Ordeal is a species of divination. Under the date a.d. 277 the Nihongi has the following:--
"The Emperor forthwith questioned Takechi no Sukune along with Umashi no Sukune, upon which these two men were each obstinate, and wrangled with one another, so that it was impossible to ascertain the right and the wrong. The Emperor then gave orders to ask of the Gods of Heaven and Earth the ordeal by boiling water. Hereupon Takechi no Sukune and Umashi no Sukune went out together to the bank of the Shiki river, and underwent the ordeal of boiling water. Takechi no Sukune was victorious. Taking his cross-sword, he threw down Umashi no Sukune, and was at length about to slay him, when the Emperor ordered him to let him go. So he gave him to the ancestor of the Atahe of Kiï."
The same authority informs us that in a.d. 415 the Mikado, in consequence of the great confusion caused by the assumption of false names and titles, commanded the people of the various houses and surnames to wash themselves and practise abstinence.
"Then let them, each calling upon the Gods to witness, plunge their hands in boiling water. Hereupon every one put on straps of tree-fibre, and coming to the caldrons, plunged their hands in the boiling water, when those who were true remained naturally uninjured, and all those who were false were harmed. Therefore those who had falsified [their titles] were afraid, and, slipping away beforehand, did not come forward. From this time forward the Houses and surnames were spontaneously ordered, and there was no longer any one who falsified them."
A note adds:--
"This is called Kugadachi. Sometimes mud was put into a caldron and made to boil up. Then the arms were bared and the boiling mud stirred with them. Sometimes an axe was heated red-hot and placed on the palm of the hand."
In a case which occurred in a.d. 530, it is stated that a judge, in order to save himself trouble, was too ready to resort to the boiling-water ordeal and that many persons were scalded to death in consequence.
At the present day plunging the hand into boiling water, walking barefoot over a bed of live coals and climbing a ladder formed of sword-blades set edge upwards are practised, not by way of ordeal, but to excite the awe and stimulate the piety of the ignorant spectators.[318]
Inspiration.--Such knowledge as we possess of the divine will and nature comes in the first place to the nobler individuals of our race, men in whom high intellectual powers are harmoniously allied to keen and healthy emotional susceptibilities and ripened by long years of experience and reflection. They it is--the seers, inspired prophets, men of genius, or by whatever name we may call them--who furnish the material out of which religion is developed, not the vulgar, with their superstitions which are only a product of its decay.
Inspiration is not an isolated phenomenon. Like all our thoughts and doings, it is the resultant of three component factors--namely, our own ego and that of our fellow-men, and the all-pervading influence of that divine environment in which we live, and move, and have our being. Each of these may predominate according to circumstances. In what we call inspiration, the two former are, as far as may be, in abeyance, and the mind is left free to be acted on by such higher influences as it is capable of receiving.