combat between the accuser and the accused. The judge in charge of the combat acquired the duty of determining guilt or innocence, and, as a result, the ordeal assumed other forms. Only the one who was accused was now involved. The ordeal changed from a magic combat into a _magic test_, which came to be regarded as a direct revelation of the decision of the deity. This led to the adoption of means of proof other than combat. It was obviously cult that caused penal justice as such to be taken out of the hands of private individuals. For this reason it was particularly sacrilege that demanded a magical judgment independent of the combat of individuals. In cases of sacrilege, the deity himself tested the assertions of the one who endeavoured to free himself from the charges of religious crime. The means for determining guilt or innocence were fire and water--the same agencies that had long been employed by religious cult for purposes of lustration. That the tests by water and by fire used in connection with the witchcraft cases of mediæval times still possessed a magical significance is unmistakable. If the witch sank in the water--that is, if she was received by the purifying element--she was guiltless. If the accused was not injured by holding a glowing iron in his hand or by walking barefooted over coals, this also was regarded as indicative of innocence. Apparently the underlying conception was that the deity who gave to water and fire the power of purifying a sinner from his guilt also communicated to them the power of freeing the innocent from an accusation and of withholding assistance from the guilty. Hence it is that while these modes of divine judgment were not, indeed, as common as was purification by means of water and fire, they nevertheless appeared again and again, so far as their fundamental characteristics are concerned. They were resorted to by the Germanic peoples, and were prevalent also in Græco-Roman antiquity, and in India; trial by water was likewise a custom in Babylonia, where it was prescribed by Hammurabi as a means by which a suspected person might free himself. We have noticed how, in the case of the ordeal and particularly of its earliest form, judicial combat, the legal controversies of individuals concerning rights relating to property, buying and selling and other agreements, came to be considered from the standpoint of _punishment_. This process is characteristic of the development of penal law in general. 9. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PENAL LAW.