This tower was not built for safety in case of another flood (as some have supposed) for, with such an object, a high mountain and not a plain would have been chosen for the site; it could at best have saved but few; and more than all, the record gives a very different view of the motive. This motive was _consolidation_――the aggregation of the masses into one vast nationality or kingdom――a thought due to the ambition of some controlling minds aspiring to power, distinction, fame. Foreseeing the tendency to dispersion they sought to forestall it, to find their own glory in having a multitude under their sway and in building monuments that could not perish. For wise reasons God blasted this scheme. Precisely what divine influence was interposed to confound the language of these men, I doubt if it is possible for us to know certainly. It is supposable that the many became restive under the domination of the few and the severe labor of this enterprise, so that diverse counsels and dissolving social bonds had some influence in blocking the progress of the work. Misunderstandings sprung up and found expression in diversities of tongue. What could be more natural when harmony gave place to discord? So this huge tower-building was arrested and men scattered abroad as they would.――――The new tongues which took their rise here had ample opportunity to diverge more and more widely in subsequent ages. The immense variety in language which the history of the world discloses has been a growth――the product of subtle causes, of segregation and non-intercourse in part, and in part also no doubt of diverse mental traits and various influences of culture. What the original language was, common to the race up to this point, has been much debated by learned men without arriving at uniform and satisfactory results. Whether it was, as some suppose, the veritable Hebrew tongue; or as others think, the Aramaic, _i. e._ the Chaldee; or whether it is utterly lost――these are the alternatives; but for the choice between them we can have no very positive data. Those descendants of Noah who best preserved the religious faith of the fathers would stand most aloof from the scenes of Babel, and be naturally least affected by its many-tongued controversies and its resulting confusion of speech. That they escaped these influences altogether is perhaps too much to assume.――――That the Aramaic (Chaldee) tongue, closely allied to the Hebrew, held its place for ages in the valley of the Euphrates, strongly favors its claim to be, if not the very tongue of Noah, at least of the same family.――――These points suggest probabilities but fall short of certainty. CHAPTER X. ABRAHAM.