the intellectual movements
that manifest themselves from time to time with the attendant result
that, as the conceptions become more definite and more elaborate, they
reflect more accurately the aspirations of the various generations
engaged in bringing these conceptions to their final form. When finally
these beliefs and speculations are committed to writing, it is done in
part for the purpose of assuring them a greater degree of permanence,
and in part to establish more definitely the doctrines developed in the
schools--to define, as it were, the norm of theological and
philosophical thought.

In examining, therefore, the cosmological speculations of the
Babylonians as they appear in the literary productions, we must
carefully distinguish between those portions which are the productions
of popular fancy, and therefore old, and those parts which give evidence
of having been worked out in the schools. In a general way, also, we
must distinguish between the contents and the form given to the
speculations in question. We shall see in due time that a certain amount
of historical tradition, however dimmed, has entered into the views
evolved in Babylonia regarding the origin of things, inasmuch as the
science of origins included for the Babylonians the beginning, not
merely of gods, men, animals, and plants, but also of cities and of
civilization in general. Still more pronounced is the historical spirit
in the case of the epics and legends that here, as everywhere else, grew
to even larger proportions, and were modified even after they were
finally committed to writing. The great heroes of the past do not perish
from the memory of a people, nor does the recollection of great events
entirely pass away. In proportion as the traditions of the past become
dimmed, the more easily do they lend themselves to a blending with
popular myths regarding the phenomena of nature. To this material
popularly produced, a literary shape would be given through the same
medium that remodeled the popular cosmological speculations. The task
would have a more purely literary aspect than that of systematizing the
current views regarding the origin and order of things, since it would
be free from any doctrinal tendency. The chief motive that would prompt
the _literati_ to thus collect the stories of favorite heroes and the
traditions and the legends of the past would be--in addition, perhaps,
to the pure pleasure of composition--the desire to preser