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 boasted culture, science spelled superstition.

IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALPHABET

Before we turn specifically to the new world of the west, it remains
to take note of what may perhaps be regarded as the very greatest
achievement of ancient science. This was the analysis of speech sounds,
and the resulting development of a system of alphabetical writing. To
comprehend the series of scientific inductions which led to this result,
we must go back in imagination and trace briefly the development of
the methods of recording thought by means of graphic symbols. In other
words, we must trace the evolution of the art of writing. In doing so
we cannot hold to national lines as we have done in the preceding two
chapters, though the efforts of the two great scientific nations just
considered will enter prominently into the story.

The familiar Greek legend assures us that a Phoenician named Kadmus was
the first to bring a knowledge of letters into Europe. An elaboration
of the story, current throughout classical times, offered the further
explanation that the Phoenicians had in turn acquired the art of writing
from the Egyptians or Babylonians. Knowledge as to the true origin and
development of the art of writing did not extend in antiquity beyond
such vagaries as these. Nineteenth-century studies gave the first
real clews to an understanding of the subject. These studies tended
to authenticate the essential fact on which the legend of Kadmus wa