BELOMANCy. 
691 
either to disprove the existence of this strange faculty, or to establish 
it on a basis that shall command universal belief, the reader must 
exercise his own judgment, and either receive it as an incomprehen- 
sible fact, or discard it as an unaccountable fiction. It will perhaps 
be readily admitted by thos.e who contend for its reality, that they 
cannot fairly, on rational principles, account either for its existence 
or mode of operation ; but those who resolve it into the workings of 
imagination, must be well aware, that this concession can furnish no 
argument in favour of its non-existence. The faculties of our minds, 
and the manner in which they receive impressions from distant 
objects, are but imperfectly known ; the process, therefore, admitting 
it to be a reality, may not in itself be more mysterious than that by 
which images are received through the organs of bodily vision ; and 
if the faculty were as generally diffused and exercised in the former 
case as in the latter, we should look on both with equal indifference, 
as common events resulting from established causes. 
The period may perhaps arrive, when the phenomena of the human 
mind may be much better understood than they are at present ; and 
it may then be satisfactorily seen, why a surprising power of mental 
discernment should be incorporated in one constitution, while it is 
withheld from others of the same species. With the operation of 
natural causes, in all their variety and extent, we are but very imper- 
fectly acquainted ; our inability therefore to find an adequate agent 
within the empire of nature, will no more justify us in rejecting as 
fabulous, a phenomenon for which we can find no adequate cause, 
than it will sanction our appeals to supernatural agency when we wish 
to draw a veil over human ignorance. 
Belomancy. 
This signifies divination by arrows. Belomancy was practised in 
the East, but chiefly among the Arabians. It was performed in differ- 
ent manners. One was, to mark a parcel of arrows, and to put eleven 
or more of them into a bag ; these were afterwards drawn out, and 
according as it was marked or not, they judged of future events. 
Another way was, to have three arrows, upon one of which was writ- 
ten, “ God orders it me upon another, “ God forbids it me and 
upon the third, nothing at all. These were put into a quiver, out of 
which, they drew one of the three at random : if it happened to be 
that with the first inscription, the thing they consulted about was to 
be done ; if it chanced to be that with the second inscription, it was 
let alone ; but if it proved that without any, they drew over again. 
Belomancy is an ancient practice, and probably that which Ezekiel 
mentions, chap. xxi. 21. At least, St. Jerome understands it so, atid 
observes that the practice was frequent among the Assyrians and 
Babylonians. Something like it is also mentioned in Hosea, chap. iv. 
only that staves are mentioned instead of arrows, which is rather 
that of demaucy than belomancy. Grotius, as well as Jerome, con- 
founds the two together, and shews that it prevailed among tlie Magi, 
Chaldeans, and Scythians, whence it passed to the Sclavonians, 
and thence to the Germans, who, as Tacitus observes, made, use 
of it. 
