:

Dr. GREGORY SMITH replied as follows :'To Colonel Alves' questions.-There is too frequently a careless use of the word soul. It is a remarkable instance of the vagueness and confusion of thought. "Soul" is used sometimes for the heart; at other times as the immortal part of us. Scientific men say that

there is a parallel action of mind and brain, and again of emotions and the heart. The word soul needs definition. Ontology is transcendental metaphysic. It concerns itself with what things really are in themselves, not what they appear to us.

We are more concerned with the relative than the absolute.

To Mr. Tuckwell.-A child has to distinguish itself from surrounding things, this is the beginning of consciousness. Unconscious cerebration is a remarkable fact and indicates that mind acts mechanically.

To Bishop Thornton.-We must go back to the same beginning of thought. The little child looks up to its earthly father, and so ascends to the thought of a heavenly.

To another speaker.-The inquiry whether I am the will or I use the will, is not a question of great moment. The character is the personality. We can recognise evolution in the gradual formation of our being, but the real self is a spark of the light eternal. Subsequently Dr. GREGORY SMITH writes:

Professor Orchard's profound remarks required more time than was at our disposal; may I refer him, Mr. Turner and other speakers, of whose remarks time prevented me from taking particular notice, to my book on Practical Psychology, Bennett and Co.

Bishop WESTCOTT in The Gospel of Life, chap. viii, says :—" Man, made in the image of God, is an indivisible being. We naturally, even necessarily, speak of 'body' and 'soul' in such a way as to imply that man's soul is the real 'self,' complete and separable from his body.' Yet careful reflection will show that such language simply expresses an abstraction. There is undoubtedly an antithesis in man, an organism and something which works through the organism. But the living man, the self, is not a part of this antithesis: he consists in combination of both parts. He can no more conceive himself remaining without the one factor than

without the other. It is not necessary for us to enter on any discussion of the principles of biblical psychology. We may at once admit that as far as the constitution of man falls within the range of his own observation, we have no more reason to expect to find in the Bible a revealed system of psychology than to expect to find there a revealed system of physics. But Scripture distinctly recognizes different elements in man corresponding with his different relations to being, and leads us to look for the preservation of all in future. It lends no support to the famous utterance of Plotinus, who thanked God that 'he was not tied to an immortal body.' It lends no support to the view that the body as such is the mark of the soul's fall. May the God of peace himself' (St. Paul writes in his earliest epistle), 'sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit, soul and body, be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you, who will also do it.' I Thess. v, 23."

[EDITOR.]

515TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.

MONDAY, MARCH 20TH, 1911.

DAVID HOWARD, ESQ., VICE-PRESIDENT, OCCUPIED THE CHAIR UNTIL 5.30, WHEN THE REV. JOHN TUCKWELL TOOK HIS

PLACE.

The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed. The names of two associates, elected by the Council this day, were announced, viz. :—

Miss Churchill and Miss Dreaper.

The CHAIRMAN, in asking Dr. Pinches to read his paper, said that no introduction was really needed, as Dr. Pinches was personally so well known, and his work still more widely. The Chairman also referred to the wonderful fascination of these cuneiform writings, and commended their study to the Members of the Institute. Dr. Pinches then read his paper.

THE NEWLY-DISCOVERED VERSION OF THE STORY OF THE FLOOD. BY THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.R.A.S.

IN

N all probability there is no phenomenon of nature described in the Old Testament which has attracted so much attention as the account of the Deluge, though many may say, that the sun standing still at the command of Joshua would be found to enter into competition with the great cataclysm of earlier date. Since the reading of the first Babylonian version of the Flood-story by the late George Smith about thirty-six years ago, however, interest has centered rather in that wide-spread catastrophe than in the cause of the great Israelitish leader's victory; and this interest in the account of the Flood has rather increased of late years in consequence of the discovery of other versions-a second one by George Smith when engaged on the Daily Telegraph Expedition; another still, to all appearance, by Father V. Scheil, a few years ago, and still a fourth, by Professor H. V. Hilprecht last year.*

* See The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, Series D; Researches and Treatises, edited by H. V. Hilprecht; vol. v, Fasciculus I, The Earliest Version of the Babylonian Deluge Story, and the Temple Library of Nippur, by H. V. Hilprecht; "Eckley Brinton Coxe, Junior, Fund," Philadelphia; published by the University of Pennsylvania, 1910. Der neue Fund zur Sintflutgeschichte, und der Tempelbibliothek von Nippur, von H. V. Hilprecht; Leipzic, Hinrichs, 1910.

K

The most complete version of the Babylonian account of the Flood is the first one here referred to. This document forms the eleventh tablet of the Gilgameš series, and, as fate (or Providence, if you will) would have it, this portion of the legend is more perfect than any of the remaining tablets. -twelve in number-of the series. Layard, Rassam, G. Smith, have all contributed, by the fragments they discovered, to its completion, and the last-named recognised and adjusted, with infinite patience, practically the whole of the fragments (one little piece only fell to my share during the time of my employment at the British Museum) of which that eleventh tablet is composed. It is pleasant to think that one of our own countrymen was able to do such a good piece of work, and thus lay the foundation of a really trustworthy text of these important documents, besides attending to numerous fragments of tablets in almost all the other sections of Assyro-Babylonian literature.

Before proceeding to speak of Professor Hilprecht's recent discovery, however, it would perhaps be well to place before you a very brief outline of the contents of the Gilgameš series in general, in order that you may understand how it comes that the story of the great deluge-the very same deluge as that related in Genesis, finds a place in it. Gilgameš is the Babylonian hero, king of Erech, whose name was at first read Izdubar and Gištubar. The reading of Gilgameš is furnished by a Babylonian bilingual list excavated by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam (we had to deplore his loss only last year) about thirty years ago, and the pronunciation, as we have it, is therefore authoritative. This hero has been identified with the Gilgamos of Aelian, in his De Natura Animalium, xii, 21, where he is described as having been the grandson of Sevechoros or Sacchara. The daughter of this Babylonian king had been confined by her father in a citadel in order that no offspring of hers should take her father's kingdom, as the Babylonian sages had predicted. A son was born to her notwithstanding this precaution, and the daughter's guards, to save themselves, threw the child down from the tower. A sharp-sighted eagle, however, saw the falling infant, and flying beneath it, caught it on its back, and let it down safely in a neighbouring garden, where it was found by the caretaker, who, noticing the beauty of the child, took a great liking for him, and brought him up. It was he who, under the name of Gilgamos, became king of the Babylonians. Aelian points out, however, that this is not a unique instance of this kind of legend, another being the

story of a noble Persian who was likewise saved by an eagle.

There is nothing of this in the Babylonian legend of Gilgameš, but the details of his infancy may come to light at any time, for the version which we possess refers mainly to his manhood, unless there were references to his childhood in any of the numerous gaps which the earlier tablets of the series, in common with the others, display.

The first tablet of the Gilgameš series begins with the words which form a kind of title by which the whole was distinguished the ancient method of naming books. The words in question are: "He who saw all (things)"; and to this is added, "the Record of Gilgameš," this second phrase being something of the nature of a real title in the modern sense of the word. The beginning of the text is extremely imperfect, but where it becomes again readable, we have what is apparently a description of the hero, who knew the wisdom of the whole world, saw secret and hidden things, and brought news of the time before the Flood, travelling a distant road, and suffering dire fatigue (?). All his journeyings and toils were apparently inscribed on stone, and record of them thus left for future ages.

Gilgameš, as we learn in the course of the narrative, was king of the city called Uruk supuri, or "Erech the walled," so-called, apparently, on account of the enclosures which surrounded it. To all appearance, when Gilgameš assumed the reins of power, Erech was in a state of depression, and the walls were so ruinous that enemies from without were able to besiege the city for three years, when

"The gods of Erech the walled

turned to flies, and hummed in the streets;

the winged bulls of Erech the walled

turned to mice, and went out through the holes."

What enemy it was who besieged the city so long does not appear, but it would seem to be probable that the Elamites under Humbaba, whom the hero afterwards slew, are intended.

After this the text is mutilated, and the sense difficult to follow, but in this mutilated portion there would seem to have been a further description of the hero, who is said to have been "two parts god, and the third part man." To all appearance there was none in all his realm like him, and also no companion suitable for him, though he collected to him all the young men