98 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 



zation, we are astonished to find all the pro- 

 ductions of the Babylonian mind tainted by 

 one radical vice. Judicial astrology, sorcery, 

 a branch of gnosticism, and the first germs 

 of the Cabbala such are the wretched 

 gifts which Babylon has presented to the 

 world. There is no doubt that Babylon 

 is gravely responsible for the enfeeblement 

 of the mind in the first centuries of our era, 

 and that the epidemic of superstition and 

 chimerical science, which prevailed at that 

 epoch, must, in a great measure, be set 

 down to Chaldsean influence. It is cer- 

 tainly possible that Babylon may have pos- 

 sessed real science, before the time at which 

 she devoted herself to this unhappy propa- 

 gation of error. Judicial astrology leads to 

 the belief of an earlier regular astronomy; 

 magic, which pretends to direct the secret 

 forces of Nature, presupposes a certain de- 

 velopment of the physical sciences. 1 But we 



1 Similar results have happened to alchemy. The alchemy of 



tin- middle aijes, judged arcordin^ to the extravagance of the six- 

 teenth eeiitury, was universally in the West, since the thirteenth 

 century, a chemical labour firmly established, but which at present 

 is allowed to lie all but forgotten in manuscripts. 



