(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.