Among the great revolutions of this age, the inquisition of Spain and Portugal is abolished, but its history enters into that of the human mind; and the history of the inquisition by Limborch, translated by Chandler, with a very curious “Introduction,” loses none of its value with the philosophical mind. This monstrous tribunal of human opinions, aimed at the sovereignty of the intellectual world, without intellect. It may again be restored, to keep Spain stationary at the middle ages! DEMON, A name the ancients gave to certain spirits, or _genii_, which, they say, appeared to men, either to do them service, or to hurt them. The first notion of demons was brought from Chaldea; whence it spread itself among the Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks. Pythagoras and Thales were the first who introduced demons into Greece. Plato fell in with the notion, and explained it more distinctly and fully, than any of the former philosophers had done. By demons, he understood spirits, inferior to gods, and yet superior to men; which inhabited the middle region of the air, kept up the communication between gods and men, carrying the offerings and prayers of men to the gods, and bringing down the will of the gods to men. But he allowed of none but good and beneficent ones: though his disciples afterwards, finding themselves at a loss how to account for the origin of evil, adopted another sort of demons, who were enemies to men. There is nothing more common in the heathen theology, than these good and evil genii. And the same superstitious notion we find got footing among the Israelites, by their commerce with the Chaldeans. But by demons, they did not mean the devil, or a wicked spirit: they never took the word demon in that sense, nor was it ever used in such signification, till by the evangelists and some modern Jews. The word is Greek, θαιμων. Gale endeavours to shew, that the origin and intitution of demons was an imitation of the Messiah. The Phœnicians called them ‏בעלים‎ _Baalim_. For they had one supreme being, whom they called _Baal_, (and Moloch, and various inferior deities called Baalim,) whereof we find frequent mention in the Old Testament. The first demon of the Egyptians was Mercury, or Thuet. The same author finds some resemblance between the several offices ascribed to the demons and those of the Messiah. _Demoniac_, is applied to a person possessed with a spirit, or demon. In the Roman church, there is a particular office for the exorcism of demoniacs. Demoniacs are also a party or branch of the Anabaptists, whose distinguishing tenet it is, that the devil shall be saved at the end of the world.—See DEMONOLOGY. DEMONOLOGY.