22 BABYLONIAN LITER ATUEE. 



author flourished. In separating into their 

 respective classes the quotations which are 

 mingled together in the "Agriculture," 

 he finds at Babylon a rich and varied 

 literature, fully equal to that which was 

 developed among the Greeks one or two 

 thousand years later; a matured literature, 

 full of controversies of schools, of sects, and 

 of disputes between religion and philosophy. 

 It is not here a question, in fact, as to 

 one of those primitive literatures, which 

 do not discover the identity of an author, 

 and where an abstract genius seems to 

 wield the pen for an entire nation. The 

 writers of Babylon must have been thinkers 

 with distinct views, discussing step by step, 

 and in the minutest details, the opinions 

 of their adversaries. The founders of Baby- 

 lonian religions must have been philosophers 

 gifted with clear perceptions, amicably op- 

 posing each other, and debating one and 

 all, like academical professors. The work 

 of Kuthami is, in this wise, not a first 

 book, but a work of recapitulation and 



