n several
respects. It comes to have its special functionaries, into whose hands
all its authority falls. The divinatory power (like the magical) comes
to a man sometimes as a gift of nature (that is, of a god) or in some
mysterious external way, sometimes as a result of a course of training
in which the significance of the various signs is learned. It is
sometimes a property of a clan or a family and descends from father to
son, always, however, under the condition of instruction of the young by
the old. The diviner, like the magician, sometimes performs various
ceremonies for the purpose of bringing himself into relation with the
gods, and his utterances are frequently given in an ecstatic condition.
In this condition he is said in some instances (as among the
Todas[1592]) to speak a language not his own, with which in his ordinary
state of mind he is unacquainted, or to utter words that are not
understood either by himself or by others. Ecstasy means possession by
the deity; the interpretation of the diviner's words, which, in the
ecstatic condition, are the words of a spirit or a god, is sometimes
left to the bystanders, or, if unintelligible to them, must be recovered
by the seer himself when he returns to his normal condition.

+907+. The highest development of ecstasy is found in the prophet
proper. Originally the prophet was a foreteller and acted under the
inspiration of a god, a divine seizure that was allied to madness. The
ravings of the savage shaman[1593] are repeated in the ravings of
Cassandra and in the excited utterances and bodily exhaustion of the
early Hebrew prophets.[1594] A nobler use of ecstasy is exhibited in the
youth of Byblos, who rescued an unfortunate Egyptian envoy from insult
and secured him honorable treatment.[1595] The more advanced thought
tended to abandon the abnormal state of the diviner and make him simply
a recipient of divine knowledge by the favor of a god--the gods came to
choose thoughtful men instead of beasts as their intermediaries.[1596]
The Hebrew prophets whose utterances have been preserved, from Amos
onward, are men of insight, essentially critics of the national life,
and moral watchmen; but features of the old conception of divinatory
power continue for some time to attach to them.[1597]

+908+. The differentiation of functions between magician, diviner, and
priest appears to have taken place at a comparatively early period,
though it is probable that in the earli