ORACLE, the name primarily given to the response delivered by the ancient heathen divinities to those who consulted them respecting the future, but afterwards applied both to the place where responses were given as well as to the divinities from whom the responses were supposed to proceed. To the desire so natural to man to obtain a glimpse into futurity. coupled with the ennobling belief that his destiny was predetermined in a higher sphere, is doubtless to he traced the origin of the art of divination, which has in all, but more especially in the earlier stages of society, exercised so powerful an influence over the human mind. But, of all the modes of divination, that by consulting the oracle was the most popu lar. In other cases, as the interpretation of events depended on man alone, titers might be mistake or deception ; but in the oracle, when the deity was believed to pronounce either in his own voice or in that of a consecrated agent, it was supposed there could be none. Hence
oracles obtained such credit and celebrity in antiquity, but more especially among the Greeks, that they were resorted to on every occasion of doubt and emergen cy, both by princes and states, as well as by private individuals. The general characteristics of oracles were ambiguity, obscurity, and convertibility ; so that one answer would agree with several various and sometimes directly opposite events. Thus, when Crcesus was on the point of invading the Medes, he consult ed the oracle of Delphi as to the success of the enterprise, and received for an answer that by passing the river Halys he would ruin a great empire. But whether it was his own empire or that of his enemies that was destined to be ruined was not intimated ; and in either case, the oracle could not fail to be right.