Many links in the chain connecting playing cards with the ancient mysteries can be separately taken up and studied. In the first place, the histories of Mercury show him as being worshipped under several distinct attributes, combined with that of being the Interpreter or Messenger of the gods, and the students who were of his cult learned twenty or more of the arts and sciences which Thoth or Mercury was supposed to have invented, such as speech, music, painting, agriculture and astronomy, all of which were under his protection. Virtue, vice, death, temperance, health, joy and sorrow each had an emblematic figure peculiar to and connected with it, such as a hanged man or a skeleton. Each of these figures, if displayed on the walls of a temple could be recognised even by an unlettered congregation, so the people would have been accustomed to these representations, even after they were removed from the walls to the flat surface of the cards and no longer displayed in their exalted positions. The emblematic figures found on the Tarots and called the Atouts are still known by the names given to them when the Egyptians introduced them to Europe, and are as familiar in Italy to-day as when worshipped under the protection of Mercury. After a little study the attributes displayed on the modern Tarots show most plainly their Egyptian origin, and mutely declare their pedigree--the image, value and position of each card, unchanged for ages, all silently pointing to this. Yet, while strangely conforming to all the attributes, decorations and posture of the gods as represented in the Egyptian temples, the designs have been so modernised as to be at first difficult to recognise. It is supposed by several authors, notably by Court de Gebelin, as early as 1773, when he published "The Primitive World," that originally the twenty-two figures of the Atout or emblem part of the Tarots were painted on the walls of the temples, a fashion inherited from Biblical times, to enable the worshippers to recognise gods, sciences, arts or conditions represented by the figures and their attributes when it was wished to consult them. Discoveries in Babylonia and Egypt since De Gebelin's time have confirmed his suppositions. These figures in themselves were insufficient for communicating with the gods, for they were speechless, so for the purpose of transacting business with them the second volume of the book of Thoth was adopted by taking from the peasants their ancient fashion of consulting the gods through the throw of arrows or rods. These were marked with figures representing a father, a mother, a child and a servant, and four tokens or heraldic devices were also scratched on the rods, dividing them into the suits that have been so universally retained. These symbols were always connected with the worship of the gods, and ivory rods bearing these devices have been found in the tomb of King Qa, who is supposed to have lived about 4000 B. C.