290 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Before the simpler laws of astronomy were known, the sun was 

 supposed to be trundled out into the heavens every day and the 

 stars hung up in the firmament every night by the right hand of 

 the Almighty. Before the laws of comets were known, they were 

 thought to be missiles hurled by an angry God at a wicked world. 

 Before the real cause of lightning was known, it was supposed to 

 be the work of a good God in his wrath, or of evil spirits in their 

 malice. Before the laws of meteorology were known, it was 

 thought that rains were caused by the Almighty or his angels 

 opening " the windows of heaven " to let down upon the earth 

 " the waters that be above the firmament." Before the laws gov- 

 erning physical health were known, diseases were supposed to 

 result from the direct interposition of the Almighty or of Satan. 

 Before the laws governing mental health were known, insanity 

 was generally thought to be diabolic possession.* 



So, in this case, to account for the diversity of tongues, the 

 direct intervention of the Divine Will was brought in. As this 

 diversity was felt to be an inconvenience, it was attributed to the 

 will of a Divine Being in anger. To explain this anger, it was 

 held that it must have been provoked by human sin. 



Out of this conception explanatory myths and legends grew as 

 thickly and naturally as elms along water-courses ; and of these 

 the earliest form known to us is found in the Chaldean accounts. 

 We see it first in the Chaldean legend of the Tower of Babel. 



The inscriptions recently found among the ruins of Assyria 

 have thrown a bright light into this and other scriptural myths 

 and legends ; the deciphering of the characters in these inscrip- 

 tions by Grotef end, and the reading of the texts by George Smith, 

 Oppert, Sayce, and others, have given us these traditions more 

 nearly in their original form than they appear in our own 

 Scriptures. 



The Hebrew story of Babel, like so many other legends in the 

 sacred books of the world, combined various elements. By a play 

 upon words, such as the history of myths and legends frequently 

 shows us, it wrought into one fabric the earlier explanations of 

 the diversities of human speech and of the great ruined tower at 

 Babylon. The name Babel {bab-iJ) means "Gate of God" or 

 " Gate of the Gods." All modern scholars of note agree that this 

 was the real significance of the name; but the Hebrew verb 

 which signifies to confound resembles somewhat the word Babel, 

 so that out of this resemblance, by one of the most common pro- 

 cesses in the history of myth formations, came to the Hebrew 



* Any one who wishes to realize the mediaeval view of the direct personal attention of 

 the Almighty to the universe, can perhaps do so most easily by looking over the engravings 

 in the well-known Nuremberg Chronicle, representing him in the work of each of the six 

 days, and resting afterward. 



