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THE SPEECH OF THE GODS
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We will now try how far we may be enabled with the key obtained, to comprehend the intellectual and spiritual life of our ancestors. Nothing remains in writing which tells of their wisdom; but no historian could have taken the measure of it so exactly as it is recorded in the bare roots which have come down to us. The traditions about these men might be untrustworthy and enlarged upon by the imagination of those who related them ; but their words contain a history which cannot be otherwise than true, becuase they were intuitive.
It will be found that the examples given are of words of the very simplest class, referring to actions, thoughts and things, the most likely to be first expressed in this newly developed faculty of intuitive speech. We think that almost all the roots which do not, seem to be intuitive were formed by a conventional agreement to regard one of these early words as appli. cable to several different things, for example, K. hardness or sharpness, was used in forming the intutive word “Ak," " to pierce into," "Ak," " to see," was evidently a result of this primary meaning.
It is easy to see what God meant to the old Assyrians, El, the light ; Bel, their sun-god, seems to mean "he who lives in light,” life and light are joined to express this idea Aer, God of the atmosphere, was another Assyrian God, he was also called Vul, which is equivalent to Jupiter Tonans. Vul probably means “light of the sky," here being used to represent the indefinite air. Ahiah," I am that I am," the name
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