of posterity. It is indeed almost impossible to contemplate the
monuments of Babylonian and Assyrian civilization that are now
preserved in the European and American museums without becoming
enthusiastic. That certainly was a wonderful civilization which
has left us the tablets on which are inscribed the laws of a
Khamurabi on the one hand, and the art treasures of the palace of
an Asshurbanipal on the other. Yet a candid consideration of the
scientific attainments of the Babylonians and Assyrians can
scarcely arouse us to a like enthusiasm. In considering the
subject we have seen that, so far as pure science is concerned,
the efforts of the Babylonians and Assyrians chiefly centred
about the subjects of astrology and magic. With the records of
their ghost-haunted science fresh in mind, one might be forgiven
for a momentary desire to take issue with Canon Rawlinson's
words. We are assured that the scientific attainments of Europe
are almost solely to be credited to Babylonia and not to Egypt,
but we should not forget that Plato, the greatest of the Greek
thinkers, went to Egypt and not to Babylonia to pursue his
studies when he wished to penetrate the secrets of Oriental
science and philosophy. Clearly, then, classical Greece did not
consider Babylonia as having a monopoly of scientific knowledge,
and we of to-day, when we attempt to weigh the new evidence that
has come to us in recent generations with the Babylonian records
themselves, find that some, at least, of the heritages for which
Babylonia has been praised are of more than doubtful value.
Babylonia, for example, gave us our seven-day week and our system
of computing by twelves. But surely the world could have got on
as well without that magic number seven; and after some hundreds
of generations we are coming to feel that the decimal system of
the Egyptians has advantages over the duodecimal system of the
Babylonians. Again, the Babylonians did not invent the alphabet;
they did not even accept it when all the rest of the world had
recognized its value. In grammar and arithmetic, as with
astronomy, they seemed not to have advanced greatly, if at all,
upon the Egyptians. One field in which they stand out in
startling pre- eminence is the field of astrology; but this, in
the estimate of modern thought, is the very negation of science.
Babylonia impressed her superstitions on the Western world, and
when we consider the baleful influence of these superstitions, we
may almost question whether we might not reverse Canon
Rawlinson's estimate and say that perhaps but for Babylonia real
civilization, based on the application of true science, might
have dawned upon the earth a score of centuries before it did.
Yet, after all, perhaps this estimate is unjust. Society, like an
individual organism, must creep before it can walk, and perhaps
the Babylonian experiments in astrology and magic, which European
civilization was destined to copy for some three or four thousand
years, must have been made a part of the necessary evolution of
our race in one place or in another. That thought, however, need
not blind us to the essential fact, which the historian of
science must needs admit, that for the Babylonian, despite his
boasted culture, science spelled superstition.



IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALPHABET

Before we turn specifically to the new world of the west, it
remains to take note of what may perhaps be regarded as the very
greatest achievement of ancient science. This was the analysis of
speech sounds, and the resulting development of a system of
alphabetical writing. To comprehend the series of scientific
inductions which led to this result, we must go back in
imagination and trace briefly the development of the methods of
recording thought by means of graphic symbols. In other words, we
must trace the evolution of the art of writing. In doing so we
cannot hold to national lines as we have done in the preceding
two chapters, though the efforts of the two great scientific
nations just considered will enter prominently into the story.

The familiar Greek legend assures us that a Phoenician named
Kadmus was the first to bring a knowledge of letters into Europe.
An elaboration of the story, current throughout classical times,
offered the further explanation that the Phoenicians had in turn
acquired the art of writing from the Egyptians or Babylonians.
Knowledge as to the true origin and development of the art of
writing did not extend in antiquity beyond such vagaries as
these. Nineteenth-century studies gave the first real clews to an
understanding of the subject. These studies tended to
authenticate the essential fact on which the legend of Kadmus was
founded; to the extent, at least, of making it probable that the
later Grecian alphabet was introduced from Phoenicia--though not,
of course, by any individual named Kadmus, the latter being,
indeed, a name of purely Greek origin. Further studies of the
past generation tended to corroborate the ancient belief as to
the original source of the Phoenician alphabet, but divided
scholars between two opinions: the one contending that the
Egyptian hieroglyphics were the source upon which the Phoenicians
drew; and the other contending with equal fervor that the
Babylonian wedge character must be conceded that honor.

But, as has often happened in other fields after years of
acrimonious controversy, a new discovery or two may suffice to
show that neither contestant was right. After the Egyptologists
of the school of De Rouge[1] thought they had demonstrated that
the familiar symbols of the Phoenician alphabet had been copied
from that modified form of Egyptian hieroglyphics known as the
hieratic writing, the Assyriologists came forward to prove that
certain characters of the Babylonian syllabary also show a
likeness to the alphabetical characters that seemingly could not


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