ries, some embracing over one hundred tablets, have already
been distinguished. One of these series deals with all kinds of
peculiarities that occur in human infants and in the young of animals;
another with the things that may happen to a man; a third with the
movements of various animals, and more the like. As yet but a small
portion of these tablets have been published,[624] but thanks to the
indications given by Dr. Bezold in his great catalogue of the Kouyunjik
Collection, a fair idea of the general character of the Babylonian omen
literature may be formed. On what principle the omens were derived, it
is again difficult to determine in detail, but that some logical
principles controlled the interpretations cannot be doubted.

Jevons has shown[625] that in "sympathetic magic,"--of which the
interpretation of omens is an offshoot,--the same logical methods are
followed as in modern science. The famous 'Chaldean wisdom,' which is to
be looked for in this widespread omen literature, would not have created
so deep an impression on the ancient world, if the theologians of the
Euphrates Valley, in incorporating primitive magic in the official
religion, had not been successful in giving to their interpretations of
occurrences in nature and in the animal world, the appearance, at least,
of a consistent science.

Taking up as our first illustration the series devoted to birth
portents, it is interesting to observe the system followed in presenting
the various phases of the general subject. A broad distinction is drawn
between significant phenomena in the case of human infants and in the
case of the young of animals.

About a dozen tablets are taken up with an enumeration of omens
connected with new-born children, and one gains the impression from the
vast number of portents included in the lists that originally every
birth portended something. The fact that births were of daily occurrence
did not remove the sense of mystery aroused by this sudden appearance of
a new life. Every part of the body was embraced in the omens: the ears,
eyes, mouth, nose, lips, arms, hands, feet, fingers, toes, breast,
generatory organs. Attention was directed to the shapes of these various
members and organs. The ears of a child might suggest the ears of a dog
or of a lion or of a swine, and similarly the nose, mouth, lips, hands,
or feet might present a peculiar appearance. A single member or the
features in general might be small or abnormall