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him. His reign coincided with the period of the Achæan league, which was then strengthened by an alliance with the Etolians. Only a fragment of Macedonian power remained in Greece; a few towns in the Peloponnesus were held by Macedonian governors. Demetrius offered a slight opposition to the two patriotic leagues, and wrested Bocotia from the Etolians. At his death in 232 B.C. Antigonus Doson undertook the government for his son Philip, who was under age.

DEMETRIUS I., named Soter, king of Syria, was sent to Rome as a hostage during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. He contrived, however, to escape from confinement, partly through the assistance of the historian Polybius, and established himself on the throne. He acquired his surname from the Babylonians on account of the expulsion of Heraclides from their capital, and is famous in Jewish history for his contests with the Maccabees. Demetrius fell in battle against the usurper Balas, about 150 B.C. DEMETRIUS II., surnamed Nicator, the son of the preceding, lived in exile during the usurpation of Balas. At the head of a body of Cretan mercenaries, and with the assistance of Ptolemy Pbilometer, whose daughter he married, he regained the throne of Syria. His cruelties and vices, however, ultimately procured his expulsion from the kingdom; and Antiochus, the infant son of Balas, was proclaimed king in his stead. After ten years' captivity in Parthia he succeeded in establishing himself once more upon the throne; but his wife Cleopatra, indignant at his subsequent marriage with a daughter of the Parthian king, procured his assassination (126 B.C.).

ness of his Macedonian prototype. At the age of twenty-occupied the throne for ten years, but little is known of two he was sent by his father against Ptolemy, who had invaded Syria; he was totally defeated near Gaza, but soon repaired his loss by a victory which he obtained over Cilles, in the neighbourhood of Myus. After conducting an expedition against Babylon, and engaging in several campaigns against Ptolemy on the coasts of Cilicia and Cyprus, Demetrius sailed with a fleet of 250 ships to Athens, and restored the Athenians to liberty, by freeing them from the power of Cassander and Ptolemy, and expelling the garrison which had been stationed there under Demetrius Phalereus. After this successful expedition he besieged and took Munychia, and defeated Cissander at Thermopyla. His reception at Athens, after the se victories, was attended with the greatest servility; and under the title of "The Preserver" the Athenians worshipped him as a tutelary deity. In the next campaign he defeated Menelaus by land, and completely destroyed the naval power of Ptolemy. After an interval spent at Cyprus, he endeavoured to punish the Rhodians for having deserted his cause; and his ingenuity in devising new instruments of siege, in his unsuccessful attempt to reduce the capital, gained him the appellation of Poliorcetes. He returned a second time to Greece as liberator. But traces of Oriental despotism showed themselves, and the licentiousness and extravagance of Demetrius made tho Athenians regret the government of Cassander. He soon, however, roused the jealousy of the successors of Alexander; and Seleucus, Cassander, and Lysimachus united to destroy Antigonus and his son. The hostile armies met at Ipsus, 301 B.C. Antigonus was killed in the battle, and Demetrius, after sustaining a severe loss, retired to Ephesus. This reverse of fortune raised him many enemies; and the Athenians, who had lately adored him as a god, refused even to admit him into their city. But he soon afterwards ravaged the territory of Lysimachus, and effected a reconciliation with Seleucus, to whom he gave his daughter Stratonice in marriage. Athens was at this time oppressed by the tyranny of Cassander; but Demetrius, after a protracted blockade, gained possession of the city, and pardoned the inhabitants their former misconduct. The loss of his possessions in Asia recalled him from Greece; and he established himself on the throne of Macedonia by the murder of Alexander, the son of Cassander, 294 B.C. But here he was continually threatened by Pyrrhus, who took advantage of his occasional absence to ravage the defenceless part of his kingdom; and at length the combined forces of Pyrrhus, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus, assisted by the disaffected among his own subjects, obliged him to leave Macedonia after he had sat on the throne for seven years. He passed into Asia, and attacked some of the provinces of Lysimachus with varying success; but famine and pestilence destroyed the greater part of his army, and he retired to the court of Seleucus to seek support and assistance. Here he met with a kind reception; but, nevertheless, hostilities soon broke out; and after he had gained some advantages over his son-in-law, Demetrius was totally forsaken by his troops in the field of battle, and became an easy prey to the enemy. His son Antigonus offered Seleucus all his possessions, and even his person, in order to procure his father's liberty; but all proved unavailing, and Demetrius died in the fifty-fourth year of his age, after a confinement of three years, 284 B.C. His remains were given to Antigonus, honoured with a splendid funeral at Corinth, and thence conveyed to Demetrias. His posterity remained in possession of the Macedonian throne till the time of Perseus, who was conquered by the Romans. See MACEDONIA.

DEMETRIUS II., king of Macedonia, son of Antigonus Gonnatas, who was a son of Demetrius Poliorcetes. He

DEMETRIUS III., called Eucerus, also Euergetes and Philometor, king of Syria, was the fourth son of Antiochus Grypus. By the assistance of Ptolemy Lathyrus he recovered part of his Syrian dominions from Antiochus Eusebes, and held his court at Damascus. He assisted the Jews against Alexander Jannæus. In attempting to dethrone his brother Philip he was defeated by the Arabs and Parthians and taken prisoner. He was kept in confinement in Parthia by king Mithridates until his death.

DEMETRIUS, an orator and Peripatetic philosopher, surnamed Phalereus,' from the Attic demos of Phalerus, where he was born. He was the son of a poor man named Phanostratus, and was a scholar of Theophrastus. He governed the city of Athens as representative of Cassander for ten years, and 360 statues were erected to his honour. On the restoration of the old democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes, he was obliged to leave the city, and escaped into Egypt, where he was protected by Ptolemy Lagus. This king, it is said, having asked his advice concerning the succession of his children to the throne, was advised by Demetrius to leave his crown to the children of Eurydice, rather than to Philadelphus, the son, of Berenice. This displeased Philadelphus so much, that when his father died he banished Demetrius; and the unfortunate exile put an end to his life by the poison of an asp (282 B.C.) Demetrius composed more works in prose and verse than any other Peripatetic of his time. His writings treated principally of poetry, history, politics, rhetoric, and accounts. of embassies; but none are extant. The treatise περὶ pμnveías, which is often ascribed to him, is probably the work of a later Alexandrian of the same name.

DEMETRIUS, a Cynic philosopher, was a disciple of Apollonius of Tyana, to whom he afterwards proved an able antagonist. He spent the greater part of his life at Corinth, and first became famous during the reign of Caligula. The emperor, wishing to gain the philosopher to his interest, sent him a large present; but Demetrius refused it with indignation, and said, "If Caligula wishes to bribe me, let him send me his crown." Vespasian was

displeased with his insolence, and banished him; but the Cynic derided the punishment, and bitterly inveighed against the emperor. He lived to an advanced age; and Seneca observes that nature had brought him forth to show mankind how an exalted genius may live uncorrupted by the vices of the world.

DEMETRIUS, or DMITRI. See RUSSIA. DEMIDOFF, a Russian family honourably distinguished in various ways in the history of their country.

I. DEMIDOFF, NIKITA, the founder of the family, originally a blacksmith serf, was born about 1665. His skill in the manufacture of arms won him notoriety and fortune; and an iron foundry which he established for the Government became another source of wealth to him. Peter the Great, with whom he was a favourite, ennobled him in 1720. II. DEMIDOFF, AKINFIJ, son of the former, greatly increased the wealth he had inherited by the discovery (along with his son) of gold, silver, and copper mines, which they worked with permission of the Government for their own profit. He died about 1740.

III. DEMIDOFF, PAUL GRIGORJEVICH, nephew of the preceding (born in 1738, died in 1821), was a great traveller, and devoted himself to scientific studies, the prosecution of which among his countrymen he encouraged by the estabfishment of professorships, lyceums, and museums. He founded the annual prize of 5000 roubles, adjudged by the Academy of Sciences to the author of the most valu

able contribution to Russian literature.

IV. DEMIDOFF, NIKOLAY NIKITITCH, nephew of the preceding, was born in 1774, and died at Florence in 1828. During the invasion of Napoleon he commanded a regiment equipped at his own expense. He also greatly increased his resources as a capitalist by successful mining operations, and like his uncle used his wealth to multiply facilities

for the scientific culture of the inhabitants of Moscow.

The erection of four bridges at St Petersburg was mainly due to his liberality. In 1830 a collection of his pamphlets, Opuscules d'Économie Politique et Privée, was pub

lished at Paris.

V. DEMIDOFF, ANATOLI, son of Paul, was born at Florence in 1812, and died at Paris in 1870. Educated in France, his life was chiefly spent in that country and in Italy. After his marriage with the daughter of Jerome Bonaparte, he lost for a time the favour of the Emperor Nicholas on account of provision having been made in the contract for the education of his children as Roman Catholics. During the Crimean war he was a member of the Russian diplomatic staff at Vienna. Like other members of his house, he expended large sums to promote education and to ameliorate the physical condition of his fellows. His munificence as a patron of art gave him European celebrity. The superb work, Voyage dans la Russie méridionale et la Crimée, par la Hongrie, la Valachie, et la Moldavie, was conjointly written and illustrated by him and the French scholars and artists who accompanied him. It has been translated into several European languages; the English version was published in 1853. DEMISE. See LEASE.

DEMMIN, a town of Prussia, at the head of a circle in the government of Stettin, is situated on the Peene, which in the immediate neighbourhood receives the Trebel and the Tollense, 72 miles W.N.W. of Stettin. It has manufactures of woollen cloths, linens, hats, and hosiery, besides breweries, distilleries, and tanneries, and an active trade in corn and timber. Demmin is a town of Slavonian origin and of considerable antiquity, and was a place of importance in the time of Charlemagne. It was besieged by a German army in 1148, and captured by Henry the Lion in 1164. In the Thirty Years' War it was the object of frequent conflicts, and even after the Peace of Westphalia was taken

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and retaken in the contest between the electoral prince and the Swedes. It passed to Prussia in 1720, and its fortifications were destroyed in 1759. In 1807 several engagements took place in the vicinity between the French and Russians. Population in 1875, 9856.

DEMOCRITUS, one of the founders of the Atomic philosophy, was born at Abdera, a Thracian colony, the inhabitants of which were notorious for their stupidity. Nearly all the information that we possess concerning his life consists of traditions of very doubtful authenticity. He was a contemporary of Socrates; but the date of his birth has been fixed variously from 494 to 460 B.C. His father (who is called by no less than three names) was a man of such wealth as to be able to entertain Xerxes and his army on their return home after the battle of Salamis, On coming into his inheritance, Democritus, there is good reason to believe, devoted several years to travel. He visited the East, and is supposed with great probability to have spent a considerable time in Egypt. The intensity of his thinking was figured by the ancients in the story that he put out his eyes in order that he might not be diverted from his meditations. But of the way in which he obtained the vast learning for which he was famed, and of his intercourse with other philosophers, even with Leucippus, we have no certain information. According to one very doubtful tradition, he was so honoured in his native city that, his patrimony being all spent, the incredible sum of 500 talents was voted him by his fellow-citizens, together with the honour of a public funeral; but, according to another tradition, his countrymen regarded him as a lunatic and sent for Hippocrates to cure him. agreed that he lived to a great age; Diodorus Siculus states that he was ninety at his death, and others assert that he was nearly twenty years older. He left, according to Diogenes Laertius, no less that 72 works, treating of almost every subject studied in his time, and written in Ionic Greek, in a style which for poetic beauty Cicero deemed worthy of comparison with that of Plato. But of fragments. all these works nothing has come down to us beyond small

All are

The cosmical theory propounded by Democritus-which in part at least was adopted from the doctrines of Leucippus is of all the materialistic explanations of the universe put forth by the Greeks the one which has held the most permanent place in philosophical thought. All that exists is vacuum and atoms. The atoms are the ultimate material of all things, including spirit. They are uncaused, and have existed from eternity. They are invisible, but extended, heavy, and impenetrable. They vary in shape; though whether Democritus held that they vary also in density is debated. And, lastly, these atoms are in motion. This motion, like the atoms themselves, Democritus held to be eternal. According to some, he explained it as caused by the downward fall of the heavier atoms through the lighter, by which means a lateral whirling motion was produced; but whether this explanation was given by Democritus is extremely doubtful. Another principle also is said by some to have been used by Democritus to explain the concurrence of the atoms in certain ways, viz., that there is an innate necessity by which similar atoms come together. However this may be, he did declare that by the motion of the atoms the world was produced with all that it contains.

Soul and fire are of one nature; the atoms of which they consist are small, smooth, and round; and it is by inhaling and exhaling such atoms that life is maintained. It follows that the soul perishes with, and in the same sense as, the body. There is, in fact, no distinction made be tween the principle of life and the higher mental faculties. The Atomic theory of perception was as follows. From

every object cïdwλa (or images) of the object are continually being given off in all directions; these enter the organs of sense. and give rise to sensation The rest of the theory remarkably anticipates certain famous modern theories of perception (1) by its reduction of all sensation. on the ubjective side, to touch, and (2) by the distinction which it involves between the qualities of extension and resistance, which are said to be the only qualities that really belong to objects of sense, and the other (or secondary) qualities, which are said to exist only through the action of the organs of sense modifying the εἴδωλα.

Sensation, Democritus appears to have taught, is our only source or faculty of knowledge; indeed Lis first principles admit the existence of no mental faculty of a nature distinct from sensation. He was classed among the most extreme sceptics of antiquity, and tradition attributes to him such sayings as-"There is nothing true, and if there is, we do not know it," "We know nothing, not even if there is anything to know."

The system of Democritus was altogether anti-theological. He denied that the creation of the world was in any way due to reason He also rejected all the popular mythology; but, according to one account, he taught that, as men were produced by the motion of the atoms, so was produced a race of grander beings, of similar form, and, though longerlived, still mortal, who influence human affairs, some benevolently, some malevolently, and who appear to men in dreams.

The moral system of Democritus is strikingly like the negative side of the system of Epicurus. The summum bonum is placed in an even tranquillity of mind. Fear, and too strong desire, and all that is likely to bring sorrow or even care, are to be avoided, as, for example, notably marriage, to which Democritus cherished the strongest objectious. This habit of mind Democritus is said to have himself so well attained that the merry spirit with which he regarded all that happened earned him the title of "the laughing philosopher." Another version, however, asserts that he received the name on account of the scorn which he poured on human ignorance and weakness.

See Mullach, Democriti Abderiue operum fragmenta, Berlin, 1848; Franck, "Fragments qui subsistent de Démocrite," in the Mémoires de la Société royale de Nancy, 1836; Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. i.; Brandis, Rhein. Museum, vol. iii.. and Geschichte der Griech und Röm Philosophie, vol. i.: H. Stephanus, Pocsis Philos.; Burchardt, Commentaria critica a Democriti de sensibus philosophia, 1839; and Fragmente der Moral des Democrit.

DEMOIVRE, ABRAHAM (1667-1754), an eminent inathematician, was born at Vitry, in Champagne, May 26, 1667 He belonged to a French Protestant family, and was compelled to take refuge in England at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. Having laid the foundation of his mathematical studies in France, he prosecuted them further in London, where he read public lectures on natural philosophy for his support. The Principia Mathematica of Newton, which chance threw in his way, made him comprehend at once how little he had advanced in the science which he professed; but he pursued his studies with vigour, and soon became distinguished among first-rate mathematicians. He was among the intimate personal friends of Newton, and his eminence and abilities secured his admission into the Royal Society of London, and afterwards into the Academies of Berlin and Paris. His merit was so well known and acknowledged by the Royal Society that they judged him a fit person to decide the famous coutest between Newton aud Leibnitz. The life of Demoivre was quiet and uneventful. His old age was spent in obscure poverty, his friends and associates having nearly all passed away before him. He died at London, November 27, 1754. The Philosophical Transactions of London

contain several of his papers, all of them interesting. He also published some excellent works, such as Miscellanea Analytica de Seriebus et Quadraturis. 1730, in 4to. This then contained some elegant and valuable improvements on then existing methods, which have themselves, however, long been superseded. But he has been more generally known by his Doctrine of Chances, or Method of Calculating the Probabilities of Events at Play. This work was first printed in 1618, in 4to, and dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton. It was reprinted in 1738, with great alterations and inprovements; and a third edition was afterwards published with additions. He also published a Treatise on Annuiries, 1724, in 8vo, dedicated to Lord Carpenter.

DEMONOLOGY. The word demon (or damon) is the Greek Saíuwv, the etymology of which is too doubtful to explain its original signification (see Pott, Elym. Forsch., ii. 1, 947). Setting aside the use of the word in the general sense of deity (as in Iliad, i. 222), we find it employed in classic Greek literature with the more specific meaning under which it becomes an important term in the science of religion. Among the most instructive passages are those in which Hesiod tells how the men of the golden race became after death demons, guardians or watchers over mortals (Hesiod, Op. et Dies, 109, &c.; see Welcker, Griech. Götlerlehre, vol. i. p. 731), and where the doctrines of Empedocles, Plato, and other philosophers are set forth, showing how the demons came to be defined as good and evil beings intermediate between gods and men (Plutarch, De Defect. Orac., De Isid. et Osir., De Vitand. Ær. Alien., &c.; Plato, Symposion, 28; Diog. Laert., Vit. Pythag.; see Grote, History of Greece, vol. i. chaps. 2, 17). The religions of the world usually recognize an order of spiritual beings, below the rank of governing deities, and distinguished from nature-spirits such as elves and nymphs by being especially concerned with living men and their affairs; these beings, very often themselves considered to be ghosts of dead men, are the demons. The earlier and wider notion of demons includes the whole class of such spirits, who may be friendly or hostile, good or evil, persecuting and tormenting man or acting as his protecting and informing patron-spirits; while, when they are mediators or ministers of some higher deity, they will be, like the god himself, kindly or ill-disposed. A narrower definition was introduced in Christian theology, where the ideas of a good demon and guardian genius were merged in the general conception of good "angels," while the term demon was appropriated to evil spirits, or "devils." For scientific purposes, it is desirable to use the term in the wider sense. Demonology, the branch of the science of religion which relates to demons, is much obscured in the treatises of old writers by their taking the evidence too exclusively from among civilized nations, and neglecting what is to be learnt from barbarous tribes, whose ideas of demons, being nearer their primitive state, are comparatively clear and comprehensible. When savage notions of the nature and functions of these spirits are taken as the starting-point, the demon appears as only a more or less modified human soul-whether it is still actually considered to be a human ghost, or whether part of the human quality has fallen away, so that only traces are left to show that man's soul furnished the original model. But when such early and natural animistic conceptions were carried on into higher stages of culture, their original use as explaining natural phenomena was gradually superseded by the growth of knowledge, and they came to be maintained as broken-down and confused superstitions, only to be understood by comparison with their earlier forms. Such comparison, however, is facilitated by the primitive demon-ideas cropping up anew even in civilized life, as in the so-called "spirit-manifestations" of the present day. The following details will show the main

purposes which the doctrine of demous served in the philosophy of the primitive and savage world, as well as its large contribution to civilized superstition. The authorities, when not mentioned, will mostly be found referred to in Tylor, Primitive Culture, chaps. xiv. xv. Other cases are given in Spencer, Principles of Sociology, vol. i., and every reader may supplement them with similar instances from the works of travellers and missionaries. Prof. Adolf Bastian's Der Mensch in der Geschichte and Beiträge zur Vergleichenden Psychologie are of great value to students. Among races of low culture, the conception of a ghost soul being made to account for the phenomena of life (sec article ANIMISM) readily leads to a corresponding theory of morbid states of body and mind. As the man's proper soul causes the functions of normal life by its presence, while its more or less continued absence induces sleep, trance, and at last death, so the abnormal phenomena of disease have a sufficient explanation at hand in the idea that some other soul or soul-like spirit is acting on or has entered into the patient. Among the cases which most strongly suggest this are-first, such derangements as hysteria, epilepsy, and madness, where the raving and convulsions seem to bystanders like the acts of some other being in possession of the patient's body, and | even the paticut is apt to think so when he "comes to himself," and, second, internal diseases where severe pain or wasting away may be ascribed to some unseen being wounding or gnawing within. The applicability of demoniacal possession as a theory to explain disease in general is best proved by the fact that it is so often thus applied by savage races. Especially, reasoning out the matter in similar ways, rude tribes in different countries have repeatedly arrived at the conclusion that diseases are caused by the surviving souls or ghosts of the dead, who appear to the living in dreams and visions, thus proving at once their existence after death, and their continued concern with mankind. This notion being once sot on foot, it becomes easy to the savage mind to identify the particular spirit, as when the Tasmanian ascribes a gnawing disease to his having unwittingly pronounced the name of a dead man, who thus summoned has crept into his body, and is consuming his liver; or when the sick Zulu believes that some dead ancestor he sees in a dream has caused his ailment, wanting to be propitiated with the sacrifice of an ox; or when the Samoan persuades himself that the ancestral souls, who on occasion reveal themselves by talking through the voices of living members of the family, are the same beings who will take up their abode in the heads or stomachs of living men and cause their illness and death. Here, then, the denon appears in what seems its original character of a human ghost. We may notice in the last example the frequent case of the man's mind being so thoroughly under the belief in a spirit possessing him that he speaks in the person of that spirit, and gives its name; the bearing of this on oracular possession will appear presently. In many, perhaps in most cases, however, the disease-demon is not specially described as a human ghost; for instance, some Malay tribes in their simple theory of diseases are content to say that one kind of demon causes small-pox, another brings on swellings, and so on. The question is whether in such cases the human character has merely dropped away, and this seems likely from the very human fashion in which the demons are communicated with; they are talked to with entreaties or threats, enticed out with offerings of food, or driven away with noises and blows, just as though they were human souls accessible to the same motives as when they were in the body. Thus the savage theory of demoniacal possession has for its natural result the practice of exorcism or banishment of the spirit as the regular means of cure, as where, to select

these from hundreds of instances, the Antilles Indians in Columbus's time went through the pretence of pulling the disease off the patient and blowing it away, bidding it begone to the mountain or the sea or where the Patagonians till lately, believing every sick person to be possessed by an evil demon, drove it away by beating at the bed's head a drum painted with figures of devils.

That such modern savage notions fairly represent the doctrine of disease-possession in the ancient world is proved by the records of the earliest civilized nations. The very charms still exist by which the ancient Egyptians resisted the attacks of the wicked souls who, become demons, entered the bodies of men to torment them with diseases and drive them to furious madness. The doctrine of disease among the ancient Babylonians was that the swarming spirits of the air entered man's body, and it was the exorcist's duty to expel by incantations "the noxious neck-spirit," "the burning spirit of the entrails which devours the inan," and to make the piercing pains in the head fly away "like grasshoppers into the sky. (See Records of the Past, vols. i., iii., &c.; Birch's trans. of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, see below; Maspero, Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient, p. 41; Lenormant, La Magie chez les Chaldéens, &c.) The transition-stage of the ancient belief in the classical period of Greece and Rome is particularly interesting. The scientific doctrine of medicine was beginning to encroach upon it, but it was still current opinion that a fit was an attack by a demon (minis="seizure," hence English epilepsy), that fury or madness was demoniacal possession (δαιμονάω = to be possessed by an evil spirit, hence English dæmoniac, &c.), that madmen were "larvati," i.e., inhabited by ghosts, &c. No record shows the ancient theory more clearly than the New Testament, from the explicit way in which the symptoms of the various affections are described, culminating in the patient declaring the name of his possessing demon, and answering in his person when addressed. The similarity of the symptoms with those which in barbarous countries are still accounted for in the ancient way may be seeu from such statements as the following, by a wellknown missionary (Rev. J. L. Wilson, Western Africa, p. 217):-"Demoniacal possessions are common, and the feats performed by those who are supposed to be under such influence are certainly not unlike those described in the New Testament. Frantic gestures, convulsions, foaming at the mouth, feats of supernatural strength, furious ravings, bodily lacerations, gnashing of teeth, and other things of a similar character, may be witnessed in most of the cases." 29 Among the early Christians the demoniacs or energumens (èvepyouμevo) formed a special class under the control of a clerical order of exorcists, and a mass of evidence drawn from such writers as Cyril, Tertullian, Chrysostom, and Minutius Felix, shows that the symptoms of those possessed were such as modern physi cians would class under hysteria, epilepsy, lunacy, &c. (See their works, and refs. in Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church; Maury, La Magie et l'Astrologie, part ii. ch. 2, &c.) Some theologians, while in deference to advanced medical knowledge they abandon the primitive theory of demons causing such diseases in our own time, place themselves in an embarrassing position by maintaining, on the supposed sanction of Scripture, that the same symptoms were really caused by demoniacal possession in the 1st century. A full statement of the arguments on both sides of this once important controversy will be found in earlier editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, but for our times it seems too like a discussion whether the earth was really flat in the ages when it was believed to be so, but became round since astronomers provided a different explanation of the same phenomena. It is more profitable

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to notice how gradual the change of opinion has been from | the doctrine of demon-possession to the scientific theory of disease, and how largely the older view still survives in the world. Not only in savage districts, but in countries whose native civilization is below the European level, such as India and China, the curious observer may still see the exorcist expel the malignant ghost or demon from the patient afflicted with fever, dizziness, frenzy, or any unaccountable ailment. (See Ward, History of the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 155, vol ii. p. 183; Roberts, Oriental Illustrations of the Scriptures, p. 529; Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese.) The unbroken continuance of the belief in medieval Europe may be gathered from such works as the excellent treatise by Maury, La Magie et l'Astrologie dans l'Antiquité et au Moyen Age, already referred to. Even in the 18th century was published with ecclesiastical approval a regular exorcist's manual, the Fustis et Flagellum Dæmonum, Auctore R.P.F. Hieronimo | Mengo (1727), which among its curious contents gives instructions how to get the better of those cunning demons who hide in the bodies of men and vex them with diseases, and which are apt when expelled to take refuge in the patient's hair. The gradual shifting of opinion is marked by the attempt to reconcile the older demonology with the newer medicine. This argument, which appears among the early Christian fathers, is worked out most elaborately in that curious museum of demonology, the Disquisitiones Magic of Martin Delrio, published as late as 1720. While inveighing against those physicians who maintain that all diseases have natural canses, this learned Jesuit admits that men may be dumb, epileptic, or lunatic without being obsessed; but what the demons do is that, finding the disposition of epileptics suitable, they insinuate themselves into them; also they attack lunatics, especially at full moon, when their brains are full of humours, or they introduce diseases by stirring up the black bile, sending blacks into the brain and cells of the nerves, and setting obstructions in the ears and eyes to cause deafness and blindness. Looking at the date of this celebrated work, we cannot wonder that in benighted districts of Europe the old diabolical possession and its accompanying exorcism may still now and then be met with, as in 1861 at Morzine in Savoy. (See A. Constans, Relation sur une Epidémie d'Hystero-Démonopathie, Paris, 1863.) One of the last notable cases of this kind in England was that of George Lukins of Yatton, a knavish epileptic out of whom seven devils were exorcised by seven clergymen, at the Temple Church at Bristol, on June 13, 1788. (See Encyc. Brit. 3d to 6th editions, art. "Possession ").

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Saxon mær spirit, elf, &c., compare old German mar elf, demon, nahtmar=nightmare,- -see Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 433). The vampires, or drinkers (Old Russian up), well known in Slavonic regions, are variety of the nightmare, being witch-souls or ghosts who suck the blood of living victims, thus accounting for their becoming pale and bloodless, and falling into decline. (See Grohmann, Aberglauben aus Böhmen, p. 24; Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 410.) From dreams are avowedly formed the notions of incubi and succubi, those nocturnal demons who consort with women and men in their sleep. From the apparent distinctness of their evidence, these beings are of course well known in savage demonology, and in connection with them there already arises among uncultured races the idea that children may be engendered between spirits and human mothers. (See Martin, Mariner's Tonga Islands, vol. ii. p. 119). For an ancient example of the general belief in this class of demons, no better could be chosen than that of the carly Assyrians, whose name for a succubus, lilit, evidently gave rise to the Rabbinical tale of Adam's demon-wife Lilith. (See Lenormant, op. cit. p. 36.) The literature of mediaval sorcery abounds in mentions of this belief, of which the absurd pseudo-philosophical side comes well into view in the chapter of Delrio (lib. ii. quæst. 15), “An sint unquam dæmones incubi et succubæ, et an ex tali congressu proles nasci queat?" But its serious side is shown by the accusation of consorting with such demons being one of the main charges in the infamous bull of Innocent VIII., which brought judicial torture and death upon so many thousands of wretched so-called witches. (See Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, vol. ii. p. 222) It further throws light on demonology that the frightful spectres seen in such affections as delirium tremens have of course been interpreted as real demons. It is needless to give instances from among savage tribes, for the connection between such phantoms and the doctrine of demoniacal possession is shown in its most primitive state in modern Europe. In the Fustis Dæmonum, p. 42, it is mentioned that demons before entering human bodies are apt to appear in some terrible form or deformity, human or bestial, and while they seem to the patients suddenly to vanish, then they enter into their bodies. By this supposition the disappearance of the phantom and the accompanying illness of the delirious patient are ingeniously accounted for at one stroke.

Though the functions ascribed to demons in savage philosophy are especially connected with disease, they are by no means exclusively so, but the swarming host of spirits pervading the world is called on to account for any events which seem to happen by some unseen but controlling

The derivation of the ideas of demons from the phantoms seen in dreams has already been instanced where the apparition is that of a dead man, but there are pecu-influence. liar kinds of demons which are to be considered specially from this point of view. n savage animism, as among the Australians, what we call a nightmare is of course recognized as a demon; and though we have long learnt to interpret it subjectively as arising from some action of the sleeper's brain, it is interesting to remember that its name remains proof of the same idea among our ancestors (Anglo

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Some cause must lead the wild man to find game one day and come back empty another, to stumble and hurt himself in the dusk, to lose his way and become bewildered in the dark forest, where the cries of animals and other sounds seem to him spirit-voices misleading or mocking him. For all such events requiring explanation savages find personal causes in intervening demons, who are sometimes ghosts, as when an American Indian falling into the fire will say that an angry ancestral spirit pushed him in; or they may be simply spirits of undefined origin, like those whom the Australians regard as lurking everywhere, ready to do harm to the poor black-fellow. To compare this state of thought with that of the classic world, we have but to remember the remark of Hippo crates about the superstitious who believed themselves infested day and night by malicious demons, or the Romans' fear of those harmful ghost-demons the lemures, whom they got rid of by the quaint ceremonies of the annual Lemuralia. How permanent these demon-ideas

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