ed from various religious literatures in Europe, Egypt,
India, and elsewhere. It will be found that certain relics of
Babylonian intellectual life, which have a distinctive geographical
significance, were shared by peoples in other cultural areas where
they were similarly overlaid with local colour. Modes of thought were
the products of modes of life and were influenced in their development
by human experiences. The influence of environment on the growth of
culture has long been recognized, but consideration must also be given
to the choice of environment by peoples who had adopted distinctive
habits of life. Racial units migrated from cultural areas to districts
suitable for colonization and carried with them a heritage of
immemorial beliefs and customs which were regarded as being quite as
indispensable for their welfare as their implements and domesticated
animals.

When consideration is given in this connection to the conservative
element in primitive religion, it is not surprising to find that the
growth of religious myths was not so spontaneous in early
civilizations of the highest order as has hitherto been assumed. It
seems clear that in each great local mythology we have to deal, in the
first place, not with symbolized ideas so much as symbolized folk
beliefs of remote antiquity and, to a certain degree, of common
inheritance. It may not be found possible to arrive at a conclusive
solution of the most widespread, and therefore the most ancient folk
myths, such as, for instance, the Dragon Myth, or the myth of the
culture hero. Nor, perhaps, is it necessary that we should concern
ourselves greatly regarding the origin of the idea of the dragon,
which in one country symbolized fiery drought and in another
overwhelming river floods.

The student will find footing on surer ground by following the process
which exalts the dragon of the folk tale into the symbol of evil and
primordial chaos. The Babylonian Creation Myth, for instance, can be
shown to be a localized and glorified legend in which the hero and his
tribe are displaced by the war god and his fellow deities whose
welfare depends on his prowess. Merodach kills the dragon, Tiamat, as
the heroes of Eur-Asian folk stories kill grisly hags, by casting his
weapon down her throat.

He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart,
He overcame her and cut off her life;
He cast down her body and stood upon it ...
And with merciless club he sma