribes, who had _the same strange habit of burying the dead in a sitting position_, as was practised to some extent by most if _not all_ of the aborigines from Canada to Patagonia?"[258] But not only may it be presumed that they had an affinity and intercourse, but a common religious idea. It may be doubted then whether even the naked Andaman is so entirely destitute of all religious impressions as he is supposed to be.