arnings.

To say that these are just coincidences is to beg the question. For
the universe is governed by law. Things happen because they must, not
because they may. There is no such thing as accident or coincidence. We
may not be able to see the steps and the connections. But they are there
all the same.

In years gone by many signs were deduced from the symptoms of sick
men; the events or actions of a man's life; dreams and visions; the
appearance of a man's shadow; from fire, flame, light, or smoke; the
state and condition of cities and their streets, of fields, marshes,
rivers, and lands. From the appearances of the stars and planets, of
eclipses, meteors, shooting stars, the direction of winds, the form of
clouds, thunder and lightning and other weather incidents, they were
able to forecast happenings. A number of tablets are devoted to these
prophecies.

It is conceivable that many of these omens should have found their way
into Greece, and it is not unreasonable to believe that India may have
derived her knowledge of omens from Babylonia; or it may have been the
other way about. The greatest of scholars are divided in their opinions
as to which really is the earlier civilization.

The point to be made here is that in all parts of the world--in
quarters where we may be certain that no trace of Grecian, Indian, or
Babylonian science or civilization has appeared--there are to be found
systems of prophecies by omens.

It may be accounted for in two ways. One that in all races as they grow
up, so to speak, there is the same course of evolution of ideas and
superstition which to many appears childish. The other explanation seems
to be the more reasonable one, if we believe, as we are forced to
do, that omens do foretell--that all peoples, all races, accumulate a
record, oral or otherwise, of things which have happened more or less
connected with things which seemed to indicate them. In course of time
this knowledge appears to consolidate. It gets generally accepted as
true. And then it is handed on from generation to generation. Often with
the passage of years it gets twisted and a new meaning taken out of it
altogether different from the original.

It would be difficult to attempt to classify omens. Many books have been
written on the subject and more yet to be written of the beliefs of the
various races. The best that can be offered here is a selection from one
or other of the varied sources. In Greece sneezin