est times all these characters
might be united in a single person. As soon as an organized religion is
established the priest acquires his specific function as intermediator
between men and gods, often, however, retaining the power of discovering
the will of the deity.[1598] Magic, as we have seen, tends to become an
unsocial and hostile thing, and the magician is in later times punished
or discountenanced by public opinion. The diviner, on the other hand,
has generally retained possession of his public for the reason that he
is in sympathy with the gods of the community and his work is held to be
wholly friendly. In all stages of religious development, except the very
highest, he has been recognized by public opinion and by law as a part
of the religious constitution of society and has often attained great
civil and political power.[1599] Among civilized peoples he comes to be
a man of learning, acquainted with many things besides the mere signs of
the will of the gods.

+909+. Divinatory signs may be grouped in various classes according as
they belong to the outer world or to men's inward experiences, and
according as they present themselves without or with preparation by man.
Outward signs in ordinary occurrences which, so far as human initiative
is concerned, are accidental may be called, for convenience, "omens."
Uncommon occurrences may be called, if they appear in the forms of men
and animals, "prodigies," and if they are seen in the physical world,
"portents." These designations are arbitrary, and sometimes two or more
of them may be appropriate for the same event. Inward signs are dreams,
revelations in the ecstatic state, and prophetic inspirations.[1600] We
may begin with divination from the observation of external objects, and
consider first such as are accidental (omens, prodigies, portents).

+910+. Omens, prodigies, and portents are to be regarded as the product
of ages of experience. The observations of early men seem to them to
show that certain appearances are followed by certain events, and the
details of experience, handed down and interpreted by successive
generations, are in the course of time sifted, systematized, and
formulated. In savage and half-civilized communities divinatory signs
are usually simple, drawn from appearances of familiar objects and
occurrences. They become more complicated in civilized times--they are
mingled with elaborate astrological ideas. Divination becomes a science
for