A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



pestilence in the country, the Air-god inundates the crops of 

 the country, injury in the country is caused." 



Some of these portents, it will be observed, are not 

 in much danger of realization, and it is curious to sur- 

 mise by what stretch of the imagination they can have 

 been invented. There is, for example, on the same tab- 

 let just quoted, one reference which assures us that 

 " when a sheep bears a lion the forces march multitu- 

 dinously; the king has not a rival." There are other 

 omens, however, that are so easy of realization as to 

 lead one to suppose that any Babylonian who re- 

 garded all the superstitious signs must have been in 

 constant terror. Thus a tablet translated by Professor 

 Sayce 20 gives a long list of omens furnished by dogs, in 

 which we are assured that: 



1. If a yellow dog enters into the palace, exit from that 

 palace will be baleful. 



2. If a dog to the palace goes, and on a throne lies down, 

 that palace is burned. 



3. If a black dog into a temple enters, the foundation of that 

 temple is not stable. 



4. If female dogs one litter bear, destruction to the city. 



It is needless to continue these citations, since they 

 but reiterate endlessly the same story. It is interest- 

 ing to recall, however, that the observations of ani- 

 mate nature, which were doubtless superstitious in 

 their motive, had given the Babylonians some ink- 

 lings of a knowledge of classification. Thus, accord- 

 ing to Menant, 21 some of the tablets from Nineveh, 

 which are written, as usual, in both the Sumerian and 

 Assyrian languages, and which, therefore, like prac- 



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