Note 920 — Chapter XXXIII · FISH-GODS—DAGON
Reading edition
In noting the attributes ascribed to various gods, we are confronted by the problem as to what suggested to the Babylonian his precise differentiation in their characters. These betray their origin: they are the personification of natural forces: in other words, the gods and many of the stories told of them are the only explanation the Babylonian could give, after centuries of observation, of the forces and changes in the natural world. In company with other primitive peoples he explained them as the work of beings very similar but superior to himself. See King, Babylonian Religion (London, 1889). This inevitable tendency of anthropomorphism was tersely expressed by Xenophanes of Colophon (frag. 15):—
“If oxen, horses, lions had but hands To paint withal or carve, as men can do, Then horses like to horses, kine to kine, Had painted shapes of gods and made their bodies Such as the frame that they themselves possessed.”