must have
made before they could arrive at an understanding, and before the
primitive characteristics of each deity were softened down or entirely
effaced in the process. Many of these divine personages, such as Ea,
Merodach, Ishtar, are so completely transformed, that we may well ask to
which of the two peoples they owed their origin. The Semites finally
gained the ascendency over their rivals, and the Sumerian gods from
thenceforward preserved an independent existence only in connection with
magic, divination, and the science of foretelling events, and also in
the formulas of exorcists and physicians, to which the harshness of
their names lent a greater weight. Elsewhere it was Bel and Sin, Shamash
and Eamman, who were universally worshipped, but a Bel, a Sin, a
Shamash, who still betrayed traces of their former connection with the
Sumerian Inlil and Inzu, with Babbar and Mermer. In whatever language,
however, they were addressed, by whatever name they were called upon,
they did not fail to hear and grant a favourable reply to the appeals of
the faithful.

Whether Sumerian or Semitic, the gods, like those of Egypt, were not
abstract personages, guiding in a metaphysical fashion the forces of
nature. Each of them contained in himself one of the principal elements
of which our universe is composed,--earth, water, sky, sun, moon, and
the stars which moved around the terrestrial mountain. The succession of
natural phenomena with them was not the result of unalterable laws; it
was due entirely to a series of voluntary acts, accomplished by beings
of different grades of intelligence and power. Every part of the great
whole is represented by a god, a god who is a man, a Chaldaean, who,
although of a finer and more lasting nature than other Chaldaeans,
possesses nevertheless the same instincts and is swayed by the same
passions. He is, as a rule, wanting in that somewhat lithe grace of
form, and in that rather easy-going good-nature, which were the primary
characteristics of the Egyptian gods: the Chaldaean divinity has the
broad shoulders, the thick-set figure and projecting muscles of the
people over whom he rules; he has their hasty and violent temperament,
their coarse sensuality, their cruel and warlike propensities, their
boldness in conceiving undertakings, and their obstinate tenacity in
carrying them out. Their goddesses are modelled on the tyra of the
Chaldaen women, or, more properly speaking, on that of their quee