A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



observed each month. It was impossible to rejoice 

 if a child was born on the 23d of Thoth; the par- 

 ents knew it could not live. Those born on the 

 2oth of Choiakh would become blind, and those born 

 on the 3d of Choiakh, deaf." 



CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS 



Where such conceptions as these pertained, it goes 

 without saying that charms and incantations intended 

 to break the spell of the unlucky omens were equally 

 prevalent. Such incantations consisted usually of the 

 recitation of certain phrases based originally, it would 

 appear, upon incidents in the history of the gods. The 

 words which the god had spoken in connection with 

 some lucky incident would, it was thought, prove effec- 

 tive now in bringing good luck to the human suppli- 

 cant that is to say, the magician hoped through re- 

 peating the words of the god to exercise the magic pow- 

 er of the god. It was even possible, with the aid of the 

 magical observances, partly to balk fate itself. Thus 

 the person predestined through birth on an unlucky 

 day to die of a serpent bite might postpone the time 

 of this fateful visitation to extreme old age. The like 

 uncertainty attached to those spells which one person 

 was supposed to be able to exercise over another. It 

 was held, for example, that if something belonging to 

 an individual, such as a lock of hair or a paring of the 

 nails, could be secured and incorporated in a waxen 

 figure, this figure would be intimately associated with 

 the personality of that individual. An enemy might 

 thus secure occult power over one ; any indignity prac- 

 tised upon the waxen figure would result in like injury 



