INTRODUCTION. xix 



intact a symbol, but that of creating out ot the 

 elements stored in his mind ornaments and objects 

 fitted for the places they are intended to occupy, 

 and, above all, pleasing to the artistic eye. So he 

 mixes, contorts, modifies — no doubt often uncon- 

 scious of the ' pickle ' he is making of the thoughts 

 and religious inspirations of Assyrian and Egyptian 

 philosophers ! 



Artistic decorations have at all times been a com- 

 pound of reality and fancy, the former supplied by 

 surrounding nature, the latter by the artist's visions, 

 which evolve in his brain cells. We thus have the 

 fantasy, and often delightful compositions of the 

 ancient dreamers — the poetry of their art. 



With a little exercise of the imagination we can 

 see those first comers into the plains of Chaldea 

 finding forests of date trees, the sweet fruit of which, 

 with the products of their flocks, enabled them to 

 increase and multiply. We can then imagine how 

 this tree eventually became to those people the 'tree 

 of life ' ; and later on, as they sowed the seed where 

 they settled and raised new varieties, we can 

 imagine that it became to them also the ' key of 

 life ' ; for did not Herodotus write that the whole 

 plains of Babylon were planted with date trees .'^ In 

 his time they must have been as thick as corn. 

 There is no wonder, therefore, that this tree became 

 an emblem of life — a sine-qua-non of their existence. 



The conditions of their existence may be the ivhy 



