[AX] François Lenormant, "Origines de l'Histoire," Vol. II., p. 130.
[AY] "Five Monarchies," Vol. III., pp. 380-387.
[AZ] See "Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology," Feb., 1883, pp. 74-76, and "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society," Vol. XVI., 1884, p. 302.
[BA] The one exception to the above rule of orientation among the Ziggurats of Chaldea is that of the temple of Bel, in Babylon, (E-Saggila in the old language,) which is oriented in the usual way—its sides facing the real North, South, East and West.
[BB] See A. H. Sayce, "Babylonian Literature," p. 35.
MYTHS.—HEROES AND THE MYTHICAL EPOS.
1. The stories by which a nation attempts to account for the mysteries of creation, to explain the Origin of the World, are called, in scientific language, Cosmogonic Myths. The word Myth is constantly used in conversation, but so loosely and incorrectly, that it is most important once for all to define its proper meaning. It means simply a phenomenon of nature presented not as the result of a law but as the act of divine or at least superhuman persons, good or evil powers—(for instance, the eclipse of the Moon described as the war against the gods of the seven rebellious spirits). Further reading and practice will show that there are many kinds of myths, of various origins; but there is none, which, if properly taken to pieces, thoroughly traced and cornered, will not be covered by this definition. A Myth has also been defined as a legend connected more or less closely with some religious belief, and, in its main outlines, handed down from prehistoric times. There are only two things which can prevent the contemplation of nature and speculation on its mysteries from running into mythology: a knowledge of the physical laws of nature, as supplied by modern experimental science, and a strict, unswerving belief in the unity of God, absolute and undivided, as affirmed and defined by the Hebrews in so many places of their sacred books: "The Lord he is God, there is none else beside him." "The Lord he is God, in Heaven above and upon the earth beneath there is none else." "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me." "I am God and there is none else." But experimental science is a very modern thing indeed, scarcely a few hundred years old, and Monotheism, until the propagation of Christianity, was professed by only one small nation, the Jews, though the chosen thinkers of other nations have risen to the same conception in many lands and many ages. The great mass of mankind has always believed in the personal individuality of all the forces of nature, i.e., in many gods; everything that went on in the world was to them the manifestation of the feelings, the will, the acts of these gods—hence the myths. The earlier the times, the more unquestioning the belief and, as a necessary consequence, the more exuberant the creation of myths.