As for the superstition of seeing the future in a cup, it still exists, and is called seeing in a glass. The individual must never have known pollution; he must turn towards the east, and pronounce the words, _Abraxa per dominum nostrum_, after which he will see in a glass of water whatever he pleases. Children were usually chosen for this operation. They must retain their hair; a shaven head, or one wearing a wig, can see nothing in a glass. This pastime was much in vogue in France during the regency of the duke of Orleans, and still more so in the times preceding. As for auguries, they perished with the Roman Empire. Only the bishops have retained the augurial staff, called the crosier; which was the distinctive mark of the dignity of augur; so that the symbol of falsehood has become the symbol of truth. There were innumerable kinds of divinations, of which several have reached our latter ages. This curiosity to read the future is a malady which only philosophy can cure, for the weak minds that still practise these pretended arts of divination--even the fools who give themselves to the devils--all make religion subservient to these profanations, by which it is outraged. It is an observation worthy of the wise, that Cicero, who was one of the college of augurs, wrote a book for the sole purpose of turning auguries into ridicule; but they have likewise remarked that Cicero, at the end of his book, says that "superstition should be destroyed, but not religion. For," he adds, "the beauty of the universe, and the order of the heavenly bodies force us to acknowledge an eternal and powerful nature. We must maintain the religion which is joined with the knowledge of this nature, by utterly extirpating superstition, for it is a monster which pursues and presses us on every side. The meeting with a pretended diviner, a presage, an immolated victim, a bird, a Chaldæan, an aruspice, a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, an event accidentally corresponding with what has been foretold to us, everything disturbs and makes us uneasy; sleep itself, which should make us forget all these pains and fears, serves but to redouble them by frightful images." Cicero thought he was addressing only a few Romans, but he was speaking to all men and all ages.