A History of Science Volume I Part 3

215. If a doctor has treated a man for a severe wound with a lancet of bronze and has cured the man, or has opened a tumor with a bronze lancet and has cured the man's eye, he shall receive ten shekels of silver.

216. If it was a freedman, he shall receive five shekels of silver.

217. If it was a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give the doctor two shekels of silver.

218. If a physician has treated a free-born man for a severe wound with a lancet of bronze and has caused the man to die, or has opened a tumor of the man with a lancet of bronze and has destroyed his eye, his hands one shall cut off.

219. If the doctor has treated the slave of a freedman for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and has caused him to die, he shall give back slave for slave.

220. If he has opened his tumor with a bronze lancet and has ruined his eye, he shall pay the half of his price in money.

221. If a doctor has cured the broken limb of a man, or has healed his sick body, the patient shall pay the doctor five shekels of silver.

222. If it was a freedman, he shall give three shekels of silver.

223. If it was a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels of silver to the doctor.

224. If the doctor of oxen and a.s.ses has treated an ox or an a.s.s for a grave wound and has cured it, the owner of the ox or the a.s.s shall give to the doctor as his pay one-sixth of a shekel of silver.

225. If he has treated an ox or an a.s.s for a severe wound and has caused its death, he shall pay one-fourth of its price to the owner of the ox or the a.s.s.

226. If a barber-surgeon, without consent of the owner of a slave, has branded the slave with an indelible mark, one shall cut off the hands of that barber.

227. If any one deceive the surgeon-barber and make him brand a slave with an indelible mark, one shall kill that man and bury him in his house. The barber shall swear, "I did not mark him wittingly," and he shall be guiltless.

ESTIMATES OF BABYLONIAN SCIENCE

Before turning from the Oriental world it is perhaps worth while to attempt to estimate somewhat specifically the world-influence of the name, Babylonian science. Perhaps we cannot better gain an idea as to the estimate put upon that science by the cla.s.sical world than through a somewhat extended quotation from a cla.s.sical author. Diodorus Siculus, who, as already noted, lived at about the time of Augustus, and who, therefore, scanned in perspective the entire sweep of cla.s.sical Greek history, has left us a striking summary which is doubly valuable because of its comparisons of Babylonian with Greek influence. Having viewed the science of Babylonia in the light of the interpretations made possible by the recent study of original doc.u.ments, we are prepared to draw our own conclusions from the statements of the Greek historian. Here is his estimate in the words of the quaint translation made by Philemon Holland in the year 1700:(23)

"They being the most ancient Babylonians, hold the same station and dignity in the Common-wealth as the Egyptian Priests do in Egypt: For being deputed to Divine Offices, they spend all their Time in the study of Philosophy, and are especially famous for the Art of Astrology. They are mightily given to Divination, and foretel future Events, and imploy themselves either by Purifications, Sacrifices, or other Inchantments to avert Evils, or procure good Fortune and Success. They are skilful likewise in the Art of Divination, by the flying of Birds, and interpreting of Dreams and Prodigies: And are reputed as true Oracles (in declaring what will come to pa.s.s) by their exact and diligent viewing the Intrals of the Sacrifices. But they attain not to this Knowledge in the same manner as the Grecians do; for the Chaldeans learn it by Tradition from their Ancestors, the Son from the Father, who are all in the mean time free from all other publick Offices and Attendances; and because their Parents are their Tutors, they both learn every thing without Envy, and rely with more confidence upon the truth of what is taught them; and being train'd up in this Learning, from their very Childhood, they become most famous Philosophers, (that Age being most capable of Learning, wherein they spend much of their time).

But the Grecians for the most part come raw to this study, unfitted and unprepar'd, and are long before they attain to the Knowledge of this Philosophy: And after they have spent some small time in this Study, they are many times call'd off and forc'd to leave it, in order to get a Livelihood and Subsistence. And although some, few do industriously apply themselves to Philosophy, yet for the sake of Gain, these very Men are opinionative, and ever and anon starting new and high Points, and never fix in the steps of their Ancestors. But the Barbarians keeping constantly close to the same thing, attain to a perfect and distinct Knowledge in every particular.

"But the Grecians, cunningly catching at all Opportunities of Gain, make new Sects and Parties, and by their contrary Opinions wrangling and quarelling concerning the chiefest Points, lead their Scholars into a Maze; and being uncertain and doubtful what to pitch upon for certain truth, their Minds are fluctuating and in suspence all the days of their Lives, and unable to give a certain a.s.sent unto any thing. For if any Man will but examine the most eminent Sects of the Philosophers, he shall find them much differing among themselves, and even opposing one another in the most weighty parts of their Philosophy. But to return to the Chaldeans, they hold that the World is eternal, which had neither any certain Beginning, nor shall have any End; but all agree, that all things are order'd, and this beautiful Fabrick is supported by a Divine Providence, and that the Motions of the Heavens are not perform'd by chance and of their own accord, but by a certain and determinate Will and Appointment of the G.o.ds.

"Therefore from a long observation of the Stars, and an exact Knowledge of the motions and influences of every one of them, wherein they excel all others, they fortel many things that are to come to pa.s.s.

"They say that the Five Stars which some call Planets, but they Interpreters, are most worthy of Consideration, both for their motions and their remarkable influences, especially that which the Grecians call Saturn. The brightest of them all, and which often portends many and great Events, they call Sol, the other Four they name Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter, with our own Country Astrologers. They give the Name of Interpreters to these Stars, because these only by a peculiar Motion do portend things to come, and instead of Jupiters, do declare to Men before-hand the good-will of the G.o.ds; whereas the other Stars (not being of the number of the Planets) have a constant ordinary motion.

Future Events (they say) are pointed at sometimes by their Rising, and sometimes by their Setting, and at other times by their Colour, as may be experienc'd by those that will diligently observe it; sometimes foreshewing Hurricanes, at other times Tempestuous Rains, and then again exceeding Droughts. By these, they say, are often portended the appearance of Comets, Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, Earthquakes and all other the various Changes and remarkable effects in the Air, boding good and bad, not only to Nations in general, but to Kings and Private Persons in particular. Under the course of these Planets, they say are Thirty Stars, which they call Counselling G.o.ds, half of whom observe what is done under the Earth, and the other half take notice of the actions of Men upon the Earth, and what is transacted in the Heavens.

Once every Ten Days s.p.a.ce (they say) one of the highest Order of these Stars descends to them that are of the lowest, like a Messenger sent from them above; and then again another ascends from those below to them above, and that this is their constant natural motion to continue for ever. The chief of these G.o.ds, they say, are Twelve in number, to each of which they attribute a Month, and one Sign of the Twelve in the Zodiack.

"Through these Twelve Signs the Sun, Moon, and the other Five Planets run their Course. The Sun in a Years time, and the Moon in the s.p.a.ce of a Month. To every one of the Planets they a.s.sign their own proper Courses, which are perform'd variously in lesser or shorter time according as their several motions are quicker or slower. These Stars, they say, have a great influence both as to good and bad in Mens Nativities; and from the consideration of their several Natures, may be foreknown what will befal Men afterwards. As they foretold things to come to other Kings formerly, so they did to Alexander who conquer'd Darius, and to his Successors Antigonus and Seleucus Nicator; and accordingly things fell out as they declar'd; which we shall relate particularly hereafter in a more convenient time. They tell likewise private Men their Fortunes so certainly, that those who have found the thing true by Experience, have esteem'd it a Miracle, and above the reach of man to perform. Out of the Circle of the Zodiack they describe Four and Twenty Stars, Twelve towards the North Pole, and as many to the South.

"Those which we see, they a.s.sign to the living; and the other that do not appear, they conceive are Constellations for the Dead; and they term them Judges of all things. The Moon, they say, is in the lowest Orb; and being therefore next to the Earth (because she is so small), she finishes her Course in a little time, not through the swiftness of her Motion, but the shortness of her Sphear. In that which they affirm (that she has but a borrow'd light, and that when she is eclips'd, it's caus'd by the interposition of the shadow of the Earth) they agree with the Grecians.

"Their Rules and Notions concerning the Eclipses of the Sun are but weak and mean, which they dare not positively foretel, nor fix a certain time for them. They have likewise Opinions concerning the Earth peculiar to themselves, affirming it to resemble a Boat, and to be hollow, to prove which, and other things relating to the frame of the World, they abound in Arguments; but to give a particular Account of 'em, we conceive would be a thing foreign to our History. But this any Man may justly and truly say, That the Chaldeans far exceed all other Men in the Knowledge of Astrology, and have study'd it most of any other Art or Science: But the number of years during which the Chaldeans say, those of their Profession have given themselves to the study of this natural Philosophy, is incredible; for when Alexander was in Asia, they reckon'd up Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand Years since they first began to observe the Motions of the Stars."

Let us now supplement this estimate of Babylonian influence with another estimate written in our own day, and quoted by one of the most recent historians of Babylonia and a.s.syria.(24) The estimate in question is that of Canon Rawlinson in his Great Oriental Monarchies.(25) Of Babylonia he says:

"Hers was apparently the genius which excogitated an alphabet; worked out the simpler problems of arithmetic; invented implements for measuring the lapse of time; conceived the idea of raising enormous structures with the poorest of all materials, clay; discovered the art of polishing, boring, and engraving gems; reproduced with truthfulness the outlines of human and animal forms; attained to high perfection in textile fabrics; studied with success the motions of the heavenly bodies; conceived of grammar as a science; elaborated a system of law; saw the value of an exact chronology--in almost every branch of science made a beginning, thus rendering it comparatively easy for other nations to proceed with the superstructure.... It was from the East, not from Egypt, that Greece derived her architecture, her sculpture, her science, her philosophy, her mathematical knowledge--in a word, her intellectual life. And Babylon was the source to which the entire stream of Eastern civilization may be traced. It is scarcely too much to say that, but for Babylon, real civilization might not yet have dawned upon the earth."

Considering that a period of almost two thousand years separates the times of writing of these two estimates, the estimates themselves are singularly in unison. They show that the greatest of Oriental nations has not suffered in reputation at the hands of posterity. It is indeed almost impossible to contemplate the monuments of Babylonian and a.s.syrian civilization that are now preserved in the European and American museums without becoming enthusiastic. That certainly was a wonderful civilization which has left us the tablets on which are inscribed the laws of a Khamurabi on the one hand, and the art treasures of the palace of an a.s.shurbanipal on the other. Yet a candid consideration of the scientific attainments of the Babylonians and a.s.syrians can scarcely arouse us to a like enthusiasm. In considering the subject we have seen that, so far as pure science is concerned, the efforts of the Babylonians and a.s.syrians chiefly centred about the subjects of astrology and magic. With the records of their ghost-haunted science fresh in mind, one might be forgiven for a momentary desire to take issue with Canon Rawlinson's words. We are a.s.sured that the scientific attainments of Europe are almost solely to be credited to Babylonia and not to Egypt, but we should not forget that Plato, the greatest of the Greek thinkers, went to Egypt and not to Babylonia to pursue his studies when he wished to penetrate the secrets of Oriental science and philosophy. Clearly, then, cla.s.sical Greece did not consider Babylonia as having a monopoly of scientific knowledge, and we of to-day, when we attempt to weigh the new evidence that has come to us in recent generations with the Babylonian records themselves, find that some, at least, of the heritages for which Babylonia has been praised are of more than doubtful value. Babylonia, for example, gave us our seven-day week and our system of computing by twelves. But surely the world could have got on as well without that magic number seven; and after some hundreds of generations we are coming to feel that the decimal system of the Egyptians has advantages over the duodecimal system of the Babylonians. Again, the Babylonians did not invent the alphabet; they did not even accept it when all the rest of the world had recognized its value. In grammar and arithmetic, as with astronomy, they seemed not to have advanced greatly, if at all, upon the Egyptians. One field in which they stand out in startling pre-eminence is the field of astrology; but this, in the estimate of modern thought, is the very negation of science. Babylonia impressed her superst.i.tions on the Western world, and when we consider the baleful influence of these superst.i.tions, 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 superst.i.tion.

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 a.n.a.lysis 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 a.s.sures us that a Phoenician named Kadmus was the first to bring a knowledge of letters into Europe. An elaboration of the story, current throughout cla.s.sical 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 was founded; to the extent, at least, of making it probable that the later Grecian alphabet was introduced from Phoenicia--though not, of course, by any individual named Kadmus, the latter being, indeed, a name of purely Greek origin. Further studies of the past generation tended to corroborate the ancient belief as to the original source of the Phoenician alphabet, but divided scholars between two opinions: the one contending that the Egyptian hieroglyphics were the source upon which the Phoenicians drew; and the other contending with equal fervor that the Babylonian wedge character must be conceded that honor.

But, as has often happened in other fields after years of acrimonious controversy, a new discovery or two may suffice to show that neither contestant was right. After the Egyptologists of the school of De Rouge(1) thought they had demonstrated that the familiar symbols of the Phoenician alphabet had been copied from that modified form of Egyptian hieroglyphics known as the hieratic writing, the a.s.syriologists came forward to prove that certain characters of the Babylonian syllabary also show a likeness to the alphabetical characters that seemingly could not be due to chance. And then, when a settlement of the dispute seemed almost hopeless, it was shown through the Egyptian excavations that characters even more closely resembling those in dispute had been in use all about the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, quite independently of either Egyptian or a.s.syrian writings, from periods so ancient as to be virtually prehistoric.

Coupled with this disconcerting discovery are the revelations brought to light by the excavations at the sites of Knossos and other long-buried cities of the island of Crete.(2) These excavations, which are still in progress, show that the art of writing was known and practised independently in Crete before that cataclysmic overthrow of the early Greek civilization which archaeologists are accustomed to ascribe to the hypothetical invasion of the Dorians. The significance of this is that the art of writing was known in Europe long before the advent of the mythical Kadmus. But since the early Cretan scripts are not to be identified with the scripts used in Greece in historical times, whereas the latter are undoubtedly of lineal descent from the Phoenician alphabet, the validity of the Kadmus legend, in a modified form, must still be admitted.

As has just been suggested, the new knowledge, particularly that which related to the great antiquity of characters similar to the Phoenician alphabetical signs, is somewhat disconcerting. Its general trend, however, is quite in the same direction with most of the new archaeological knowledge of recent decades---that is to say, it tends to emphasize the idea that human civilization in most of its important elaborations is vastly older than has. .h.i.therto been supposed. It may be added, however, that no definite clews are as yet available that enable us to fix even an approximate date for the origin of the Phoenician alphabet. The signs, to which reference has been made, may well have been in existence for thousands of years, utilized merely as property marks, symbols for counting and the like, before the idea of setting them aside as phonetic symbols was ever conceived. Nothing is more certain, in the judgment of the present-day investigator, than that man learned to write by slow and painful stages. It is probable that the conception of such an a.n.a.lysis of speech sounds as would make the idea of an alphabet possible came at a very late stage of social evolution, and as the culminating achievement of a long series of improvements in the art of writing. The precise steps that marked this path of intellectual development can for the most part be known only by inference; yet it is probable that the main chapters of the story may be reproduced with essential accuracy.

FIRST STEPS

For the very first chapters of the story we must go back in imagination to the prehistoric period. Even barbaric man feels the need of self-expression, and strives to make his ideas manifest to other men by pictorial signs. The cave-dwellers scratched pictures of men and animals on the surface of a reindeer horn or mammoth tusk as mementos of his prowess. The American Indian does essentially the same thing to-day, making pictures that crudely record his successes in war and the chase.

The Northern Indian had got no farther than this when the white man discovered America; but the Aztecs of the Southwest and the Maya people of Yucatan had carried their picture-making to a much higher state of elaboration.(3) They had developed systems of pictographs or hieroglyphics that would doubtless in the course of generations have been elaborated into alphabetical systems, had not the Europeans cut off the civilization of which they were the highest exponents.

What the Aztec and Maya were striving towards in the sixteenth century A.D., various Oriental nations had attained at least five or six thousand years earlier. In Egypt at the time of the pyramid-builders, and in Babylonia at the same epoch, the people had developed systems of writing that enabled them not merely to present a limited range of ideas pictorially, but to express in full elaboration and with finer shades of meaning all the ideas that pertain to highly cultured existence. The man of that time made records of military achievements, recorded the transactions of every-day business life, and gave expression to his moral and spiritual aspirations in a way strangely comparable to the manner of our own time. He had perfected highly elaborate systems of writing.

EGYPTIAN WRITING

Of the two ancient systems of writing just referred to as being in vogue at the so-called dawnings of history, the more picturesque and suggestive was the hieroglyphic system of the Egyptians. This is a curiously conglomerate system of writing, made up in part of symbols reminiscent of the crudest stages of picture-writing, in part of symbols having the phonetic value of syllables, and in part of true alphabetical letters. In a word, the Egyptian writing represents in itself the elements of the various stages through which the art of writing has developed.(4) We must conceive that new features were from time to time added to it, while the old features, curiously enough, were not given up.

Here, for example, in the midst of unintelligible lines and pot-hooks, are various pictures that are instantly recognizable as representations of hawks, lions, ibises, and the like. It can hardly be questioned that when these pictures were first used calligraphically they were meant to represent the idea of a bird or animal. In other words, the first stage of picture-writing did not go beyond the mere representation of an eagle by the picture of an eagle. But this, obviously, would confine the presentation of ideas within very narrow limits. In due course some inventive genius conceived the thought of symbolizing a picture. To him the outline of an eagle might represent not merely an actual bird, but the thought of strength, of courage, or of swift progress. Such a use of symbols obviously extends the range of utility of a nascent art of writing. Then in due course some wonderful psychologist--or perhaps the joint efforts of many generations of psychologists--made the astounding discovery that the human voice, which seems to flow on in an unbroken stream of endlessly varied modulations and intonations, may really be a.n.a.lyzed into a comparatively limited number of component sounds--into a few hundreds of syllables. That wonderful idea conceived, it was only a matter of time until it would occur to some other enterprising genius that by selecting an arbitrary symbol to represent each one of these elementary sounds it would be possible to make a written record of the words of human speech which could be reproduced--rephonated--by some one who had never heard the words and did not know in advance what this written record contained. This, of course, is what every child learns to do now in the primer cla.s.s, but we may feel a.s.sured that such an idea never occurred to any human being until the peculiar forms of pictographic writing just referred to had been practised for many centuries. Yet, as we have said, some genius of prehistoric Egypt conceived the idea and put it into practical execution, and the hieroglyphic writing of which the Egyptians were in full possession at the very beginning of what we term the historical period made use of this phonetic system along with the ideographic system already described.

So fond were the Egyptians of their pictorial symbols used ideographically that they clung to them persistently throughout the entire period of Egyptian history. They used symbols as phonetic equivalents very frequently, but they never learned to depend upon them exclusively. The scribe always interspersed his phonetic signs with some other signs intended as graphic aids. After spelling a word out in full, he added a picture, sometimes even two or three pictures, representative of the individual thing, or at least of the type of thing to which the word belongs. Two or three ill.u.s.trations will make this clear.

Thus qeften, monkey, is spelled out in full, but the picture of a monkey is added as a determinative; second, qenu, cavalry, after being spelled, is made unequivocal by the introduction of a picture of a horse; third, temati, wings, though spelled elaborately, has pictures of wings added; and fourth, tatu, quadrupeds, after being spelled, has a picture of a quadruped, and then the picture of a hide, which is the usual determinative of a quadruped, followed by three dashes to indicate the plural number.

It must not be supposed, however, that it was a mere whim which led the Egyptians to the use of this system of determinatives. There was sound reason back of it. It amounted to no more than the expedient we adopt when we spell "to," "two," or "too," in indication of a single sound with three different meanings. The Egyptian language abounds in words having more than one meaning, and in writing these it is obvious that some means of distinction is desirable. The same thing occurs even more frequently in the Chinese language, which is monosyllabic. The Chinese adopt a more clumsy expedient, supplying a different symbol for each of the meanings of a syllable; so that while the actual word-sounds of their speech are only a few hundreds in number, the characters of their written language mount high into the thousands.

BABYLONIAN WRITING

While the civilization of the Nile Valley was developing this extraordinary system of hieroglyphics, the inhabitants of Babylonia were practising the art of writing along somewhat different lines. It is certain that they began with picture-making, and that in due course they advanced to the development of the syllabary; but, unlike their Egyptian cousins, the men of Babylonia saw fit to discard the old system when they had perfected a better one.(5) So at a very early day their writing--as revealed to us now through the recent excavations--had ceased to have that pictorial aspect which distinguishes the Egyptian script. What had originally been pictures of objects--fish, houses, and the like--had come to be represented by mere aggregations of wedge-shaped marks. As the writing of the Babvlonians was chiefly inscribed on soft clay, the adaptation of this wedge-shaped mark in lieu of an ordinary line was probably a mere matter of convenience, since the sharp-cornered implement used in making the inscription naturally made a wedge-shaped impression in the clay. That, however, is a detail.

The essential thing is that the Babylonian had so fully a.n.a.lyzed the speech-sounds that he felt entire confidence in them, and having selected a sufficient number of conventional characters--each made up of wedge-shaped lines--to represent all the phonetic sounds of his language, spelled the words out in syllables and to some extent dispensed with the determinative signs which, as we have seen, played so prominent a part in the Egyptian writing. His cousins the a.s.syrians used habitually a system of writing the foundation of which was an elaborate phonetic syllabary; a system, therefore, far removed from the old crude pictograph, and in some respects much more developed than the complicated Egyptian method; yet, after all, a system that stopped short of perfection by the wide gap that separates the syllabary from the true alphabet.