877. A saner direction was given to investigation by the great biological and sociological studies made in the second half of the nineteenth century.1528 E. B. Tylor definitely stated the view that the origin of myths is to be found in all the ideas of early man. By a very large collection of facts1529 he showed that the same representations that are familiar in Egyptian, Semitic, Hindu, Greek, Roman, and other ancient myths occur also in the systems of half-civilized and savage communities; and he pointed out how such representations had their basis in the simple ideas of undeveloped men and how their survival is to be traced through all periods of history. This fruitful view has been illustrated and developed by later writers,1530 and much light has been thrown on the genesis and growth of myths by studies of existing popular customs in civilized communities.1531
878. Interest in the subject has now become general, and collections of material are being made all over the world.1532 At the same time it is recognized that every local mass of myths must be studied first by itself and then in connection with all other known material, and that great caution must be exercised in dealing with questions of origin, transmission, and survival. Archæological and geographical discoveries have widened the known area of human life on earth; it is seen that the history of man's development is more complicated than was formerly supposed.
879. We are still without a general survey of myths arranged in some orderly fashion.1533 The material for such a collection is scattered through a great number of publications, in which the mythical stories are not always treated critically. The most useful principle of tabulation, perhaps, would be an arrangement according to motifs, under which geographical or ethnological and geographical relations might be noted. At the present time it would be possible only to make a beginning in such a work, since the obtainable material is not all recorded, and the complicated character of many myths makes an arrangement by place and motif difficult. Still, even an incomplete digest would be of service to students of mythology and would pave the way for a more comprehensive work. The importance of the study of mythology for the general history of religions is becoming more and more manifest. This study, in its full form, includes, of course, psychological investigation as well as collections of statistics; but the psychology finds its material in the facts—we must first know what men believe, and then explain why they believe.
880. It must, however, be added that myths have influenced mainly the dogmas and ceremonies of religion—their part in more intimate or spiritual worship, the converse of the worshiper with the deity, has been comparatively slight. Religious ceremonies are ordinary social customs and forms transferred to dealings with supernatural Powers. Dogmas are quasi-philosophical expressions of conceptions concerning the nature of these Powers and their relations with men, and sometimes contain mythical material which is then introduced into worship; if, for example, a man is divinized and worship is paid him, the tone of the worship is affected by the divine character thus ascribed to him. But in general, as men, in worship proper, approach a deity to get some advantage from him, the appeal is to him directly without regard to ceremonies or minute dogmas. Savages, though in theory they may make a god to be an animal or a plant, come to him devoutly as a superior being who can grant their requests. In higher religions the deity addressed is for the moment an omnipotent friend standing apart from the stories told of him. Rival sects lose sight of their differences in the presence of needs that drive them to God for help. Prayer is a religious unifier—communion with the Deity is an individual experience in which all men stand on common ground, where ritual and dogmatic accessories tend to fade or to disappear.
881. Long after myths in their original forms have ceased to be believed they persist in the form of "fairy tales," which retain something of the old supernatural framework, but sink into mere stories for amusement.1534
But fairy tales are not the only form in which ancient myths persist. Myths have played their prominent part in the history of religion for the reason that they embody the conception of the tangible supernatural in a vivid and dramatic way. To this personalization and socialization of the supernatural men have continued to cling up to the present time; the mass of men demand not only the presence of the supernatural as protection and guidance, but also the realization of it in objective form. This objectiveness was useful and necessary in early times, and the demand for it remains in periods of advanced civilization. In the reigning religions of the world at the present day myths continue to hold their place and to exercise their influence,1535 the more that in the course of time they become fused with the constantly advancing ethical and spiritual thought of the communities in which they exist. The tendency appears to be to minimize, under the influence of general enlightenment, the crude supernatural parts of such combinations, to exalt the moral and spiritual, and to allegorize or rationalize the rest. But along with such process of rationalization the mythical form is maintained and continues to be a powerful element in the general structure of religious opinion and life.
882. The regulation of relations with the superhuman world has been attempted by means of friendly social intercourse with supernatural Powers, and by studying their methods of procedure with a view to applying these methods and thereby gaining beneficial results. Friendly social intercourse is practical religion in the higher sense of that term. The application and use of superhuman procedures takes two lines of action: the powers of superhuman agents may be appropriated and used independently of them, or the object may be simply to discover their will in order to be guided by it. The first of these lines is magic, the second is divination. While the two have in common the frank and independent employment of the supernatural for the bettering of human life, their conceptions and modes of procedure differ in certain respects, and they may be considered separately.
883. The perils and problems of savage life, more acute in certain directions than those that confront the civilized man, demand constant vigilance, careful investigation, and prompt action. So far as familiar and tangible enemies (beasts and men) are concerned, common sense has devised methods of defense, and ordinary prudence has suggested means of providing against excessive heat or cold and of procuring food. But there are dangers and ills that in the savage view cannot be referred to such sources, but must be held to be caused by intangible, invisible forces in the world, against which it is man's business to guard himself. He must learn what they are and how to thwart or use them as circumstances may require. They could be studied only in their deeds, and this study involves man in the investigation of the law of cause and effect. The only visible bond between phenomena is that of sequence, and on sequence the savage bases his science of causes—that which precedes is cause, that which follows is effect. The agencies he recognizes are spirits, gods, the force resident in things (mana), and human beings who are able to use this force.
884. But belief in such agencies would be useless to man unless he also believed that he could somehow determine their actions, and belief in the possibility of determining these appears to have come to him through his theory of natural law. The reasoning of savages on this point has not been recorded by them, but the character of their known procedures leads us to suppose that they have a sense of a law governing the actions of superhuman Powers. Being conscious that they themselves are governed by law, they may naturally in imagination transfer this order of things to the whole invisible world; spirits, gods, and the mana-power, it is assumed, work on lines similar to those followed by man, only with superhuman breadth and force. The task before the originators of society was to discover these modes of procedure in order to act in accordance with them. The discovery was made gradually by observation, and there grew up thus in process of time a science of supernatural procedure which is the basis of the practice of magic.
This science does not necessarily regard the superhuman power as purposely antagonistic to man. Rather its native attitude appears to have been conceived of as one of indifference (as nature is now regarded as careless of man); it was and is thought of as a force to be guarded against and utilized by available means, which, of course, were and are such as are proper to an undeveloped stage of social growth.
885. Magic is a science of sequences, but only of sequences supposed not to be explicable from ordinary experience. When the savage puts his hand into the fire or receives a spear-thrust in his body he recognizes visible and familiar causes of pain, and accepts the situation as a fact of life, calling for no further explanation. But when the pain comes from no familiar tangible source he is driven to seek a different sort of source. A cause there must be, and this cause, though superhuman, must follow definite methods—it must have the will to act, and it must have knowledge and skill to carry out its designs. To discover its methods man must observe the processes of nature and imitate them, and must at the same time have in mind familiar human modes of action. The savage scientific explanation of mysterious facts is that superhuman Powers are intellectually akin to human beings; the question of motive in such Powers (except in the case of developed gods) seems not to be considered. The basis of magical procedure is imitation of nature and of man. This principle is supplemented by the conception of the unity of the world, a feeling at first vague, that all things have the same nature and are bound together in a cosmos; animals and men, trees, stones and waters, and fragments of all these are parts of one great whole, and each feels, so to speak, what is done to or by one of the others. This feeling, derived from observation and reflection, is not formulated, but is influential in the construction of the unconscious philosophy of the savage.
886. The methods of man's magical procedure follow these principles; they are as various as the sequences that savage man thinks he observes.1537 Many of them are suggested by natural phenomena. Since rain was observed to fall from the sky, it was held that in time of drought it might be obtained by casting water into the air and letting it fall, or by dipping a stone in water and letting it drip; in general, by any process in which water falls on the ground. The wind might be raised by ejecting air from the mouth (as by whistling). Or ordinary human actions might be imitated: a stick thrown or pointed toward an enemy, it was believed, would cause a spear to enter his body;1538 a hostile glance of the eye, indicating desire to inflict injury, might carry ill luck.1539 In such cases the fundamental conceptions are the sympathy that comes from unity and the activity of the pervasive mana. These conceptions are visible in procedures in which action on a part of the human body, or on an image or picture of it, was supposed to reach the body itself. The possession of a piece of the bone, skin, hair, or nail of a man might enable one who had knowledge of superhuman laws and processes to affect the man with sickness or even to cause his death. Contact of objects naturally suggests their unity, but the sympathy between them was not held to be dependent on contact; a man's bone remained a part of him, however far it might be separated from him. A dead body did not lose its virtues; the qualities of a dead warrior might be acquired by eating his flesh. The mysterious unity of things seems to have resided, in savage thought, in the omnipresent mana, a force independent of human limitations. Not that there was a definite theory on the subject, but something of this sort seems to be assumed in the ideas and usages of many low tribes.1540
On the other hand, a magical effect may be set aside by magic. A sick man, believing his sickness to be the work of a magician (the usual savage theory of the cause of bodily ills), sends for another magician to counteract the evil work; and a magician, failing to cure his patient, ascribes his failure to the machinations of a powerful rival. In all such cases the theory and the methods are the same; the magic that cures is not different in principle (though it may differ in details) from the magic that kills.
887. The facts observed by practicers of magic probably contributed to the collections of material that furnished the starting-point for the scientific study of physical phenomena. The interest in the facts arose at first simply from their relation to magical procedure—it was from them that certain laws of supernatural action were learned, and men thus got control of this action. Magic is essentially a directive or coercive procedure and differs in this respect from fully formed religion, which is essentially submissive and obedient.
888. It is true that coercion of divine beings appears in well-developed religions. A Babylonian goddess (Nana) was carried off by the Elamites to their land that she might there do duty as divine protector; restored to her proper home 1635 years later, she resumed her old functions.1541 The Egyptians are said by Plutarch to have slain their divine animals if these failed to avert or remove calamity.1542 Prometheus and certain Homeric heroes are victorious over gods. In some savage tribes divine kings are put to death if they fail to do what is expected of them. A god was sometimes chained or confined in his temple to prevent his voluntary or constrained departure. A recusant deity was sometimes taunted or insulted by his disappointed worshipers.1543 There is, however, a difference between the two sets of coercive acts. The force used by developed religion is physical, that employed in magic is psychological and logical. When a god is chained or carried off, it is only his body that is controlled—he is left to his own thoughts, or it is assumed that he will be friendly to his enforced locus. Magic brings the supernatural Power under the dominion of law against which his nature is powerless. Religion, even when it employs force, recognizes the protective function of the deity; magic is without such acknowledgment, without emotion or worship. While it has, on one side, a profounder conception of cosmic force than appears in early religion, it is, on the social side, vastly inferior to the latter, to which it has necessarily yielded in the course of human progress. Nevertheless, if religion in the broadest sense includes all means of bringing man into helpful relations with the supernatural world, then magic is a form of religion.
889. The much-discussed question whether magic was the earliest form of religion is not susceptible of a definite answer for the reason that we have no account of man's earliest conceptions of his relations with the world of invisible forces. There is some reason to hold, as is remarked above,1544 that in the lowest stage of life known to us men were logically indifferent spectators of the world, but in general stood in awe of phenomena, so that fear was their prevailing feeling. It may be surmised that this feeling would engender a sense of antagonism to such superhuman Powers as came to be conceived of, on which would naturally follow a desire to get control of them. Yet it is impossible to say at what stage of social development the necessity would be felt of establishing friendly relations with the Powers. The two lines of effort may have begun and gone on side by side, the two springing from the same utilitarian impulse, but each independent of the other—a coexistence that actually appears in many tribes; finally the coercive effort tends to yield to the kindly influences of organized society. There is no ground for calling magic a "disease of religion." The presumption, from the general law of progress, is that, when there is a chronological difference, the socially lower precedes the socially higher. Religion and magic come to be mutually antagonistic, except in cases where religious authorities adopt magical procedures, giving them a theistic and socially useful coloring. Magic has been a natural, if not a necessary, step in the religious organization of society.1545
890. Since religion and magic have in common the purpose to establish relations with extrahuman Powers the dividing line between the two is in some cases not easily fixed—the same procedure may be held to belong in the one category or the other, according as it invokes or does not invoke the aid of a god in friendly and submissive fashion. We may thus be carried back to a time when a sharp distinction between the two did not exist, as there was a time when such a distinction is not visible between "gods" (friendly divine members of the human community) and "demons" (unfriendly outside beings), both classes being regarded simply as agents affecting human life. Even when some fairly good form of organization has been reached it is often hard to say to which class a particular figure belongs. The Hawaiian Pele (the "goddess" of the great and dangerous volcano) is often vindictive, and then differs little or not at all from a demon that sends sickness and death.1546 The Babylonians gave the same name (shedu) to a class of demons proper and to the divine or half-divine winged beings (to which, apparently, the Hebrew cherubs are allied) that guarded the entrances to temples, sacred gardens, and palaces.1547 The Navaho beings called yei and anaye seem to hover on the border line between the divine and the demonic classes.1548 The difference between the two seems to be merely that the one class (the gods) has been adopted (for reasons not originally ethical) into the human community, while the other has not received such adoption.1549 In such a case a given figure may easily pass from one class into the other. According to the Thompson River folk-lore the sun was once a cannibal but became beneficent.1550 The early Christians converted the Græco-Roman gods (daimonia) into "demons."1551 There being this fluid relation between supernatural beings, it is not strange that such a relation should exist between procedures intended to act on them.1552
891. Magic, as we have seen, is based on the observation of sequences, and before the development of reflection and the acquisition of a knowledge of natural law the disposition of human beings is to regard all sequences as exhibiting the relation of cause and effect. A typical example is that of the anchor driven ashore, a piece of which was broken off by a man who died soon after; the conclusion was that the anchor caused his death and therefore was divine, and accordingly it received religious worship.1553 In the course of ages thousands of such sequences must have been observed, and these, handed down from one generation to another, would shape themselves into a handbook of magic. They would, however, be constantly reëxamined and sifted under the guidance of wider experience and a better acquaintance with natural causes, and this process, carried on by experts, would give rise to the science of magic as we find it among lower tribes.
Magic, like religion, is a social product. The two, as is remarked above, may coexist in the same community. But when a State religion is established to which all citizens are expected to conform, the pursuit of magic assumes the aspect of departure from, and hostility to, the tribal or national cult. It is then under the ban, and can be carried on only in secret1554 (as is the case with prohibited religions also). Secrecy of practice is not of the essence of magic; among the Australian Arunta, for example, magical ceremonies constitute the publicly recognized business of the community acting through its accredited representatives; the partial exclusion of women and uninitiated boys from these ceremonies (and from political councils) is due mainly to the desire of the elders to keep the power in their own hands. The State religion may sometimes be forced by public opinion to adopt particular magical procedures.
892. It was natural that the specific study of sequences and laws should fall into the hands of special persons and classes of men. The human agent in the discovery of laws is the magician (sorcerer, shaman), who, since he was generally a physician also, sometimes received the name of "medicine man." As the office of chief arose for the direction of social culture and political affairs, so the office of magician arose naturally for the direction of supernatural relations. He may have been the earliest religious teacher and guide.1555 He knows the will and nature of the supernatural Powers and is therefore a necessity to men. He is specifically in charge of all that relates to the control of these Powers.
893. In the course of time there arises a differentiation of functions, and, when religion becomes friendly, the office of priest is created. The priest, like the magician, understands the will of the gods, but his procedure is intended simply to propitiate them or to discover their will in particular cases.1556 He is a development out of the magician in so far as friendly religion is a development out of magical religion.1557 The prophet also, in the rôle in which he appears among the Greeks, is a development out of the old magician; he knows the will of the gods and is thus able to predict events. This is the character of the old Hebrew seer; the Hebrew prophet, originally a seer, assumed in the course of time a quite different character—he became a preacher of ethical religion.
894. The office of magician, once established, became subject to all the rules that govern official persons in barbarous, half-civilized, and civilized societies. Of the way in which the position was attained in the earliest times we have no information, but in relatively low tribes it appears that it is attained in various ways. There is sometimes a suggestion of vocation in a dream or a vision.1558 Among some tribes a candidate for the office has to undergo a process of education, that is, of training in the signs by which the presence of superhuman Powers is recognizable and of the way of dealing with disease and other evils.1559 It is not unusual that the candidate is required to submit to a test, sometimes of physical endurance (as is required also in the case of the young warrior), but chiefly of susceptibility to supernatural influences and capacity of insight, and of the conduct of magical operations.1560 Generally in the lower tribes the office comes by free choice of the individual, or by choice of the body of magicians, without regard to the social position of the man. In West Africa, says Miss Kingsley, everybody keeps a familiar spirit or two for magical purposes; this is unlawful only when the spirit is harmful.1561
895. In somewhat more advanced societies the office falls into the hands of families and descends from father to son, in which case the younger man is instructed by the older in the secrets of the profession.1562 In some higher religions magical performances are in the hands of certain clans or tribes. In most of these cases women as well as men may be masters of the art. In the more advanced systems it is often the case that it is especially women who are considered adepts; so it was in Babylonia;1563 in the Old Testament Saul seeks the woman of Endor;1564 Thessalian witches were famous;1565 women who tie magical knots are provided against in the Koran by a special form of prayer;1566 in Europe, medieval and later, the practicers of magic have generally been women.
896. The grounds for the ascription of magical superiority to women—whether from their supposed greater susceptibility to demoniac influence, or for some other reason—are not clear. In the lowest tribes sorcerers are commonly men1567—the profession is an influential and honored one, and naturally falls into the hands of leading men; the magician is often the most powerful man in the community.
897. Reputation for magical power appears sometimes to attach to a tribe or other body of persons as the representatives of a religion which is adopted by a lower community. Possibly this is the explanation of the rôle ascribed at an early period to the Mazdean Magi.1568 The Magi (apparently Median of origin) formed the priestly tribe of the Mazdean religion, and we do not know that they played originally any part as sorcerers. But it seems that they were so considered in Greece as early as the fifth century B.C.,1569 and after the Moslem conquest of Persia and the suppression of Zoroastrianism a fire-worshiper or Magian is especially a representative of magic.1570 On the other hand, it sometimes happens among adjoining tribes that the lower become the special practitioners of magic,1571 which is then considered to be a mysterious art, alien to the official religion, and therefore proper to the ministers of the old mysterious cults.
898. The power exercised by the magician extends over the whole world of men and things, and is generally considered to be practically without limit. He guards men against diseases, noxious beasts, and all other forms of injury; he destroys one's enemies and guards one against plots of enemies, including other magicians; he is able to induce or destroy love, to give physical strength, to inflict disease, to kill, and to restore to life; he ascends to heaven or descends into the world below; he is able to coerce the gods themselves; in fact, he does everything that a god is commonly supposed to do—the tendency was to identify the magician and the god.1572 Such identification is natural or necessary in early faiths, inasmuch as it was held that there was no difference of nature between men and gods. A god was as a rule the stronger. But how gods arose and how they gained their superior strength was not clear, and it might thus easily happen that a man should acquire powers equal to those of divine beings.1573
899. The methods employed by the magician to effect his purpose are various. In early times it is usual for him to fall into an ecstatic state; by drinking intoxicating liquors, by violent movements, or by contemplation he gets out of himself and comes into relations with the mysterious potencies. In such a condition he acts as his imagination suggests.1574 But in the organized forms of magic long experience has devised various means of producing results beyond the power of ordinary men. Certain objects are magically charged with supernatural power (charms), and these worn on the person guard the possessor against malign influences. Various formulas are employed which are supposed to coerce the Powers; these are sometimes names of ordinary objects regarded as sacred, the name of some plant or animal.1575 Names of divine persons have special potency. The name of a god was supposed to carry with it his power, and the utterance of his name secured all that he could secure; thus, in the early Christian times the tetragrammaton YHWH (Yahweh) had absolute power against demons.
900. Similar efficacy attached to sacred compositions, prayers,1576 and the like. The Mazdean petition, Honover (Ahuna-Vairya), was so employed, and in Christian circles even the Lord's Prayer. Charms or incantations often took rhythmical form—verses, couplets, or quatrains were widely used. All such methods were the product of ages of experience.1577 They were handed down from generation to generation, often in families or classes of magicians, were modified or enlarged from time to time, and thus came at last to form a literature.
901. In the great civilized religions magical practice gradually assumed a tone somewhat different from that of the earliest times. It continued to be coercive toward evil Powers, but in regard to the good Powers it assumed rather to discover their modes of action. It was not anti-religious; it remained alongside of the official religious systems in friendly relations. It relied on the assistance of the good gods and not on that of the demons. There was good magic and bad magic, white magic and black magic, as these came to be called. A procedure of white magic can thus, from the point of view of religion, hardly be distinguished from prayer to a deity. The difference between the two appears to be that the magic produces abnormal or violent effects, which experience taught could not reasonably be expected from the deity. It is the old crude science brought (as the lesser divine Powers were brought) into a relation of subordination to the chief god of the community.
902. Elaborate magical systems are found in some of the ancient national religions. In India the Atharva-Veda, though it contains a mass of crude old material, is nevertheless recognized as one of the sacred books, standing by the side of the Rig-Veda, though of less authority and significance than that. The Atharvan was originally a priest of fire, but in this work he becomes simply a magician; the immense number of magical procedures in the book provided for all emergencies of life.1578 The Babylonian magical formulas also go back to an early time, but they were preserved by the priests and recognized as a legitimate element in the religious practice.1579 The old Egyptian stories introduce a number of magical proceedings, and the formulas have been preserved in treatises.1580 Of the earliest periods of the Mazdean religion we have unfortunately no records; in the time of the decadence of the national religion, especially in the Thousand and One Nights, the fire-worshiper or Magian is commonly a wicked magician, as was natural since he belonged to a faith hostile to Islam, and the practicer of good magic is generally a Moslem.1581 The early Greeks and Romans appear not to have been greatly interested in magical practices, though these existed.1582 But a great outburst of magic occurred in the Græco-Roman world in the first and second centuries of our era, the magician being, however, generally not Greek or Roman, but of an inferior alien race.1583 Among the old Hebrews we have no details of magical procedure except in the invocation of the dead;1584 this procedure was denounced by the prophets as hostile to the worship of the national god, but it continued among the people a long time.1585 The practice of magic existed abundantly among the early peoples of Europe, the Teutons, and others. The primacy, however, in magic belongs to the Finns and Lapps, alien races regarded as inferior in civilization.
903. The hold of magic on the minds of men is shown by the fact that it has persisted up to the present day. Its basis is a belief in occult powers and the conviction that man may attain to mastery over them. Certain forms of this belief, called theosophical, are held by many at the present day; it is supposed that men are capable of transcending the ordinary limitations of humanity. In general, however, the whole system of magic yielded gradually to the organized religions, the essence of which was a friendly and rational relation with the deity. Religion has organized itself in accord with the general organization of human social systems. It has seen the necessity of getting rid of force, of depending on humane feeling, cultivating simply friendly relations, attempting a unity of work, a coöperation of divine and human forces. All this has worked against magic. In addition to these tendencies the constantly growing belief in the domination of natural forces has made it impossible in civilized societies to accept the powers called magical.1586
904. To sum up: magic is a means of securing superhuman results by adopting the methods of the superhuman Powers.1587 It may be coeval with religion proper or may have preceded it in human religious organization. In any case it has been, up to the present day, the rival of religion, though more and more driven to take a secondary place. It has collected physical facts which have served as a basis for the study of physical science and have indirectly furthered the cause of religion by leading men to recognize natural law and also by necessitating a distinction between theistic and other superhuman results.1588 In the absence of distinct religious systems it has been a bond of social union, and to that extent has been a civilizing influence. On the other hand, it has fostered belief in a false science of sequences and thus helped to introduce confusion into thought and the conduct of life. The aim of religion has been, and is, to banish magic from the world.1589
905. Divination is the science that seeks to discover the will of the supernatural Powers by means of the observation of phenomena. Men desire to learn the causes of present and past misfortunes and the story of the future, that they may know at any moment what is the best course to pursue. The underlying supposition is that these things are indicated by the appearances and movements of the various objects of the world. It is in these phenomena that the purposes of superhuman forces become visible to man; the gods, it is held, cannot but so reveal themselves (for they produce all phenomena), and man's task is to discover the laws of phenomenal revelation. The question of the motive in this revelation is not distinctly raised, but it is taken for granted that the Powers are willing to help man by guiding his uncertain footsteps; their attitude is so far friendly—they belong in feeling to the human community.1590
Divination has in common with magic the assumption of the unity of the world and its control by law, and the search for divine activity in the facts of life. But the two differ essentially in their aims. Divination seeks to learn the divine will in order to be guided; magic studies divine action in order to imitate it and accomplish divine results. Divination is an inquirer, and its virtue is obedience; magic is an investigator, and its virtue is achievement. Both are self-seeking, but divination is the more reverent and allies itself more easily with religion. But both tend to become corrupt and decadent, and their rôles are determined from time to time by the conditions of the communities in which they are found.1591
906. The organization of divination resembles that of magic in several respects. It comes to have its special functionaries, into whose hands all its authority falls. The divinatory power (like the magical) comes to a man sometimes as a gift of nature (that is, of a god) or in some mysterious external way, sometimes as a result of a course of training in which the significance of the various signs is learned. It is sometimes a property of a clan or a family and descends from father to son, always, however, under the condition of instruction of the young by the old. The diviner, like the magician, sometimes performs various ceremonies for the purpose of bringing himself into relation with the gods, and his utterances are frequently given in an ecstatic condition. In this condition he is said in some instances (as among the Todas1592) to speak a language not his own, with which in his ordinary state of mind he is unacquainted, or to utter words that are not understood either by himself or by others. Ecstasy means possession by the deity; the interpretation of the diviner's words, which, in the ecstatic condition, are the words of a spirit or a god, is sometimes left to the bystanders, or, if unintelligible to them, must be recovered by the seer himself when he returns to his normal condition.
907. The highest development of ecstasy is found in the prophet proper. Originally the prophet was a foreteller and acted under the inspiration of a god, a divine seizure that was allied to madness. The ravings of the savage shaman1593 are repeated in the ravings of Cassandra and in the excited utterances and bodily exhaustion of the early Hebrew prophets.1594 A nobler use of ecstasy is exhibited in the youth of Byblos, who rescued an unfortunate Egyptian envoy from insult and secured him honorable treatment.1595 The more advanced thought tended to abandon the abnormal state of the diviner and make him simply a recipient of divine knowledge by the favor of a god—the gods came to choose thoughtful men instead of beasts as their intermediaries.1596 The Hebrew prophets whose utterances have been preserved, from Amos onward, are men of insight, essentially critics of the national life, and moral watchmen; but features of the old conception of divinatory power continue for some time to attach to them.1597
908. The differentiation of functions between magician, diviner, and priest appears to have taken place at a comparatively early period, though it is probable that in the earliest times all these characters might be united in a single person. As soon as an organized religion is established the priest acquires his specific function as intermediator between men and gods, often, however, retaining the power of discovering the will of the deity.1598 Magic, as we have seen, tends to become an unsocial and hostile thing, and the magician is in later times punished or discountenanced by public opinion. The diviner, on the other hand, has generally retained possession of his public for the reason that he is in sympathy with the gods of the community and his work is held to be wholly friendly. In all stages of religious development, except the very highest, he has been recognized by public opinion and by law as a part of the religious constitution of society and has often attained great civil and political power.1599 Among civilized peoples he comes to be a man of learning, acquainted with many things besides the mere signs of the will of the gods.
909. Divinatory signs may be grouped in various classes according as they belong to the outer world or to men's inward experiences, and according as they present themselves without or with preparation by man. Outward signs in ordinary occurrences which, so far as human initiative is concerned, are accidental may be called, for convenience, "omens." Uncommon occurrences may be called, if they appear in the forms of men and animals, "prodigies," and if they are seen in the physical world, "portents." These designations are arbitrary, and sometimes two or more of them may be appropriate for the same event. Inward signs are dreams, revelations in the ecstatic state, and prophetic inspirations.1600 We may begin with divination from the observation of external objects, and consider first such as are accidental (omens, prodigies, portents).
910. Omens, prodigies, and portents are to be regarded as the product of ages of experience. The observations of early men seem to them to show that certain appearances are followed by certain events, and the details of experience, handed down and interpreted by successive generations, are in the course of time sifted, systematized, and formulated. In savage and half-civilized communities divinatory signs are usually simple, drawn from appearances of familiar objects and occurrences. They become more complicated in civilized times—they are mingled with elaborate astrological ideas. Divination becomes a science for the practice of which a technical education is required. Belief in omens and other signs survives among the highest civilized peoples long after the conceptions on which they rest have been abandoned. The origin of signs among savage peoples may often be traced with more or less probability; in the case of such as survive in periods of high culture the origin is necessarily obscured by the lapse of time and can be surmised only by comparison with earlier conceptions.
The belief in such signs may be traced over a great part of the world. It is found among the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hindus, Chinese, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, and at a later time among the Celtic, Slavic, and Teutonic peoples.1601 At the present day it occurs most highly developed in Polynesia, Northern Africa, Southern India, and Central Asia; it is relatively unimportant in Western and Central Africa, North America, South America, and Australia. One difference between divination and magic thus appears to be that the latter is vigorous in savage communities that pay little attention to the former. Further collections of facts may require a modification of this statement; but, in general, it would seem that an organization of signs, demanding, as it does, orderly reflection on phenomena, is proper to communities that have advanced beyond the hunting and nomadic stages. For the rest, there are few objects or occurrences that have not been regarded at some time by some people as indications of divine will in respect to present, past, or future events.
911. A fair illustration of the early belief in omens is afforded by the divinatory system that prevails in Samoa and the neighboring group of islands.1602 It appears that all omens are derived either from the movements of animals that are regarded as incarnations of deities,1603 or from phenomena that are held to be produced immediately by deities. The flight of owls, bats, or rails, according to its direction, indicates the result of a battle or a war; the howling of a dog is a sign of coming misfortune; if a centipede crawls on the top of a mat it is a good omen, if on the bottom of a mat it is bad; it is unfortunate when a lizard crosses one's path; if a basket be found turned upside down in a road, this is a sign of evil; the way in which sacred stones fall to the ground is an indication of the future. The animals mentioned above (and there are many other such) are all regarded as incarnations of deities. So as to portents: loud thunder, taken to be the voice of the great god Tangaloa, is a good sign; the significance of lightning (which also is sent by the god) depends upon the direction taken by the flash. An eclipse is regarded as a presage of death. A similar system of interpretation of signs is found elsewhere. The Masai and the Nandi draw omens from the movements of birds.1604 In Ashantiland the cry of the owl means death.1605 When in Australia the track of an insect is believed to point toward the abode of the sorcerer by whom a man has been done to death, the conception is probably the same. The modern Afghans hold that a high wind that continues three days is a sign that a murder has been committed.1606 Examples from Brazil, Borneo, New Zealand, Old Calabar and Tatarland are given by Tylor.1607 In the early Hebrew history it appears that a rustling in trees was looked on as a sign of divine intervention.1608
912. In ancient Babylonia and Assyria an elaborate system of interpretation of ordinary occurrences prevailed—the movements and appearances of various species of birds, of bulls, of dogs of all colors are noted, with minute interpretations.1609 The Greeks recognized omens in the acts of various animals, especially in the flight and cries of birds; so important were these last that the words for 'bird' came to be employed for 'omens from birds' and even simply for 'omens';1610 Aristophanes, laughing at the Athenians, declares that they called every mantic sign 'bird'.1611 Skepticism, however, appears in Hector's passionate rejection of the signs of birds and his declaration that the best omen is to fight for one's country.1612 A similar mantic prominence of birds appears in ancient Rome where the terms for the observation of birds (auspicium, augurium) came to signify 'omens' in general. The preëminence thus accorded to birds was due perhaps to the fact that they move in a region above the earth, the larger species (οἰωνός) seeking the sky near the abode of the gods, as well as to the frequency and variety of their actions.1613 The feeling of direct contact with the deity appears in the significance attached to the movements of a sacrificial animal: if it approached the altar willingly, this, showing accord with the deity, was a good omen, and unwillingness was a bad omen.1614 Among the later Romans the entrance of a strange black dog into a house, the falling of a snake through the opening in the roof, the crowing of a hen were unfavorable signs which prevented the immediate undertaking of any new affair;1615 these were all unusual and therefore uncanny occurrences. Some of the animals that furnish omens are totems, and in such cases the totemic significance coalesces with that of the omen; the animal that appears to the young Sioux candidate as his manitu has both characters—it is the sign of divine acceptance and the embodiment of the divine patron.1616
913. Prodigies connected with the birth of children are numerous. The complete or incomplete character of the infant's body, various marks and colors, and the number produced at a birth have been carefully noted by many peoples. The birth of twins seems to have been more commonly regarded in savage and half-civilized communities either as a presage of misfortune (as being unusual and mysterious) or as a sign of conjugal unfaithfulness (as indicating two fathers, one of whom might be a god). Interpretations of births are given in Babylonian records.1617 Everywhere monstrous births, misshapen forms, and abnormal colors in the bodies of men and beasts have been regarded as indications of divine displeasure.
914. That the stars early attracted the attention of man is shown by the fact that constellations are recognized in some lower tribes—for example, in the New Hebrides Islands, among the Todas, the Masai, the Nandi, and elsewhere.1618 Since all heavenly bodies were regarded originally as divine, and later as controlled by divine beings, sometimes also as the abodes of the dead or as the souls of the dead, it was natural that astral movements should be looked on as giving signs of the will of the gods. Astronomy appears to have been pursued in the first instance not from interest in the natural laws governing the movements of sun, moon, and stars, but from belief in their divinatory significance. How far this study was carried on all over the ancient world we have no means of knowing; but, as far as the records go, it was the Babylonians that first reduced astral divination to the form of a science,1619 and it is probable that from them it spread over Western Asia and India, and perhaps into Europe. Babylonian and Assyrian documents contain many accurate statements of the appearances of heavenly bodies; and in the third or second century B.C., as we learn from the Book of Daniel, the term 'Chaldean' was synonymous with 'magician.' While astronomy was pursued by the Egyptians with great success, whereby they made a notable construction of the calendar, they seem not to have cultivated astrology, though they associated certain stars with certain gods and with lucky or unlucky days.1620
915. Of all divinatory methods astrology has played the greatest rôle in human history, and is still believed in and studied by not a few persons. It derived its prominence originally, no doubt, from the splendor and mystery of the sidereal heavens; the identification (by the Babylonians) of certain planets with certain deities gave it more definite shape. It was necessarily a learned pursuit, and, falling naturally into the hands of priestly bodies, was developed by them in accordance with the needs of the situation. Rules of interpretation were established that became more and more specific. In the early period of astrology it was concerning matters of public interest that information was sought—crops, wars, and the fortunes of the king as the head of the nation.1621 At a later time, but before the beginning of our era, in accordance with the growth of ethical individualism, the stars were interrogated for the destinies of private individuals;1622 the aspect of the heavens at the moment of birth, the horoscope, announced the fate of the nascent man.1623
In the hands of the Chaldeans astrology remained exclusively or largely a science of omens. An advance toward a higher conception, however, was made by their identification of certain planets with certain gods,1624 whereby the regularity and certainty of movement of the astral world were carried over to the world of divine Powers. When, in the centuries just preceding and following the beginning of our era, Chaldean astrology was adopted by the Greeks and Romans, it was organized by them in accordance with their philosophy, and it entered into alliance with all the higher religious tendencies of the period. In the unchangeableness of stellar movements the Stoics saw a principle substantially identical with their doctrine of fate. Along various lines (in Judaism and Christianity, and in the mysteries of Mithra and Isis) men were moving toward the conception of a single supreme ruler of the world, and astrology fell into line with this movement. The starry universe was held to be the controller of human life, worthy of worship, and able to call forth emotion. Thus astrology became a religion1625—it was adopted by learned and unlearned, its ethical and spiritual quality being determined by the character and thought of the various groups that professed it. For some centuries it was a religious power in the world; as a religious system it gave way gradually to more definite constructions, but it survived as a science long after it had ceased to be believed in as a life-giving faith.
The persistence of faith in it as a science is an additional illustration of men's demand for visible signs of the intervention of the deity in human affairs;1626 as often as certain supposed embodiments of the supernatural are discarded, others are taken up. The earlier philosophical views of the relation of the heavenly bodies to human life are now generally abandoned, and such belief in this relation as now exists has no scientific basis, but is founded on vague desire.
In savage and in civilized times eclipses, comets, the appearance of a new star, and earthquakes have been regarded as indications of the attitude of the deity—sometimes favorable, sometimes unfavorable.
916. The words and actions of men and their normal peculiarities of bodily form have furnished comparatively few divinatory signs, the reason being, probably, that in early times animals and other nonhuman things arrested the attention of observers more forcibly, while in later times such acts and forms were more readily explained from natural conditions and laws. The palpitation of the eye, which seems sometimes to uneducated man to be produced by an external force, has been taken as a presage of misfortune. A burning sensation in the ear is still believed by some persons to be a sign that one is being talked about; in early stages of culture the sensation was regarded as a warning sent by the guardian spirit or some other superhuman being. Sneezing was once looked on as a happy omen: when Telemachus gave a resounding sneeze Penelope interpreted it as a sign that news of his father was at hand.1627 An act performed without ulterior purpose may be taken to symbolize some sort of fortune. When the Calif Omar sent an embassy to the Persian King Yezdegird summoning him to embrace Islam, the angry king commanded that a clod of earth should be brought and that the ambassadors should bear it out of the city, which they accordingly did; and this act was taken both by Arabs and by Persians as a presage of Moslem victory—the invaders had a portion of Persian soil.1628 An element of magic, however, may have entered into this conviction; the bit of soil was supposed, perhaps, to carry with it the whole land. A chance word has often been seized on as an indication of the future, or a proper name taken as a presage.
917. The belief in the sacredness or divinity of the human body has led to the search for divinatory signs in its parts. But it is only the hand that has been extensively employed in this way. The hand has offered itself as most available for divination, partly, perhaps, because of the variety and importance of its functions, partly because of the variety of lines it shows and the ease with which it may be examined. Chiromancy, or palmistry, has been developed into a science and has maintained itself to the present day; but it has largely lost its divinatory significance and has become a study of character, which is supposed to be indicated by the lines of the hand. In its divinatory rôle it has often been connected with astrology.
918. The preceding examples deal with occurrences that present themselves without human initiation. In certain cases the materials for divination are arranged by men themselves. In such methods there is always an appeal to the deity, a demand that a god shall intervene and indicate his will under the conditions prepared by men, the assumption being that the god has prepared the event or thing in question, and that, when properly approached, he will be disposed to give his worshipers the assistance desired. The casting of lots and similar random procedures have been common methods of divination the world over. The African Kafir diviner detects criminals by the fall of small objects used as dice. The Ashanti discover future events by the figures formed when palm wine is thrown on the ground, and from the nature of the numbers, whether even or odd, when one lets fall a handful of nuts. In a dispute the Yoruban priest holds in his hand a number of grass stalks, one of which is bent, and the person who draws the bent stalk is adjudged to be in fault.1629 The Hebrews had the official use of objects called "urim and thummim" (terms whose meaning is unknown to us), which were probably small cubes, to each of which was somehow attached an answer "yes" or "no," or the name of a person. Thus, when David inquired whether he was to attack the Philistines, the answer seems to have been "yes."1630 When it was a question who had violated the taboo announced by Saul, the urim and thummim first decided that it was not the people but the royal family; and then, as between Saul and Jonathan, that it was the latter who was guilty.1631 According to the Book of Ezekiel the Chaldean King Nebuchadrezzar drew lots by arrows to determine what road he should take in a campaign.1632 The old Arabs employed a species of divination by arrows, which, when thrown down, by their position indicated the will of the gods; and in the division of the flesh of a beast slaughtered by a clan or group, the portions to be assigned to various persons were determined by the drawing of arrows.1633 Divination by lot was also largely employed by the Greeks and the Romans.1634 The method called "sortes vergilianae" is still in vogue; it was and is a custom among pious persons, Christian or Moslem, to learn the course that they are to take in an emergency by opening a Bible or a copy of the Koran at random and accepting the first words on which the eye falls as an indication of the divine will, the deity being supposed to direct the eye.1635
919. One of the commonest and most important methods of divination in antiquity was the examination of the entrails of animals (haruspication). Of this system there are a few examples among savage peoples,1636 but it has attained special significance only among the great civilized nations and especially among the Babylonians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks and Romans. The slaughtered animal was generally held to be itself sacred or divine, and, as it was offered to the deity, it was a natural belief that the god would indicate his will by the character of the inward parts, which were supposed to be particularly connected with the life of the animal. Of these animal parts the liver was regarded as the most important. The liver was for the Babylonians the special seat of thought, whether from its position or its size or from some other consideration we have no means of knowing. The explanation of the form and appearance of the liver became itself a separate science, and this science was developed with extraordinary minuteness by the Babylonians. The whole structure of the liver, together with the gall, bladder, and the ducts, was analyzed, and to every part, every line, and every difference of appearance a separate significance was assigned. Thus hepatoscopy, demanding long training and influencing political action (and, doubtless, calling for ingenuity and tact in interpretations), assumed great importance in Babylonia and Assyria; and it was hardly less important among the Etruscans, the Greeks, and the Romans.1637 It is held by some scholars that Babylonia was the original home of the developed science, whence it passed into Greece and Italy.1638 It may be recognized in Babylonia in the third millennium B.C., and there is no improbability in the supposition that Babylonian influence was felt in Asia Minor and Eastern Europe; but, in view of the number of possibly independent centers of culture in this region in ancient times and the paucity of data, the question may be left open.
920. Other parts of the animal bodies also were employed in divination. Tylor1639 mentions the examination of the bones of the porcupine among North American Indians, the color giving indications as to the success of hunting expeditions. The shoulder blade, when put into the fire, showed by splits in it various kinds of fortune. The heart was of less significance in ancient thought than the liver, it being of less size, and its function in the circulation of the blood not being known. The brain also did not come, until a comparatively late period, to be regarded as the seat of the intellect.1640