any knowledge, but they reproduce symbols belonging to the highest antiquity. The game in its modern form was an experiment on the part of astrologers to restore the king, who has been mentioned, to reason.[53] The oracles of the Tarot give answers as exact as mathematics and measured as the harmonies of Nature. Such answers result from the varied combination of the different signs. But it requires a considerable exercise of reason to make use of an instrument belonging to reason and to science; the poor king, in his childish condition, saw only the playthings of an infant in the artist’s pictures and he turned the mysterious Kabalistic alphabet[54] into a game of cards. [Illustration: EXPLANATORY DIAGRAM OF THE ASTRONOMICAL AND ALPHABETICAL TABLET OF BEMBO] We are told by Moses that the Israelites carried away the sacred vessels of the Egyptians when they came out of the land of bondage. The account is allegorical, for the great prophet would scarcely have encouraged his people in an act of theft; the sacred vessels in question were the mysteries of Egyptian knowledge, acquired by Moses himself at the court of Pharaoh. We are by no means suggesting that the miracles of this man of God are referable to Magic; but we know on the authority of the Bible that Jannes and Mambres, who were the magicians of Pharaoh and consequently grand hierophants of Egypt, began by performing in virtue of their art wonders which were similar to those of Moses. They transformed wands into serpents and serpents again into wands, which might be explicable by prestige or fascination; they changed water into blood; they produced a swarm of frogs in a moment; but they could not cause flies to appear or other parasitic insects, for reasons which we have explained already, as also the manner in which they were forced to confess themselves vanquished.