igoS.] 



IN BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. 673 



pletely enthralled by astrology, must have been impressed with the 

 domain of law in the movements and phenomena of the heavens, 

 there remained enough scope for caprice in the more unusual phe- 

 nomena which the imperfect knowledge placed outside of the sphere 

 of regularly working law. With the gradual reduction of this 

 scope until through astronomical calculations even such phenomena 

 as eclipses came within the range of recognized law, the belief in as- 

 trology must have suffered a decline, at all events in the minds of the 

 better informed priests. Astronomy and astrology presented a con- 

 trast not unlike that which in modern times is frequently represented 

 by science and religion and though no open conflict ensued, the 

 growth of astronomy must have involved the decline of astrology. 

 If the data of astrology are all due to the workings of inevitable and 

 clearly recognized eternal laws, there is no room for any spontaneity 

 on the part of the gods, so far at least as the stars manifest divine 

 activity. Every advance in astronomy, therefore, removed a stone 

 from the foundation on which the structure of astrology was reared, 

 until the stability of the entire structure was endangered. The last 

 three centuries before our era represent in general a period of de- 

 clining faith in the gods both in Babylonia as well as in Greece and 

 elsewhere. The old order throughout the ancient world of cultural 

 development was passing away, and the growing strength of astron- 

 omy is in itself symptomatic of the new order destined to take 

 the place of the old. It is no unusual phenomenon to find a great 

 civilization handing over to posterity as a legacy at the period of its 

 decay — a superstition instead of a real achievement. " The evil 

 that men do lives after them ; the good is oft interred with their 

 bones " applies to nations as to individuals, and so it happens that 

 while the wholesome fruits of the Babylonian-Assyrian civilization 

 were not entirely lost, the overripe products with the odor of decay 

 pervading them were the first to be exported to other climes. 

 What became proverbial among Greeks and Romans as " Chaldaean 

 wisdom " is not the astronomy of Babylonia but the astrology which, 

 after having spent its force in the soil in which it arose, takes root 

 elsewhere and soon flourishes more luxuriantly than it ever did 

 in its native heath. We have, however, also seen that in the care 

 of others the original plant was modified through the transfer from 



