day; and
as he is the sun, or the incarnation of the sun, the rising and setting
of this luminary depict the constantly dying and regenerating God of
Nature, the same as do the changing seasons. A similar idea reappears in
their system of the renewal of worlds and reincarnation.

Regarding the doctrine of the eternity of matter held by the ancients,
Origen mentions a belief of the Egyptians that the

"world or its substance was never produced, but that it has existed from
all eternity. Neither is there any such thing as death. Those who perish
about us every day are simply changed, either they take on other forms
or are removed to some other place. God cannot be destroyed, and as all
things are parts of the Deity everything lives and has always lived,
seeming death being simply change. Remnants of these doctrines are found
in every portion of the globe; among the Mexicans of the west as well as
among the rude mountaineers of the Burman Empire."

While contemplating the philosophical speculations of an ancient race
Bailly gave expression to the belief, that a "profoundly learned race
of people existed previous to the formation of any of our systems." The
wiser among the Greek philosophers, those who, it is believed, borrowed
their philosophical doctrines from the East, declare that "there is no
production of anything which was not before; no new substance made
which did not really pre-exist." Equally with matter was spirit
indestructible. "Our soul," says Plato, "was somewhere, before it came
to exist in this present form; whence it appears to be immortal.... Who
knows whether that which is demonstrated living, be not indeed rather
dying, and whether that which is styled dying be not rather living?"

To one who has given attention to the various legends relative to the
destruction of the world by a flood, and a storm-tossed mariner saved
in an ark or boat, it is plain that they all have the same significance,
all are but different versions of the same myth, which in an early age
was used to conceal the philosophical doctrines of an ancient people.

That the early historic nations understood little concerning the origin
and true meaning of the legends which they had inherited from an
older race is quite evident. The ignorance of the Greeks regarding the
significance of these legends is shown by the following: When Solon,
wishing to acquaint himself with the history of the oldest times,
inquired of an Egyptian priest c