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CONCLUSION 275
similarities are observed, the question of origin is not solved but raised. In the case of astrology we have certainly, I think, a case of borrowing. It reaches the classical world late ; it is always associated with those eastern countries in whose religion, unlike that of Greece, the stars play an important, if not a predominant, part. But where the historical evidence gives us no terminus a quo, independent origin must at least be taken into account as a possibility. We can no longer believe that the rational Greek invented in cold blood quasi-sciences of divination while all that is emotional in his religion was adopted from some alien neighbours ; nor on the other hand can we suppose that while inspired divination is a natural product, his arts were simply taken over from older civilisations in the East. Ex Oriente lux is a motto which has inspired some exceedingly fruitful investigations, but it must not become an exclusive creed.