Lecture II. Primitive Animism.
Deep down in the very core of Babylonian religion lay a belief
in what Professor Tylor has called animism. It belonged to the
Sumerian element in the faith of the people, and, as we shall
see, was never really assimilated by the Semitic settlers. But
in spite of Semitic influences and official attempts to explain
it away, it was never eradicated from the popular creed, and it
left a permanent impress upon the folk-lore and superstitions of
the nation. As in Egypt, so too in Babylonia, animism was the
earliest shape assumed by religion, and it was through animism
that the Sumerian formed his conception of the divine.
In Egypt it was theKawhich linked“the other world”with
that of living men. In Babylonia the place of theKawas taken
by theZi. We may translate Zi by “spirit,”but like the Ka
it was rather a double than a spirit in our sense of the term.
Literally the word signified“life,”and was symbolised in the
primitive picture-writing of the country by a flowering plant.
Life, however, meant a great deal more to early man than it does
to us. It was synonymous with motion, with force and energy.
All that moved was endowed with life; life was the only force
known to man which explained motion, and, conversely, motion
was the sign and manifestation of life. The arrow which sped
[277] through the air or the rock which fell from the cliff did so in
virtue of their possessing life, or because the motive force of life
lay in some way or other behind them. The stars which slowly
moved through the sky, and the sun which rose and set day by
day, were living beings; it was life which gave them the power
of movement, as it gave the power of movement to man himself
and the animals by whom he was surrounded. The power of
movement, in fact, separated the animate from the inanimate; all
that moved possessed life; the motionless was lifeless and dead.
Man's experience was necessarily his measure of the universe;
the only force he knew of was the force we call life, and his