Creation of The World
The apeiron has generally been understood as a sort of primal chaos. It acts as the substratum supporting opposites such as hot and cold, wet and dry, and directed the movement of things, by which there grew up all of the host of shapes and differences which are found in the world. Out of the vague and limitless body there sprang a central mass — this earth of ours — cylindrical in shape. A sphere of fire surrounded the air around the earth and had originally clung to it like the bark round a tree. When it broke, it created the sun, the moon and the stars. The first animals were generated in the water. When they came to earth they were transmuted by the effect of the sun. The human being sprung from some other animal, which originally was similar to a fish. The blazing orbs, which have drawn off from the cold earth and water, are the temporary gods of the world clustering around the earth, which to the ancient thinker is the central figure.
Read more about this topic: Apeiron (cosmology)
Famous quotes containing the words the world, creation of, creation and/or world:
“In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance, upon very disagreeable occasions; he must seem pleased, when he is very much otherwise; he must be able to accost and receive with smiles, those whom he would much rather meet with swords.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The creation of “strong-minded” women, so-called, is due to the individualism of men, to the modern selfish and speculative spirit which absorbs everything within itself and leaves women nothing but self-assertion for their protection and support.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 44 (February 1870)
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the one that really bothers them is the murder somebody only thought of two minutes before he pulled it off.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)