ABSTRACT
The civilisation of the Sumerian temple-cities is the oldest that has stamped its tradition upon human records. When nomadic humanity in search of pastures came upon the alluvial plains of the great Asiatic water-courses, and discovered that, with but little labour, bounteous nature yielded abundant winter food for cattle it ceased to wander, became agricultural and settled into permanent abodes. Of such kind are the settlements dotted at the dawn of recorded time over the plains of Eastern lands, where civilisation had its birth. The despotic power of theocratic absolutism in the Morning-lands, that unresisted tyranny which was founded in the very heart of the slave, in mental prostration before the power of the gods, that fearful, willing abjection of subjugated human herds, was the foundation, the indispensable foundation of civilisation. The human mind had to break through the gyves of such a mental conformation ere it could apply rational thought to the higher problems of its situation and destiny.
