civilization may be traced. It is scarcely too much to say that,
but for Babylon, real civilization might not yet have dawned upon
the earth."


Considering that a period of almost two thousand years separates
the times of writing of these two estimates, the estimates
themselves are singularly in unison. They show that the greatest
of Oriental nations has not suffered in reputation at the hands
of posterity. It is indeed almost impossible to contemplate the
monuments of Babylonian and Assyrian civilization that are now
preserved in the European and American museums without becoming
enthusiastic. That certainly was a wonderful civilization which
has left us the tablets on which are inscribed the laws of a
Khamurabi on the one hand, and the art treasures of the palace of
an Asshurbanipal on the other. Yet a candid consideration of the
scientific attainments of the Babylonians and Assyrians can
scarcely arouse us to a like enthusiasm. In considering the
subject we have seen that, so far as pure science is concerned,
the efforts of the Babylonians and Assyrians chiefly centred
about the subjects of astrology and magic. With the records of
their ghost-haunted science fresh in mind, one might be forgiven
for a momentary desire to take issue with Canon Rawlinson's
words. We are assured that the scientific attainments of Europe
are almost solely to be credited to Babylonia and not to Egypt,
but we should not forget that Plato, the greatest of the Greek
thinkers, went to Egypt and not to Babylonia to pursue his
studies when he wished to penetrate the secrets of Oriental
science and philosophy. Clearly, then, classical Greece did not
consider Babylonia as having a monopoly of scientific knowledge,