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 the Parsees, who consider a sneeze as a mark of victory obtained over the evil spirits who besiege the interior of the body by the fire which animates man, and who accordingly render thanks to Ahuramazda when this event happens (Z. A., vol. ii. p. 598).

Classical antiquity presents us with an example of a famous sneeze. At a critical moment in the expedition of the Ten Thousand against Artaxerxes, when they were left in a hostile country surrounded with perplexities and perils, Xenophon encouraged them by an address in which he urged that if they would take a certain course, they had with the favor of the gods, many and good hopes of safety. Just at these words, "somebody sneezes," and immediately the drooping hearts of the soldiery were comforted by this assurance of divine protection. With one impulse they worshipped the god; and Xenophon remarked that since, when they were in the very act of speaking of safety, this favorable augury of Zeus the Savior had appeared, it seemed proper to him that they should vow thank-offerings to this deity, to be presented on their first arrival in a friendly country, and also that they should make a vow to sacrifice to the other gods according to their ability (Xen. Anab. iii. 2. 9). Not only is it customary in Germany to welcome a sneeze with the above-mentioned exclamation of "Gesundheit!" but a notion is stated to prevail that should one person be thinking of something in the future, and another sneeze at the moment he is thus engaged, the thing thought of will come pass. So that the commonest character ascribed to sneezing is that of an auspicious omen.

Other phenomena may serve as omens, and such phenomena may be either natural or preternatural. In the first case their prophetic or significant character is entirely due to the interpretation put upon them by men; in the second, it is inherent in their very nature, which at once renders them conspicuous as exceptions to the usual course. Those of the first class have thus a dual function; contemplated on the other side, they are merely events belonging to the regular sequence of causes and effects; contemplated on the other, they are especially contrived as indications of the divine purposes. Hence, to one observer they may bear the appearance of ordinary phenomena; to an