and we of to-day, when we attempt to weigh the new evidence that
has come to us in recent generations with the Babylonian records
themselves, find that some, at least, of the heritages for which
Babylonia has been praised are of more than doubtful value.
Babylonia, for example, gave us our seven-day week and our system
of computing by twelves. But surely the world could have got on
as well without that magic number seven; and after some hundreds
of generations we are coming to feel that the decimal system of
the Egyptians has advantages over the duodecimal system of the
Babylonians. Again, the Babylonians did not invent the alphabet;
they did not even accept it when all the rest of the world had
recognized its value. In grammar and arithmetic, as with
astronomy, they seemed not to have advanced greatly, if at all,
upon the Egyptians. One field in which they stand out in
startling pre- eminence is the field of astrology; but this, in
the estimate of modern thought, is the very negation of science.
Babylonia impressed her superstitions on the Western world, and
when we consider the baleful influence of these superstitions, we
may almost question whether we might not reverse Canon
Rawlinson's estimate and say that perhaps but for Babylonia real
civilization, based on the application of true science, might
have dawned upon the earth a score of centuries before it did.
Yet, after all, perhaps this estimate is unjust. Society, like an
individual organism, must creep before it can walk, and perhaps
the Babylonian experiments in astrology and magic, which European
civilization was destined to copy for some three or four thousand
years, must have been made a part of the necessary evolution of
our race in one place or in another. That thought, however, need
not blind us to the essential fact, which the historian of
science must needs admit, that for the Babylonian, despite his