Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 44.djvu/205

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THE CREATION.
195

which shall direct men into the proper paths for the production and distribution of wealth" (pp. 773, 774).

If this be true, then even under existing conditions it may be said that "the stars in their courses" fight for righteousness. For it would appear that co-operation, which has been so essential to man's success in the struggle for existence, by cultivating the moral qualities upon which social fitness depends, has at length brought about conditions where moralization becomes a prime factor in the success and survival of society. At all events it can, I think, be maintained that the law of the survival of the fittest admits of another interpretation than that put upon it by Prof. Huxley. It is not of necessity, as he thinks, opposed to the ethical progress of the race, but under it and because of it men become better through the survival of the socially fit.

Robert Mathews.
Rochester, N. Y., June 29, 1893.

THE CREATION.

PENOBSCOT INDIAN MYTH TOLD BY ONE OF THE TRIBE TO ABBY L. ALGER.

IN the beginning God made Adam out of the earth, but he did not make Glūs-kābé (the Indian God). Glūs-kābé made himself out of the dirt that was kicked up in the creation of Adam. He rose and walked about, but he could not speak until the Lord opened his lips.

God made the earth and the sea, and then he took counsel with Glūs-kābé concerning them. He asked him if it would be better to have the rivers run up on one side of the earth and down on the other, but Glus-kabé said, "No, they must all run down one way."

Then the Lord asked him about the ocean, whether it would do to have it always lie still. Glus-kabé told him, "No!" It must rise and fall, or else it would grow thick and stagnant.

"How about fire?" asked the Lord; "can it burn all the time and nobody put it out?"

Glūs-kābé said: "That would not do, for if anybody got burned and fire could not be put out, they would die; but if it could be put out, then the burn would get well."

So he answered all the Lord's questions.

After this Glūs-kābé was out on the ocean one day and the wind blew so hard he could not manage his canoe. He had to go back to land, and he asked his old grandmother (among Indians this title is often only a mark of respect and does not always in-