The remarks already made will show that the first and second of these solutions are deemed unsatisfactorj--, and that the third is considered an incomplete interpre- tation of the enigma. It is not denied that imposture Avas common ; and tliis was fully recognised by the an- cients in the height of their belief in oracles. Thucyd- ides affords his testimony to the fact, and Aristophanes ridicules the collections of forged oracles which were in vogue during the Peloponnesian wars. It was not among the Jews only that four hundred false prophets might have been found for one wise one. But all oracles were not at all times deliberate forgeries. The exist- ence and the credit of oracular responses, and the emi- nent influence which they long possessed, were due to original appetencies and hallucinations of the unin- formed and undeveloped mind of man. Do not children still half or wholly believe that their little misdeeds are reported by the birds, or by whispers in the air? The pious cheat which the mother practices on her wonder- ing offspring reveals at once the origin and the perma- nence of the belief in oracular communications much more satisfactorily than either of the first two theories specified above, or than the third adopted without addi- tion or limitation. This instinctive credulity furnishes the foundation on which concealed ingenuity or miser- able fraud erected imposing structures. That the ele- ment of fraud increases in such annunciations with the increasing intelligence of the community, and with the decline of unquestioning superstition, is not to he doubted ; and that the ignorant trust of unenlightened races in the official promulgation of divine counsels is deluded by formal arrangements for the use or abuse of such trust, must also be admitted. Yet certainly there is no consistency in charging to wilful deception all oracular utterances, while Mesmerism and INIillerism still attract thousands of earnest and honest l)clievers.
A superstitious tendency habitual to the uneducated mind, and confirmed by associations in regard to spirit- ual influences incident to that stage, would appear to be the truest explanation of the origin of oracles. A pro- phetic or priestly class, identical or partially distinct, bj' the very transmission of its functions, makes a trade of what was previously a mental infirmity, a morbid enthusiasm. The function, sustained by the enduring popular faitii, is converted into an instrument of rule, of guidance, of police, and of instruction, and is era- ployed by tlie authorities, or by an association of saga- cious men, for the government and elevation of the community. As other titles to control, otlier modes of
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regulation, other schemes of popular culture, come into use, and more eflectually discharge the like offices, the need of oracular direction diminishes ; the hands that moved the puppets are withdrawn, and the agency long imagined to be divine ceases to act, or is transferred to pretenders, who trifle with the remnants of credulity for the secret power or the petty gains which may thus be achieved. A due estimate is rarely made of the large capacity of man for the belief in marvels and prodigies which superstitious terror or superstitious hope may in- cline him to believe.
It will be noticed that a large share in the production of oracles is conceded to design and to deliberate con- trivance— let it not be called merely imposture — during that phase of their existence when they exerted the most methodical influence. This was pre-eminently the case during the ascendency of the Delphic shrine. The power exercised over the whole Hellenic world from that mysterious and splendid centre of oracular in- spiration was amazing, and was rendered more amazing by the discordant and repellent attitude of the numer- ous Greek communities towards each other. Curtius may be guilty of nothing worse than exaggeration in attributing to the Delphic oracle, and to the prominence thus conferred on the Dorian Apollo, the rapid advance- ment of Spartan power and the moral culture of the contemporaneous Greeks. Certainly, consummate wis- dom, wondrous sagacity, extensive knowledge, and un- precedented ethical purity were displayed in the Pyth- ian responses. Whoever inspired the Pythoness must have been greatly superior to the contemporary popula- tions in statesmanship, in information, and in morals. The Plomeric Hymn to Apollo, which has all the air of being a Delphic production, startles us as much as does the Prometheus Vinctus by the marked elevation of its sentiments and by its singular adumbrations of Chris- tian doctrine. Apollo, the son of Jove, the peculiar god of prophecy and lord of the oracle, assumes the office of teacher of his people, and breathes a higher and more vital air into the lungs of his votaries.
A long series of changes and transmutations in the character and conduct of oracles is thus admitted and accounted for. They are just such changes, too, as are consonant with the whole order of liuman development, and illustrated by the whole progress of society. Tlie changes, liowever, are by no means confined to tlie hu- man agencies in the production of oracular intelligence. The oracular divinities themselves were subject to the same empire of mutability.
Among all races, the supernal powers, in their prim- itive character, are invoked exclusively for the pur- pose of portending, preventing, removing, or redressing evils, which they are themselves believed to inflict. Jupiter 'AAt^iKrtKoc, or Opitulits, was probably the ear- liest distinct appearance of the Olympian Jove. In the exercise of their functions, the deities united, like coun- try apothecaries in old time, all therapeutic offices in themselves, and prescribed for all ailments of mind, body, and estate. It was only gradually, by the appli- cation of the doctrine of the division of labor, that Ju- piter devolved sundry of his duties upon Apollo, as sub- sequently Apollo did upon ^Esculapius, as he upon his sons Machaon and Podalirius, by whom they were turn- ed over to their supposed descendants, the Asclepiadite. The same process of segregation and differentiation, as Herbert Spencer would say, was manifested by the divinities as by their special ministers, the prophets. These, at first and through long generations, protected against witchcraft, adverse spirits, the evil eye, and other obscure afflictions; they averted or relieved pain by incantation; they cured wounds and mended broken bones; they brought rain, like Jupiter Pluriiis ; they discovered lost cattle and missing goods ; they detected thieves ; they announced the nwlUa tenipora fandi et agendi; they treasured up or invente<l the past; they foretold the future; they held confidential intercourse with their patron or paternal gods; they became the