We learn, then, from the comparison of the Babylonian religion with that of other ancient races one circumstance of outstanding importance, that is, if the Babylonian gods were so perfunctorily attached to departments expressive of their functions and were so closely bound to the elements that they must have had an elemental origin, that they were indeed originally spirits of the earth, the air, and the water. This, of course, is no new conclusion, only the circumstance that the Babylonian gods were not strictly departmental, that they have only a slight hold upon their offices, assists in proving the correctness of the theory of their elemental origin. It is also of interest to the student of comparative religion as indicating to him a mythological system in which the majority of the gods are certainly of elemental origin as opposed to totemic or fetishistic origin. Of the spiritistic nature of the Babylonian pantheon small doubt remains. To the Semite, in whom imagination and matter-of-fact are so strongly combined, animistic influences would be sure to appeal most strongly. It stands to primitive reason that if man is gifted with life so is everything else, and this conviction gives imagination full play. We do not discover these animistic influences so strongly entrenched in ancient Egypt. The Osirian cult is certainly animistic to a degree, but the various totemic cults which rivalled it and which it at last embraced held their own for many a day. [Illustration: A Royal Hunt (See p. 310)--Photo W. A. Mansell and Co.] A Mother-Goddess Theory