Εξ ιλιου εβλαϛησε χθων αυτη,Argonaut. 4.
The Earth of Slime was made,
Affirms (out of Zeno) that the Chaos, whereof all things were made, was, according to Hesiod, Water; which, settling first, became Slime, and then condens’d into solid Earth. And the same Opinion about the Generation of Slime seems to have been entertain’d by Orpheus, out of whom one of the AntientsAthenagoras. cites this Testimony,
Εκ του ὑδατος ιλυι κατιϛη.
Of Water Slime was made.
It seems also by what is delivered in StraboUniversarum rerum primordia diverta esse, faciendi autem mundi initium aquam. Strabo. Geograp. lib. 15. circa medium. out of another Author, concerning the Indians, That they likewise held that all things had differing Beginnings, but that of which the World was made, was Water. And the like Opinion has been by some of the Antients ascrib’d to the Phœnicians, from whom Thales himself is conceiv’d to have borrow’d it; as probably the Greeks did much of their Theologie, and, as I am apt to think, of their Philosophy too; since the Devising of the Atomical Hypothesis commonly ascrib’d to Lucippus and his Disciple Democritus, is by Learned Men attributed to one Moschus a Phœnician. And possibly the Opinion is yet antienter than so; For ’tis known that the Phœnicians borrow’d most of their Learning from the Hebrews. And among those that acknowledge the Books of Moses, many have been inclin’d to think Water to have been the Primitive and Universal Matter, by perusing the Beginning of Genesis, where the Waters seem to be mention’d as the Material Cause, not only of Sublunary Compounded Bodies, but of all those