ncts. The lack of a picturesque building material in the Euphrates
Valley was sufficient to check the development of such instincts.
Important as the adaptation of the clay soil of Babylonia for simple
construction was for the growth of Babylonian culture, the limitations
to the employment of bricks as a building material are no less
significant. Ihering has endeavored to show[1311] by an argument that is
certainly brilliant and almost convincing, that the settlement of
Semites in a district, the soil of which could be so readily used to
replace the primitive habitations of man by solid structures, made the
Semites the teachers of the Aryans in almost everything that pertains to
civilization. House-building produced the art of measuring, led to more
elaborate furnishings of the habitation, created various trades,
introduced social distinctions, necessitated divisions of time, and gave
the stimulus to commercial intercourse. But, on the other hand, the
artistic possibilities of brick structures were soon exhausted. The
house could be indefinitely extended in length and even height, but such
an extension only added to the monotonous effect. With clay as a
building material, so readily moulded into any desired shape, and that
could be baked, if need be, by the action of the sun without the use of
fire, it was almost as easy to build a large house as a small one. But
the addition of rooms and wings and stories which differentiated the
house from the palace and the palace from the temple, served to make
hugeness the index of grandeur. The best specimens of the religious
architecture of Babylonia and Assyria are characterized by such
hugeness. A proportionate increase of external beauty could only be
secured by a modification of architectural style; but the conservative
instincts of the people discouraged any deviation from the conventional
shapes of the temples, which appear indeed to have been firmly
established long before the days of Hammurabi. The influence of
conventionality finds a striking illustration in the manner in which the
temples of Assyria follow Babylonian models. Soft and hard stone
suitable for permanent structures was easily procured in the mountainous
district adjacent to Assyria. The Assyrians used this material for
statues, altars, and for the slabs with which they decorated the
exterior and interior walls of their great edifices. Had they also
employed it as a building material, we should have had the de