In trying to conquer, as it were, these imaginary monsters, they have sometimes swarmed and gibbered around me in a mad comedy which travestied their tragic sway over those who believed in their reality. Gargoyles extended their grin over the finest architecture, cornices coiled to serpents, the very words of speakers started out of their conventional sense into images that tripped my attention. Only as what I believed right solutions were given to their problems were my sphinxes laid; but through this psychological experience it appeared that when one was so laid his or her legion disappeared also. Long ago such phantasms ceased to haunt my nerves, because I discovered their unreality; I am now venturing to believe that their mythologic forms cease to haunt my studies, because I have found out their reality. Why slay the slain? Such may be the question that will arise in the minds of many who see this book. A Scotch song says, 'The Devil is dead, and buried at Kirkcaldy;' if so, he did not die until he had created a world in his image. The natural world is overlaid by an unnatural religion, breeding bitterness around simplest thoughts, obstructions to science, estrangements not more reasonable than if they resulted from varying notions of lunar figures,--all derived from the Devil-bequeathed dogma that certain beliefs and disbeliefs are of infernal instigation. Dogmas moulded in a fossil demonology make the foundation of institutions which divert wealth, learning, enterprise, to fictitious ends. It has not, therefore, been mere intellectual curiosity which has kept me working at this subject these many years, but an increasing conviction that the sequelæ of such superstitions are exercising a still formidable influence. When Father Delaporte lately published his book on the Devil, his Bishop wrote--'Reverend Father, if every one busied himself with the Devil as you do, the kingdom of God would gain by it.' Identifying the kingdom here spoken of as that of Truth, it has been with a certain concurrence in the Bishop's sentiment that I have busied myself with the work now given to the public. CONTENTS Part I. Chapter I. Dualism. Origin of Deism--Evolution from the far to the near--Illustrations from Witchcraft--The primitive Pantheism--The dawn of Dualism Chapter II. The Genesis of Demons. Their good names euphemistic--Their mixed character--Illustrations: Beelzebub, Loki--Demon-germs--The knowledge of good and evil--Distinction between Demon and Devil Chapter III. Degradation. The degradation of Deities--Indicated in names--Legends of their fall--Incidental signs of the divine origin of Demons and Devils Chapter IV. The Abgott. The ex-god--Deities demonised by conquest--Theological animosity-- Illustration from the Avesta--Devil-worship an arrested Deism-- Sheik Adi--Why Demons were painted ugly--Survivals of their beauty Chapter V. Classification.