But the practice of divination did not limit itself to these more solemn sources--its enthusiasm was contagious--its assistance was ever at hand [53].

Enthusiasm operated on the humblest individuals.
One person imagined himself possessed by a spirit actually passing into his soul--another merely inspired by the divine breath--a third was cast into supernatural ecstasies, in which he beheld the shadow of events, or the visions of a god--a threefold species of divine possession, which we may still find recognised by the fanatics of a graver faith! Nor did this suffice: a world of omens surrounded every man.

There were not only signs and warnings in the winds, the earthquake, the eclipse of the sun or moon, the meteor, or the thunderbolt--but dreams also were reduced to a science [54]; the entrails of victims were auguries of evil or of good; the flights of birds, the motions of serpents, the clustering of bees, had their mystic and boding interpretations.

Even hasty words, an accident, a fall on the earth, a sneeze (for which we still invoke the ancient blessing), every singular or unwonted event, might become portentous, and were often rendered lucky or unlucky according to the dexterity or disposition of the person to whom they occurred.
And although in later times much of this more frivolous superstition passed away--although Theophrastus speaks of such lesser omens with the same witty disdain as that with which the Spectator ridicules our fears at the upsetting of a salt-cellar, or the appearance of a winding-sheet in a candle,--yet, in the more interesting period of Greece, these popular credulities were not disdained by the nobler or wiser few, and to the last they retained that influence upon the mass which they lost with individuals.

And it is only by constantly remembering this universal atmosphere of religion, that we can imbue ourselves with a correct understanding of the character of the Greeks in their most Grecian age.