a general term descriptive of the various illusory arts anciently practised for the discovery of things secret or future. In those countries and ages where ignorance of physical laws has combined with superstition to debase the human mind, it has sought to gratify its innate disposition to pry into futurity by looking for presages in things between which and the object of its anxiety no connection existed but in the diviner's imagination. Scarcely a single department of nature but was appealed to, as furnishing, on certain conditions, good or bad omens of human destiny; and the aspect of things, which, perhaps by the most casual coincidence, marked some event or crisis in the life of one or two individuals, came to be regarded as the fixed and invariable precursor of a similar result in the affairs of mankind in general. By such childish and irrational notions was the conduct of the heathen guided in the most important, no less than in the most ordinary occurrences of life; and hence arose the profession of augurs, soothsayers, et hoc genus omne of impostors, who, ingratting vulgar traditions on a small stock of natural knowledge, established their claims to the possession of an occult science, the importance and influence of which they dexterously increased by associating it with all that was pompous and imposing in the ceremonies of their religion.

This pretended science was divided into various branches, each of which had its separate professors. In a general view, divination may be considered as either natural or artificial; the first being founded on the notion that the soul possesses, from its spiritual nature, some prescience of futurity, which it exemplifies particularly in dreams, and at the approach of death; the second, resting on a peculiar interpretation of the course of nature, as well as on such arbitrary observations and experiments as superstition introduced. The different systems and methods that were anciently in vogue are almost incredible; as, for instance, Aeromancy, divining by the air; Arithmomancy, by means of numbers; Capnomancy, by the smoke of sacrifices; Chromomancy, by the lines on the palms of the hands; Hydromancy, by water; Pyromancy, by fire, &c. It is beyond our limits to enter upon the enumeration and explanation of the various arts of divination that were practised by the ancients. These the reader, curious in such inquiries, will find detailed at length by Cicero (De Divinatione), and Cardan (De Sapientia).

Egypt, the cradle of arts and sciences, if she did not give it birth, seems to have encouraged the practice of divination at an early age; and it is well known that at the time of the Hebrew exodus there were magicians in that country whose knowledge of the arcana of nature, and dexterity in the practice of their art enabled them, to a certain extent, to rival the miracles of Moses. By what extraordinary power they changed their rods into serpents, the river into blood, and introduced frogs in unprecedented numbers, is an inquiry that has perplexed many learned men. Some have ascribed their performances to jugglery and legerdemain; the serpents, the frogs, &c., having been secretly provided and dexterously produced at the proper moment. Others prefer the supposition that these conjurors were aided by internal agents, with the Divine permission, in the performance of their wonderful feats. See Daemon.

But it was Chaldæa to which the distinction belongs of being the mother-country of diviners, and especially of judicial astrologers. Such a degree of power and influence had they attained in that country, that they formed the highest caste and enjoyed a place at court; nay, so indispensable were they in Chaldæan society, that no step could be taken, not a relation could be formed, a house built, a journey undertaken, a campaign begun, until the diviners had ascertained the lucky day and promised a happy issue.