CHAP. 10. SUPERSTITIONS. 253 



use of in order to acquire respect, and to 

 aggrandize their own power. Hence the rise 

 of sorcerers, augurs,* and other impostors, 

 the interpreters of omens and portenta, who 

 pretended, in the peculiar flight and song of 

 birds, to read the destinies of monarchs and of 

 nations. It is probable that out of a number of 

 such predictions, some might happen to be true, 

 where the sagacity of the augur penetrated 

 farther into probable events than the ignorance 

 of the multitude; and this fortuitous coincidence 

 enhanced the public credulity, strengthened 

 the empire of superstition, and became a fatal 

 impediment to the progress of science though- 

 cut succeeding ages.f 



* Consuluitque stryges nostro de sanguine, et in me 

 Hippomanes foetae semina legit equae. 



Propert. lib. iv. eleg. v. 15. 



Aristophanes, laughing at the dependance upon the pre- 

 dictions of augurs, makes the birds ludicrously chant their 

 importance in the following words : 



Ecr/xsv 8' UILSV, Aajt/^T AeApo* AwSw/y ifiOtSs ATToAAo/v 

 EAflwr^ yzv vjpwrov ST pvsi; HTM -0:00$ artowra, rpiifs'ie. 

 t Among many remains of augury extant at the present 

 day, may be enumerated, the common practice among our 

 farmers, of nailing up dead Kites, Crows, Owls, Weasels, 

 and other rapacious animals, against the doors of barns and 

 outhouses : a custom which originated, as Apuleius informs us. 



