364 Ferguson — On the Ceremonial Turn, called " Desiul." 



round, which the Gauls deem it a direful thing to do left-hand-ways;'*" 

 in other words, that the turn, which was usually practised towards 

 the right by the Romans, was sometimes, on occasions of imprecatory 

 or malignant appeals to the Gods, practised by the Gauls to the leftL 

 There remains still another cause of confusion in the idea that 

 Gods and men looked at the world from opposite points of view, so- 

 that what was right in the language of men was left in that of the 

 Gods. The notion may have arisen among the Greek Augurs, who 

 regarded the northern heavens as the abode of the divinities ; or it 

 may look to some older and more general idea of a celestial region, to 

 arrive at which one should travel " beyond the blameless Ethiopians:" 

 but, whencesoever derived, it seems to account for some at least of the 

 discrepancies that beset us in this obscure inquiry. Thus, assuming the 

 oracle of Aesculapius to use this ambidextrous language, in prescribing 

 the course which the blind man Caius should take from right to left 

 of that God's altar, as recorded in the inscription commemorating the 

 cures effected by Aesculapius, in his temple on the Insula Tiberina 

 (Gruter," lxxi. 1), we might reconcile that " right to left" with the- 

 " left to right" of the common formula : — 



" In those days, the God directed as to one Caius, a blind man ; let him come- 

 to the sacred altar, and kneel ; let him come from the right-hand side to the left,, 

 and put his five fingers on the altar, and let him raise his hand and put it on his. 

 own eyes. And he saw aright in the presence of the people," &c. 



[Autcus ra?s rj/x€pais Taiqi rivi rv<p\w exptHJ-drio'ev e\0e7v £ttI rb tepbv {irjpi.a, 

 Kal TrpocrKvurjcrai, eJra airb rod Se^iov i\9e?v eirl rb apicrrepbv Kal delvai robs irepre 

 SaitTvAovs iirdvoi rov firifiaTOS, Kal apai rrjV % e 'P a Ka ^ ^ 7r ^ OeTvai £ttI robs Idiovs 

 6cpda\/j.obs, Kal bpQbv avefiXttye rov di}fj.ov wapecrrwros, k. r. A. (Gruter, lxxi. l.)l 



The subject at this point will hardly appear otherwise than trivial; 

 but we are here amongst ideas which lie at the basis of certain observ- 

 ances in mediaeval Christian architecture, of some solid relevancy to> 

 modern life, and very well worthy of further examination. 



