“When great disasters are about to befall a state or nation it often happens that there is some warning,” says Herodotus.[339] It happens, indeed, not only to states and nations, but to eminent men, or even to common men, children and old women. An old woman who in England sees the new moon for the first time through glass, will not be surprised when, next morning, the market-basket drops from her arm in the middle of the street. In Fiji, if a woman putting bananas into a pot let one fall on the outside, or if the bread-fruit burst in roasting, she wrung her hands in dismay and cried aloud.[340] The whole world is full of such portents, and has been many thousands of years; and there is no clearer disproof of the vulgar error that age is the mother of wisdom than this, that the older the race grows the less it attends to them: or rather, whilst it attends to them more and more sedulously up to a certain critical hour—reached by the Greeks (say) 400 B.C., and by Western Europe (say) A.D. 1600—it then begins to disregard, rapidly neglects them, till in a comparatively short time what is called the “enlightened” part of mankind forgets to take account of them at all; although it is well known that an eclipse of the moon a little before sunrise in the sign of Leo was a token that Darius should be defeated at Arbela; that on the first day that Julius CÆsar sat on the golden throne and wore the purple robe, an ox, having been sacrificed, was found to have no heart—at which CÆsar himself was surprised, and soon after he was assassinated; and that many signs and wonders announced quite recently the coming of the Spaniards into Mexico; Montezuma had visions and grew melancholy; the idol of Quetzalchoatl declared that a strange people approached to possess his kingdom, and so did witches and sorcerers; a stone spoke and warned him; a lake overflowed its banks; a pyramid of fire was seen in the sky; monsters were born with two heads, and there were other portents, all to no purpose.[341]

Omens, enjoyed with fear and trembling by all men in all ages, have sometimes been conceived of as due to magical power, but much more generally as the sendings of demons or gods; although the fact that they are rarely of any use to the recipient, or even intelligible to him until after the event, makes it very improbable that they involve the intervention of any intelligent cause. And what are we to think of the intelligence of mankind, who in spite of their experience of omens during so many ages, were still eager to observe them?

§ 2. Omens and Natural Signs

For the wild man seeking game or on the alert for enemies it is necessary to read every sign of the presence of enemies or of game in the neighbourhood: footprints, broken twigs and bent grass, droppings of feathers, hair or dung, remnants of food or marks of habitation instantly catch his eye; noises or odours arrest his other senses. His world is full of these signs, and he must always be on the watch for them: the birds being suddenly silent, on looking up he sees a hawk; a change of wind, or the aspect of clouds, announces rain or fair weather; the coming and departure of certain birds—as with us the swallow and the cuckoo—portend the change of seasons. In all these cases causation is active and sometimes obvious, but often very obscure: the apparent may be the reverse of the real order: for the coming of swallows is the antecedent of our enjoying the summer; but in the order of nature the course of the seasons determines the migration of birds. That the true relation may be misunderstood is shown by the behaviour of certain Australian natives who, noticing that plovers cry before the coming of rain, take their cry to be a cause of rain, and therefore imitate it when performing their rain-rites.[342] We may observe how obscure is the distinction between sign and cause even amongst ourselves, in the general belief that “a change of the moon” is connected somehow with a change of weather; for what the relation is no one seems clearly to conceive.

The relation between natural signs and the events signified, being obscure, may be mysterious; and accordingly its obscurity has been made use of to defend the belief in Omens. In the De Divinatione[343] Quintus, who is unkindly given by his brother the post of apologist for all that nonsense, (following, I suppose, the sophistry of some Stoic) quotes Aratus’ description of how certain movements of the sea presage a coming storm; the gull, too, and the crow by their behaviour: and the croaking of frogs and the snuffing of cattle foretell rain. I cannot explain, he says, how animals have such knowledge any more than I can explain the divinations of augurs; nor is it necessary to do so: in both cases there are the facts.

No wonder, then, that the savage, depending for his life upon a knowledge of signs, driven by eagerness and anxiety to observe them, and unable to distinguish coincidence from causation and the entanglements of causation, should imagine himself to have discovered many more signs than are comprised in the order of nature. Thus in Torres Straits, the biro-biro announces by its arrival that yams are ready for eating (which seems needless), and the cry of the koko predicts fine weather (which is credible); but, further, the sunbird can foretell the coming of a boat,[344] and that must be imagination.

§ 3. Some Signs Conceived of as Magical

Very gradually, we may suppose, a difference came to be felt between two classes of signs: (1) those that are of a usual kind, such as the tracks of game, the return of the swallows, the croaking of frogs, which are almost constantly the antecedents of interesting events, such as the getting of food, the coming of spring, or of rain; sequences that recur again and again, some of them being, like the tracks of game, easily intelligible; all which, accordingly, are accepted as a matter of course and incorporated with common sense. (2) Less usual events, such as strange animals, lightning, eclipses, shooting-stars; which come to be considered as signs by being connected in imagination with interesting events which happen soon after them, such as a failure in hunting, an attack by enemies, a death in the tribe, the wreck of a canoe; though the connexions are irregular and never intelligible, and are accepted not as a matter of course, but as mysterious, magical and portentous: they are Omens. They acquire the hold upon men that belongs to the growing body of superstition. Although irregular, they are classed with the connexions that are believed to be most regular, and failures are overlooked. To these are added and accumulated in tradition, by analogy or caprice, innumerable other signs and warnings.

That Omens obtain an inextricable hold in the tangle of superstitious beliefs results from men’s strong desire to foresee the future, especially in social conditions full of dangers and uncertainties, without the settled organisation which, with us in ordinary times, makes one year so much like another. Upon many people, indeed, this desire has the same effect to this day, and becomes more active in troubled times like the present. Anxious to know whether they are to marry, or to hear of a death, or to come into money or some other advancement, they hope to find out by visiting Mrs. Sludge in a stuffy chamber, or (as you may see in London) by consulting a canary at the street-corner. When a fixed idea of love or ambition or anxiety possesses the mind and leaves it no peace, we are ready to try any device that promises to relieve the strain, and we do things sillier than could have been predicted even by those who knew us best.

Belief in Omens and the practice of observing them having been established, the list of portentous events grows ever larger. (a) In a depressed frame of mind the future looks gloomy; in exhilaration, cheerful. A sensation, such as shivering, or sweating, that accompanies fear is apt to excite fear. In fear or depression one acts feebly and fails; in hope and confidence one acts vigorously and wins: the expectations produced by such moods fulfil themselves, and therefore the moods are ominous. This may be the reason why, when men are at strife and some ambiguous Omen occurs, he who first claims its favour or denounces its menace upon his enemy, gains an advantage;[345] for the other may be daunted and unable to rally his forces. But that depends on character.

This subjective value of an Omen, making its virtue a function of the recipient’s disposition, sometimes became so prominent as to obscure its truly magical character; according to which it must be indissolubly connected in some way with the event and can have nothing to do with the recipient’s attitude. Thus it might be held that an Omen, if it deeply affected a man’s imagination, would be fulfilled; but, if neglected, it might not be. Pliny says[346] that, according to the augurs, auspices had no import for one who in any enterprise declared that he would not regard them. Or, again, the bearing of an Omen may be determined by the way in which it is accepted: Julius CÆsar, landing in Africa, fell; and that must have seemed a very bad Omen; but he, having the presence of mind (though not exempt from superstition) to exclaim: “Africa, I lay hold of thee!” changed its significance;[347] and, doubtless, greatly altered its effect upon the minds of his officers and soldiers and of all who heard of it; and that was the important matter. Hope and desire and anxiety created Omens, and they had also the power to direct the incidence and corrupt the interpretation of Omens. In fact, there were conventional formulÆ for accepting good Omens and rejecting bad ones: Accipio omen, Absit omen, Tibi in caput redeat; which were counteractive spells; and it is agreed that Magic may be overcome by stronger Magic.

This attitude of mind that makes an Omen subject to its acceptance, may explain the otherwise absurd practice of taking the Omens again and again, when the earlier have been unfavourable, until one is obtained that flatters the inquirer’s hopes. Not only amongst sophisticated peoples, who might be supposed to treat Omens in a formal and perfunctory way, but even in the lower barbarism Omens are thus garbled. The Karens of Borneo, consulting the liver of a pig to authorise an expedition, if with one pig the appearance is forbidding, sacrifice a second, third, or fourth; though without a satisfactory forecast they will not set out. Then, having set out, they try to avoid hearing the cry of the woodpecker (which has two notes, the one of good, the other of evil augury), lest it should be against their plans. And the same simple-minded people believe in the magical efficacy of the sign, no matter how obtained. Vaticinating by the flight of a hawk, a man will try, by shouting and by waving to it, to turn its flight toward the left, that being with them the prosperous direction.[348] Imagination-beliefs are saturated with insincerity; their unconscious maxim is, “Believe as you list.”

Although it may be a general principle that savages are more impressed by external than by internal experiences, yet the suggestion of the foregoing paragraphs, that the finding of Omens in one’s own sensations is secondary to, and dependent on, the growth of a belief in Omens presented by physical events, is not one upon which I much rely. Possibly sensations and moods are a distinct and primitive source of this superstition: for it has been noticed in Australia, where the lore of Omens in general has made but little progress. Whilst performing tribal ceremonies under strong emotion, the aborigines think that their entrails sometimes acquire “sight”; so that they know whether their wives have been unfaithful, or they feel the approach of danger.[349] In the Western Isles of Torres Straits shivering and uneasy feelings are presentiments; and in the Eastern Isles, a dryness of one’s skin or sneezing:[350] in New Guinea, if the right shoulder ache, expect good news; if the left, bad.[351] And these simplest of all whims are the longest lived; for amongst ourselves many a woman suddenly has a presentiment, “as if some one were walking over her grave.”

(b) As a mood of elation or depression is itself ominous, so is whatever excites such a mood. Depressing objects are cripples, old women, sick people, timid hares, loathsome toads, a snake coming to meet a war-party, discouraging words, ugly dreams; whereas pleasant dreams, encouraging words, a snake going before us as against the enemy, hawks, wolves and blooming youth are all exhilarating: the list varies from tribe to tribe. Many ominous things promise good or evil according as they appear on the right hand or on the left: the left being generally held inauspicious, because (it is said) the left hand is the clumsier and weaker; and this may be true. But we have seen that in Borneo the left is preferred; and whereas the Greeks followed the general rule, assigning evil to the left hand, the Romans thought the right hand was the direction of danger. And this contrariety has been explained as due to a difference of orientation in the formal taking of Omens; for the Greek then faced northward, and had the place of sunrise upon his right hand; whilst the Roman faced southward and had on his right hand the place of sunset: so that it was not anything to do with his own body, but the direction whence the sun appeared and advanced with growing power and splendour which each of them judged of good hope, in contrast with that whither the sun declined and weakened to his death. To illustrate these fancies would be an endless task, and a superfluous labour, since nothing is better known.

(c) Coincidence, the occurrence near together of two interesting events, is sure to make people think there must be some connexion between them; and the earlier event will be classed, according to circumstances, as either a cause or a sign of the later; and if the connexion is mysterious, it must be either a magical power like that of a talisman, or that special kind of Magic which is an Omen. What circumstances determine this distinction, I will presently try to show. Possibly all Omens that are not derived from subjective moods and sensations, or from things or events that excite such moods, were originally founded upon coincidence. Upon this, apparently, the Egyptians relied in the records they kept (according to Herodotus) of Omens and their fulfilment; and Quintus Cicero is represented[352] as believing that the Babylonians kept such records for 470,000 years: so that it was, in their view, an inductive science; but we never hear of their having kept a record of failures and disappointments.

Some Omens having been established by subjective prognostication or by coincidence, many more may be added by analogy, or by a sort of reasoning. An analogy with the contrast of right and left hand may be noticed in all opposites: the woodpecker in Borneo, for example, having two cries, and one of them a warning, must not the other be an encouragement? The belief in Omens having taken hold of the public mind, everybody is on the look-out for signs and wonders; and anything unusual seen, or heard, or rumoured, becomes a possible Omen of anything else, and men ask one another what it portends. The superstitious imagination is greedy of its accustomed food. Under such conditions, too, Omens are discovered by retrospection: a public calamity, such as the death of a king, the defeat of an army, or a pestilence (or in private life some private misfortune), makes us remember some foregoing event or events, which must have forewarned us, had we had the skill to interpret the significance of Time’s progression.

§ 4. Differentiation of Omens from General Magic

The savage mind, sensitive to the resemblance of relations, cannot overlook the analogy between signs and warning cries; many Omens are cries; and with the spread of animistic explanation, they came to be considered as the sendings of spirits or gods. But, at first, by mere magical thinking, under the stress of anxiety to know the future, and the helplessness of common sense to predict anything outside the everyday routine, Omens are gradually separated from ordinary probable signs (such as the tracks of game) as necessary infallible signs (or tendencies) if cunning can find them out, connected by some supernatural law with the unknown future that certainly awaits us, and as a kind of Magic. The magical habit of mind may be supposed to have resulted from the coalescence of beliefs concerning several imaginary operations—by charms, spells, rites—each class of beliefs having its own occasions, causes, or fallacious grounds. Those operations had in common the marks of being connexions of events due to imagined forces of a mysterious kind, and therefore grouped themselves together in men’s minds as the Magic apperception-mass. Omens had these marks and, therefore, were assimilated to Magic. An Omen is an event regarded as a magical sign of the good or ill success of some undertaking, or of the approach of good fortune, or of calamity. And on the principle that ideas are differentiated from a confused matrix, it is probable that Omens, having at first been confused with other magical antecedents of events, were only gradually again distinguished from them. But an important distinction existed and at last came to light: charms, rites and spells are causes of events; whereas Omens are signs only, not causes. The difference is that whereas charms, rites and spells directly exert their powers upon the course of things, Omens themselves exert no power, but show only that there is some power at work, which will have such or such results.[353]

Comparing Omens with other modes of Magic, several peculiarities may be noticed: (a) Omens themselves (apart from the preparation of victims, etc.) imply no human intervention, whereas rites and spells must be performed or recited by some one, and even charms are carried about one, or used in rites, or solemnly affixed to doors, animals or other possessions. (b) Partly as a consequence of this, Omens, considered in themselves, generally (as I have said) convey no suggestion of force. This cannot, indeed, be said of eclipses and thunderstorms; but the note of a bird, the appearance of entrails, a mere shivering or other change of feeling, though ominous, suggests no energetic operation; whilst rites and spells are often carried out with much expenditure of energy, and even charms, though not obviously active, are necessarily believed to be powerful in some obscure way of their own. (c) Omens are often so remote in time, as well as in place, from the events indicated that any quasi-mechanical determination of the issue by them can hardly be thought of; but with rites and spells, though they may not operate openly in the hour of their setting to work, yet the delay is not expected to be great, and (as said) their impulsion or nisus is often very impressive; and charms are incessantly and immediately active. (d) Omens in general do not foretell precisely what is to happen, but only the success or failure of some enterprise (not the “how” of it), happiness or misfortune; whereas rites and spells have some definite object, and most charms inflict, or guard against, some one kind of evil, disease or shipwreck; though others (it is true) bring luck or loss at large. Thus Omens are very different from other magical conditions; and although it is not likely that the ordinary savage or even the wizard ever consciously draws these distinctions or sums them up, still they have an effect upon his mind, and the observation of Omens and the reading of them becomes at last a special branch of the Magic Art—Divination.

§ 5. Omens Interpreted by Animism

Omens, then, being only signs and not causes of future events, having no power in themselves, must be connected with some efficient power, or else the events prognosticated could not happen. How is that power to be understood? For a long time, probably, there is no clear conception of it: the connexion is mysterious. But there are two ways in which it may be interpreted: (a) Following the impersonal magical way of thinking, we are led to the idea of currents of force in which both Omen and event are borne along; and, at last, to the conception of a fatal order of the world in which all events have their necessary places. There A is always followed by B; so that, although A exerts no power over B, yet (if we know the law of the sequence) when the former appears it is an infallible portent of the latter. The power at work is Fate; and to this idea I must return; for in its full development it comes late in history.

(b) The other and much simpler way of explaining Omens is to attribute them to the intervention of spirits who, whether they control events or not, at least foresee them, and send messages of warning to mankind. With the spread of Animism this is a matter of course. A sophisticated age may ask how a spirit should be able to see the future; and may answer that spirits, having greater knowledge than we of the present state of the world and its laws of causation, are able to calculate the outcome, just as an astronomer foretells an eclipse of the sun. A precious rationalisation! To the untutored savage there is no difficulty. To foresee the future is a very common performance: whenever we form an expectation which is fulfilled (and that happens many times a day) we accomplish this feat; and for the most part we are unconscious of the grounds upon which we formed the expectation. The savage is always in this position: he has not analysed the relation of “ground and consequence” nor examined the mental conditions that precede an inference. To him, therefore, foreknowledge, within a certain range, is not even mysterious; and, of course, spirits have the gift in a much higher degree. In Melanesia a vui (spirit) knows secret things without seeing;[354] and here begins the rÔle of intuition in Philosophy. Later, a high god may give warnings, not merely of what he foresees in the course of the world, but of what he of his own volition will bring to pass; or a lesser god may announce what he knows to be the will of the higher; or, later still, all spiritual warnings may sink back into helpless incidents in the course of Fate.

Omens (as has been mentioned) resemble warnings: (a) Like warnings, they precede events, but do not cause them. (b) They sometimes precede an event by a considerable interval, as if to give time for precaution. (c) They do not announce the details of any event (which a friendly counsellor may not know), but only its character as good or evil. Then, if they are warnings (implying foreknowledge), since they are not the act of any man, they must be given by some spirit or other intelligence. So that once a belief in the intervention of spirits in mundane affairs has become prevalent in any tribe, nothing can be more natural than to regard Omens as spiritual messages. Still, this way of thinking may have been preceded by a disposition to attribute Omens to the good will of animals, especially Totems; for animals are often wiser than we are. In Australia the Turbal tribe held that the chirping of insects foretold the coming of blacks; a Wakelbwa who dreamed of a kangaroo would expect one of the Banbe subclass next day; to dream of old-man kangaroos sitting round the fire presaged danger.[355] Among the Yuin (Western Australia) a Black-Duck clansman thought that black ducks warned him against enemies; and men of the Kurnai, who had personal Totems, thought they gave protection by warnings.[356] Very early, however, ghosts or spirits sometimes come themselves to instruct us; as amongst the Kurnai, the Biraark (wizards) hold sÉances at night, when ghosts attend, and give news of enemies or of absent friends.[357] In New Guinea, the ghosts of dead tribesmen send their surviving relatives Omens by fishes or birds.[358]

By this animistic theory Omens are intimately connected with Oracles and Dreams; for these, too, are messages from the spirit-world. Dreams are the chief causes of belief in spirits, and with many people have not yet lost the character of supernatural visitations. Probably for ages past there have been in each generation a few rationalists, who treated dreams in the manner of Artabanes (as reported by Herodotus[359]—who, however, will show that the event refuted him), holding that “whatever a man has been thinking of during the day is wont to hover round him in the visions of his dreams at night.” Incensed against the diviners, rationalists have, in fact, too much despised and neglected dreams.

Oracles and Dreams are amongst the phenomena of “possession.” Spirits, demons, gods, roaming the world and indwelling or haunting various bodies or localities, sometimes take up their abode in stones or bags of charms, which then become fetiches; or attain greater dignity in images and temples; or enter into men and women, afflicting them with diseases, or else with dreams, or drunkenness, or madness, or prophecy, or poetry;[360] for these things are hard to distinguish. And sometimes the people thus afflicted wander at large, sometimes are to be found only by some tree, or spring, or cave, or temple, where the spirit that makes them wise above others has chosen to reside, perhaps because his body was buried there.

Omens, Oracles and Dreams have, besides their dependence on spirits, another trait in common, namely, obscurity of meaning. When you have been favoured with one of these communications, what does it promise or threaten? To answer this question passes the wit of ordinary men; and, therefore, certain superior minds assume the important function of Diviners and, to guide their judgment, work out in course of ages with infinite ingenuity the Art of Divination.

§ 6. Natural and Artificial Omens

Before discussing Divination we had better remind ourselves of the immense extension that the lore of Omens undergoes beyond the early recognition of mysterious natural signs (thunder or the behaviour of birds, etc.), by the preparation in various ways of conditions under which Omens may be obtained at will (throwing dice, roasting shoulder-blades, sacrificing pigs, etc.). Men are eager to know the future, at least the general complexion of it as happy or unhappy; and for this purpose they desire Omens. But natural Omens do not always appear when wanted, though probably the mere desire of them has multiplied them greatly; it is, therefore, very convenient to discover devices by which Omens can always be obtained by any one for any purpose. A common practice is to toss a halfpenny, and decide a doubtful choice of action by head or tail: reinforcing imbecility with superstition. It is impossible we should ever learn how such conventions originated, but may assume that the earlier were suggested by some accident, and many of the later by analogy. The Warramunga have a very simple plan, when a man dies, for discovering who it was that by evil magic slew him. They smooth the ground about the spot where the death occurred, and next morning come to examine it; and if they find there the trail of a snake, they know that the murderer was a man of the Snake-totem.[361] It is reasonable to suppose that in the first instance they found such a trail of snake or other animal upon unprepared ground, and thereafter smoothed the ground to make such signs plainer: thus they began the preparation of conditions for the taking of Omens. A New Zealand wizard had a simple construction for discovering beforehand who would have the better of a battle: he set up two sticks near together, one for his own party, the other for the enemy, and let them fall: whichever stick fell on the top of the other the party it had stood for was to conquer in the fight.[362] As ages go by and more and more intellect is concentrated upon the problem of foreknowledge, more and more ways are discovered of preparing the conditions of taking Omens, more and more expensive and complicated ones; for the more difficult the preparation and interpretation, the more necessary it is to employ a professional augur. The casting of dice, the drawing of lots, the taking of one’s chance with verses of Virgil or of the Bible, may seem easy, but even such devices may be made difficult by accumulating rules of interpretation. The sacred chicken, whose vagaries in feeding occasionally relieve with grateful diversion the strenuous page of Roman History, cannot have required highly skilled manipulation, but to watch them a professional eye was necessary; and when sacrifices are employed as opportunities of taking Omens from the behaviour of the victims, the manner of their dying and the condition of their entrails, a technical specialist of high training becomes indispensable. This led to the intensive study of entrails, especially of livers (Hepatoscopy, Hepatomancy), with some gain of knowledge in Anatomy. The study was widely diffused; but still more widely, perhaps, the art of prophesying by the lines to be observed in shoulder-blades cracked by roasting over a fire (Scapulomancy).

Where nothing is or can be done to alter the physical conditions of premonitory signs, yet a painstaking analysis has been made of those conditions in order to interpret them in a methodical way; and this study may demand far greater skill than augury. In Cheiromancy the lines and eminences of the hand have been exactly mapped and defined, and have had their several values and meanings assigned. It is really a perplexing study, not to be entered upon with a light heart, yet simple and obvious in comparison with Astrology. The Astrologer who would undertake to forecast the future fate of men or nations, or to recover forgotten facts of antiquity, such as the date of a hero’s birth (for it was understood that a difference of forward or backward in time should not hinder scientific calculations), had to take account of all the visible furniture of heaven, the stars in their constellations, especially the signs of the Zodiac; the seven planets, each with its own qualities and powers assumed arbitrarily or by fanciful analogies, all unquantified and all varying in the Twelve Houses of Heaven. What learning, what stupendous abilities were demanded for such a task! In fact, any one who now hears of it, immediately knows it to be impossible. But until many problems had been solved and the method of them appreciated, no one could understand what kind of problems are insoluble. Meanwhile, in this study, for ages so honoured, a mixture of genuine Astronomy and a parade of systematic procedure (of which philosophers well know the force) made fatuity plausible.

§ 7. Divination and Oracles

Omens and Oracles are, no doubt, infallible premonitions of something, if one can find it out; but they are often so obscure or ambiguous that one gets no guidance from them, and indeed it is sometimes impossible to judge whether they are ever fulfilled, or not. It is, therefore, most important that some one should be able to expound them; and here, as in every department of human effort, we may be sure that, of the many who attempt interpretation, one will be more successful than others; and then to him all men flock for enlightenment, especially if he make one good guess about some Omen or Oracle of general interest. Such a man was thereby constituted a Diviner, and became the founder of a profession, or (at least) of a branch or function of the great wizardly profession. It happened long ago; for in savagery most wizards are already Diviners.

In course of time the profession can no longer be satisfied with interpretation by guesswork, but elaborates the principles of the subject, the Art of Divination, upon which, perhaps, as much painstaking and ingenuity have been expended as upon industry and science put together. The savants who carried out such work were probably (many of them) as honest as fanatics can be; but the result always was to raise the reputation of the profession for occult knowledge and mysterious insight.

Diviners are either free and independent seers, soothsayers, fortune-tellers, mostly poverty-stricken and disreputable, though sometimes eminent and influential, like Tiresias and Epimenides; or else officials (a much smaller party) attached to some temple or government. Official soothsayers have often exercised immense power in society and politics. They are not found, of course, at the bottom of the scale of culture, where there is no government in Church or State; but in the lower barbarism, among the Bantu tribes (for example), Diviners have a highly influential station. The chief of a tribe usually has a specially trusted Diviner, and also consults others in discovering sorcerers and in forecasting the future.[363] In the Mazwaya clan of the Thonga there is an official Diviner who alone knows the exact composition of the royal “medicine,” on which the welfare of the whole tribe depends. He is very much feared: no one dares dispute with him; and he has the right of cursing even the chief himself.[364] Such a powerful subject naturally excites the jealousy of the chief, who sometimes endeavours to get into his own hands all the medicines and occult virtues possessed by any of his tribesmen.[365] The danger of opposition between Church and State was also felt in Melanesia and Polynesia; and in Hawaii it was decisively overcome; for when the oracle was to be consulted, the king, concealed in a frame of wickerwork, gave the responses himself.[366]

In Greece (sixth and fifth centuries B.C.) oracles were still more powerful: the record may be read in Herodotus. The most flourishing States observed the Omens, and never ventured to go to war without consulting the Oracles; and the Oracles undertook to advise on war and peace and alliances, to settle disputed claims to sovereignty and the constitution of States, to sanction new laws and the foundation of colonies, to order the erection of new temples and even the worship of new deities—some of them of very dubious reputation: to say nothing of the infinite extent of their private practice. Their utterances were often unintelligible; they were sometimes known to have accepted bribes; yet the most enlightened people in the world continued to consult them: whether in good faith, or for their effect upon the vulgar both friends and enemies, or perhaps to share responsibility for an action with the gods, or even because one then felt more comfortable than in leaving them alone. But the diffusion of philosophy was too much for them; and, as Cicero says,[367] even the Delphic Oracle declined in reputation, not because with lapse of time the divine virtue failed of those exhalations that inspired the priestess, but when men became less credulous. Perhaps it was also because social life had become, under Roman government, safer and more settled and regular; so that a reasonable amount of foresight could be exercised without supernatural aid. Still, after the Oracles seemed to have been struck dumb, they revived from time to time for two or three centuries; Plutarch was far from incredulous; and the equivalent of them will (I suppose) continue to revive now and then, unless insane desire, and anxiety, and pusillanimity, and wonder and confusion of mind shall one day be extinguished.

In the great empires of the higher barbarism, the Magi amongst the Medes and Persians, and in Egypt, Babylonia and India the priesthood who practised soothsaying and vaticination with their other functions, obtained still greater control over national life. The development of Astrology has always been imputed to the Chaldeans; and the importance of dreams and their interpretation in Egypt and Babylon is reflected in the stories of Joseph and Daniel as well as in the profaner pages of Herodotus.

The character of Omens and the way of obtaining Oracles and of being inspired in Greece were merely modifications of those that have been in vogue amongst savages. Imagination-beliefs, in spite of their extravagance, have, in fact, a short tether and move in narrow circles, perpetually renewing the same themes. The ravings of the Pythoness possessed, which are said to have sometimes frightened the priests, might have been studied in Fiji. This was what happened when a priest was inspired: he “becomes absorbed in thought ... in a few minutes he trembles; slight distortions are seen in his face, and twitching movements in his limbs. These increase to a violent muscular action, which spreads until the whole frame is violently convulsed, and the man shivers as with a strong ague-fit. In some instances this is accompanied by murmurs and sobs; the veins are greatly enlarged, and the circulation of the blood quickened. The priest is now possessed by his god, and all his words and actions are considered as no longer his own, but those of the deity who has entered him. Shrill cries of Koi au! Koi au! ‘It is I! It is I!’ fill the air, and the god is supposed thus to notify his approach. While giving the answer the priest’s eyes stand out and roll as in a frenzy; his voice is unnatural, his face pale, his lips livid, his breathing depressed and his entire appearance that of a furious madman. The sweat runs from every pore, the tears start from his strained eyes; after which the symptoms gradually disappear. The priest looks round with a vacant stare, and as the god says ‘I depart,’ announces his actual departure by violently flinging himself down on the mat, or by suddenly striking the ground with a club.... The convulsive movements do not entirely disappear for some time.”[368]

To become inspired by means of visions or dreams, or endowed with the powers of a prophet or diviner, the obvious plan is to go to places frequented by spirits, namely, tombs, caves and temples. The Oracle of Trophonius in Boeotia was situated in a cave into which the consultant descended, and there saw visions or heard strange noises, and lost his senses: on returning to the upper air, he sat in the Chair of Memory and reported to the priests what had happened; and they delivered him to his friends “overpowered with fear, and quite unconscious of himself and his surroundings.”[369] Afterwards he recovered his wits. At Oropus was a sanctuary of Amphiaraus, who (against his better judgment) had joined the expedition of Adrastus against Thebes and, amidst the general defeat of the army, fled and was swallowed up in the earth. His death ought to have occurred where his sanctuary stood; for it was a famous Oracle, and to consult it you purified yourself and sacrificed a ram and, spreading the skin under you, went asleep there, awaiting a revelation in a dream.[370] In the temple of PasiphÆ, too, near Sparta, one might hope for a divine message in a dream; and a shepherd, sleeping by the grave of Orpheus at Libethra, was moved to sing the verses of Orpheus.[371]

To lose one’s memory and afterwards recover one’s wits is incidental to many initiation ceremonies, and the darkness and secrecy of caves—which, moreover, are often burial-places—have always deeply impressed our imagination. Amongst the Arunta there is a way of obtaining powers of Magic and Divination by going to sleep at the mouth of a cave; when the Iruntarinia (a kind of spirits), who live there, pierce the sleeper’s head with lances, drag him into the cave, disembowel him and give him new entrails. He awakes dazed and silly; and the spirits lead him home, where gradually he recovers his right mind.[372] Amongst the Kurnai, again, one may become a wizard and diviner by sleeping at a grave; for in the night the dead man disembowels one, and provides new visceral organs.[373] Elsewhere in Australia a candidate for the wizardly profession is tied down at night in the tribal burial-ground and visited by spirits who force a stone into his head—apparently a kind of crystal, by gazing into which a wizard is able to see the past, the distant and the future.[374]

The seeking of enlightenment where spirits dwell in caves or graves, loss of wits by contact with them and subsequent recovery—all this may remind us of stories in Pausanias; but what of the disembowelling and renewing of the viscera? We are told by Spencer and Gillen that during the performance of certain traditionary ceremonies, an Australian’s emotion is very great, so that he says his inward parts get “tied up in knots,” and sometimes acquire “sight” and give omens;[375] and Howitt tells us that fat of the kidneys is believed to be the seat of a man’s prowess and other virtues.[376] To extract and renew a man’s entrails, therefore, is to renew his spirit, just as we speak metaphorically of a “change of heart,” so that he has more vivid emotions, firmer courage, clearer insight. In fact, it is the magical equivalent of inspiration; the crystal, too, of the Euahlayi is a magic source; and this is as far as the Australians have got:[377] gross materialism, which the progress or (at least) the movement of animistic thought has happily superseded by conceptions more refined, if not more truthful.

§ 8. Apparent Failure of Omens

Though in their nature infallible, Omens are not always fulfilled—at least, their fulfilment is not always ascertainable. But this is easily explained; for whatever an Omen may be in itself, our knowledge of it depends on observation, which may be superficial and incomplete, so that we may not know what it was. What kind of bird was it? Which way did it fly? How many cries did it utter? These questions go to the heart of the matter; yet each of them points out an opportunity of error. But granting the observations perfect, we have still to learn what the Omen portends; and although a simple mind, trusting to simple rules, may be ready offhand with an answer, it becomes, with the development of the art of Divination, more and more complicated and difficult, demanding long experience and profound erudition—something worth paying for. It is popularly known that dreams are perplexing as the guide of life. Are they to be accepted at face value, or do they go by contraries? What difference does it make whether they happen early in the night, or in the morning, or whether we sleep in white or in coloured night-clothes? There is an extensive casuistry of this matter. Interpretations of Omens proceeded generally by analogy: the length and direction of the cracks in a shoulder-blade indicate the length and tenor of a man’s life. Oracles, again, were often distractingly obscure; from Delphi much like riddles; but those of Zeus at Dodona are said to have been sometimes taken to Apollo at Delphi to ask what they meant. Clearly, then, besides possible errors of observation, there were further pitfalls of interpretation; if a physician or a pilot is sometimes out in his reckoning, why not also a diviner? So that an Omen might very well be fulfilled without our knowing exactly what it was or what it indicated.

But that is not all; for we have seen that any kind of magical force is only infallible as a tendency; it may be counteracted, and this is generally thought to be the case with Omens. Just as the rites of one magician may be frustrated by the more powerful operations of another, so an Omen indicates a course of events which may, perhaps, be turned aside. That which is foreseen by one spirit may be prevented by another, whose intervention was not foreseen; for spirits are by no means infallible. Hence, however well observed and interpreted, the tendency of an Omen, or of the force it manifests, may be diverted or reversed by some unknown cause. Moreover, we ourselves are loth to relinquish all control over affairs. We have seen that the efficacy of Omens depended (not without reason) on the way they were received; and that we may meet them with our own magical influence, accepting them, or rejecting with a spell.

And further, we have seen that Magic often works by symbols, and that a symbolic action will cause or incite a real event; and similarly it is believed that the event foreshown by an Omen may be symbolically fulfilled; that some harmless semblance of the event may be substituted for it, absorb (as it were) the poison of the menace and let the threatened man go free. Astyages dreamed a dream which the Magi interpreted to mean that the child of his daughter (married to a Persian) should reign over Asia in his stead—implying that the kingdom must pass from the Medes. He therefore took measures to have the child destroyed; but by a series of happy chances Cyrus, the child, escaped and grew up; and in his boyhood Astyages discovered who he was, and was greatly alarmed. So he sent again for the Magi; but they, on learning that the boys in the village where Cyrus had been reared had in games appointed him their king, decided that this fulfilled the dream; for, said they, “he will not reign a second time.”[378] So Cyrus lived, and the lordship of Asia passed to the Persians; for the Magi in this case overestimated the value of symbols. But all these ways of frustrating an Omen are incompatible with the interpretation of them by the course of Fate, and are only fit to be believed in by the weaker brethren.

§ 9. Apology for Omens

It may be some excuse for Omens that the interpretation of them was a sort of gymnastic for ingenuity, and was a means by which the quick-witted maintained themselves in a world of violence. It is, moreover, the business of those who undertake such work to study social and political conditions, just as rain-doctors study the weather. Their judgment, therefore, may often be better than that of men immersed in affairs and biassed by particular interests. Even in the lower savagery diviners manage to know more than others. In Queensland, when a big mob has assembled at a camp, diviners are believed to keep their eyes and ears open, sleepless—to learn who have death-bones, who has operated with one, who has been pointed at, etc.;[379] and in South Africa (two or three steps higher in culture) diviners take pains to obtain information as a means of “opening the gates of distance.”[380] At Delphi, also, news was welcome from all parts, and men of capacity kept a steady eye upon the affairs of Greece and Asia. Of course, Divination, like every other superstition, was exploited by politicians. The Roman Government, according to Cicero, maintained the College of Augurs for the advantage of the State in civil affairs, although in his time the leaders of armies had ceased to consult the Omens:[381] and Polybius thought that religion was Rome’s most useful institution.[382] A law that the comitia should not be held when Jupiter thundered and lightened was especially convenient when that assembly was inconvenient; for the official whose function it was had only to declare that he saw lightning, and thereupon the comitia broke up. Probably even those who thus abused a superstition, yet believed (at least in times of danger) “there was something in it.” Omens and Oracles were sought after to allay fear and to gain confidence, and often they gave confidence and the strength that goes with confidence; or perhaps the rashness and folly that go with confidence, and so betrayed the devotee; or, again, they dashed the courage of brave men, and spread dismay, distrust and weakness.

No superiority of mere intellect seems to ensure men against participating in these delusions. Many Stoics, though highly disciplined in Logic, upheld the practices of Divination and Astrology. PanÆtius, indeed, rejected them; and Epictetus on moral grounds discouraged Divination. “For,” said he, “what the diviner foresees is not what really concerns us. We have within us a diviner who tells us what good and evil are, and what are the signs of them. Does the diviner understand that—after all his studies of the viscera? Not what is to happen in the future, but to do as we ought whatever happens is our true concern.”[383] But this genuine expression of Stoic thought was abandoned by most of the sect in their desire to defend as much as possible the popular religion. They even staked the existence of the gods upon the genuineness of Divination: arguing that if Divination exists there must be gods who send Omens; and that if Divination does not exist there can be no gods—since if there are gods who know the future, and have a regard for mankind, and are able to give warnings, they will certainly do so. Therefore, no Divination, no gods.[384] There is, indeed, a widespread pitiful persuasion that some provision must have been made whereby a man may foresee his future; and so, in a sense, there is; for the existence of order in nature implies the possibility of foresight; and a fanciful mind might regard Divination as the anticipatory manifestation of an instinct in play before the faculties became capable of serious exercise. But the play was taken too seriously; and the worst of it was that its inane methods diverted attention from the only possible method—if not always on the part of the diviner, at least on the part of the great multitude, his dupes. M.H.A. Jounod says of the Bantu tribes, “Divination kills any attempt to use reason or experience in practical life.”[385] And, clearly, this is everywhere its tendency, be it a question of consulting a canary at the street-corner, whether or not we should marry, or an augur rather than an experienced general whether or not now to engage the enemy.

Seneca[386] treated Omens as a necessary consequence of universal Fate: for if all events are factors of one predetermined order, everything in the present is a sign or omen of everything to occur in the future; and some events, such as the flight of birds, have been selected as Omens, merely because the meaning or consequents of these happen to have been observed; and whether Omens are respected or despised, Fate determines the whole course of events. By this way of thinking, as it was fated that the Romans should be defeated at Lake Trasimenus, it was also fated that the Omens should be declared unfavourable and that the warning should not be taken; and if it was fated that the Romans should be defeated at CannÆ, it was also fated that the Omens should be declared favourable and that they should be accepted. A belief in Fate makes Omens useless.

If, however, instead of Fate (all-comprehensive Magic) or predestination (by a supreme God), we regard the course of the world as determined by natural causation, whether Omens or Oracles may be useful or not (supposing them possible) depends on the nature of the event foretold—on whether it involves ourselves conditionally only or unconditionally. Omens that warn us against events conditionally may be useful enough, and few will think it a serious fault that they discourage the use of reason. King Deiotarus, having set out on a journey, was warned by an eagle not to go forward with it, and he turned back; and that same night the house at which he was to have slept fell down; so he escaped.[387] The danger was conditional on his continuing the journey; and, in the course of causation, a warning of danger, whether announced by an augur or by our own sagacity, may often enable us to avoid it. The causes of the future are present, and (within certain limits) are in our power. If I have reason to believe that there will be a fire at the Opera to-night, or have a presentiment of some calamity there, I need not go; and, then, I shall not be burnt alive. Whether the presage come to me by an Omen, or by a message from a god, or in an anonymous letter from one of the incendiaries who happens to be a friend of mine, cannot matter. No, if there were gods with intuitions of futurity, or with better knowledge than we have of present fact and greater power of calculating the consequences, they might make themselves useful. On this hypothesis there is not a priori any absurdity in the doctrine of Omens.

But with Omens or Oracles of magical or divine authority, that foreshadow our own fate unconditionally, the case is different. If, for example, they tell a man that he will die by the fall of the roof of his own house, that must be his end; and any one who examines his career afterwards will find that all his efforts to escape, all his pusillanimous crouchings and windings, were just so many steps of causation upon the road to inevitable doom. To convey such a presage serves no purpose but to fill the victim’s last days with anxiety and dread: it is as bad as cruelty to animals.

The defence of Omens is mere rationalisation. They took possession of men’s minds not in an age of reason, but when beliefs were freely born of hope and fear, were entirely practical, were never thought out and never verified. Whether the connection of Omen with event was conceived of magically or animistically, it was always mysterious, and on that account was the more impressive and acceptable. The uniformity of such connexions was, indeed, assumed—otherwise they were useless; the same bird’s call on this hand or on that had always the same significance; but each case at first stood by itself; it was what we call “a miracle.” Even such assumption of causation in ordinary cases as common sense implies did not compel the reflection that each cause must itself be an effect of other causes, and so again, and so on for ever. Nor did the assumption that spirits could foresee the future require that they should foresee the whole future, so as to imply an inviolable order of the world. Such considerations were left to amuse or perplex a later age. A great advance is marked by the saying of the Bechuana prince to Casalis, that “one event is the son of another, and we must never forget the genealogy.”[388] But quite recently amongst ourselves causation was so feebly appreciated, even by the most educated, that testimony concerning miracles could still be appealed to as a ground for believing something further. One reviews all these wonderful fossils of the soul which are dead and yet alive, not without sympathy. For myself, I am free to confess, as they used to say in Parliament, that Omens and presentiments still haunt the shadowy precincts of imagination with vague shapes and mutterings of evils to come; which when they approach will be (I suppose) as hard and definite as daylight.