To these truly honest men, the gypsies, with their pretended chiromancy, were at first a great puzzle. The learned Prætorius, in his vast work on Chiromancy and Physiognomy, devotes seventy-five pages to this "foreign element in our midst," and comes to the conclusion that they are humbugs. They do not know the lines--they know nothing. The intrusion of the latent powers of the mind had no place in the philosophy of Prætorius, therefore he did not perceive the back door by which the Romany slipped into the oracle. Yet there is abundant evidence even in his own valuable collection of the works of his predecessors, that many of them when tempted from merely describing character to straying into prophecy, were guided by something more mysterious than the laws of the lines of life, of the head, heart, the circle of Venus, the "hepatic," and viâ lactea. The Hungarian gypsies have a system of chiromancy of their own which the reader may find in the book "Vom Wandernden Zigeunervolke," by Dr. von Wlislocki, Hamburg, 1890. I had translated this and more of the kind for this chapter, but omitted it, thinking, firstly, that its place is supplied by more important matter; and, secondly, because it is, save as perhaps indicative of Indian origin, quite valueless, being merely of the prophetic kind. I have more than once known gypsies to tell me things of my past life which were certainly remarkable, bewildering, or inexplicable. And for the ordinary seeker of "voonders oopon voonders" it is all-sufficient that a thing shall be beyond clear intelligence. "How do you explain that?" is their crucial question, and their cry of triumph when relating some case of an authentic apparition, a spiritual feat of thaumaturgy, or a dream fulfilled. In fact they would rather not have it explained. I well remember how Professor Joseph Henry, when lecturing on natural science, narrated to us, his hearers, how when he told certain people how certain tricks of a common conjuror were executed, they all protested that it could not be the way it was done. They did not wish to be disillusioned. Raise a man from the dead, make him fly through the air, and it is for everybody a miracle. Give them the power to do the same, and in a month's time it will be no longer miraculous, but something "in the due course of nature." And what single fact is there in the due course of nature which is not as inexplicable if we seek for a full explanation of it? Consider this thing every day till you are penetrated with it, bear it in mind constantly, and in due time all phenomena will be miracles. We can apparently get a little nearer to the causes and give our discoveries names, but the primal causes as constantly recede and are continually buried in deeper mystery. But with most people names pass for explanations.