Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/256

 zodiacal series, furnish materials for constructing a horoscope, from which the course of procedure best adapted to the nature of this "spirit" may be mapped out. Thus these forms of divination do not aim so much at furnishing exact predictions, as at developing the better side of a man's character, and enabling him to avert calamities which the preponderance of his inferior elements would certainly entail. Men of means and position and students on the threshold of independent life or struggling to win academical laurels, have recourse to adepts in these systems, which they regard as more or less useful guides to moral philosophy. The exact methods pursued by a professor in analysing the "prime essence" of an inquirer cannot be defined, the processes of the art being known only to the families in which they have been secretly transmitted from generation to generation and by whose representatives they are practised. Physiognomy (kwan-so) constitutes a serviceable but not an essential assistant, the vital indications being drawn from the horoscope. It is also practised as an independent science under the name of Ninso-jutsu.

Considered from the point of view of the large part that it plays in the every-day life of the people, the system of "aspect divination" (hōi-jutsu) is more important than any of the above. It is a species of astrology based upon the supposition that the supernatural influences which mould a man's destiny emanate from certain regions of the