exert no power, but show only that there is some power at work, which will have such or such results.[353] Comparing Omens with other modes of Magic, several peculiarities may be noticed: (_a_) Omens themselves (apart from the preparation of victims, etc.) imply no human intervention, whereas rites and spells must be performed or recited by some one, and even charms are carried about one, or used in rites, or solemnly affixed to doors, animals or other possessions. (_b_) Partly as a consequence of this, Omens, considered in themselves, generally (as I have said) convey no suggestion of force. This cannot, indeed, be said of eclipses and thunderstorms; but the note of a bird, the appearance of entrails, a mere shivering or other change of feeling, though ominous, suggests no energetic operation; whilst rites and spells are often carried out with much expenditure of energy, and even charms, though not obviously active, are necessarily believed to be powerful in some obscure way of their own. (_c_) Omens are often so remote in time, as well as in place, from the events indicated that any quasi-mechanical determination of the issue by them can hardly be thought of; but with rites and spells, though they may not operate openly in the hour of their setting to work, yet the delay is not expected to be great, and (as said) their impulsion or _nisus_ is often very impressive; and charms are incessantly and immediately active. (_d_) Omens in general do not foretell precisely what is to happen, but only the success or failure of some enterprise (not the “how” of it), happiness or misfortune; whereas rites and spells have some definite object, and most charms inflict, or guard against, some one kind of evil, disease or shipwreck; though others (it is true) bring luck or loss at large. Thus Omens are very different from other magical conditions; and although it is not likely that the ordinary savage or even the wizard ever consciously draws these distinctions or sums them up, still they have an effect upon his mind, and the observation of Omens and the reading of them becomes at last a special branch of the Magic Art—Divination. § 5. OMENS INTERPRETED BY ANIMISM