Indeed, they may be present to consciousness solely as a peculiar feeling associated with particular places or occasions, such as is the case with the Lares, Manes, and Penates of the Romans, and with the similar guardian spirits of the house and the field common among many peoples. Some of these guardian spirits are not very unlike the ancestors of cult. But this only indicates that the ancestor worshipped in cult also approximates to the demon, acquiring a more personal character only in occasional instances in which memory has preserved with considerable faithfulness the traits of a particularly illustrious ancestor. Here, then, we have the condition underlying the origin of gods. Gods are universally the result of a _union of demoniacal and heroic elements_. The god is at once demon and hero; since, however, the demoniacal element in him magnifies his heroic attributes into the superhuman, and since the personal character which he borrows from the hero supersedes the indefinite and impersonal nature of the demon, he is exalted above them both: the god himself is neither hero nor demon, because he combines in himself the attributes of both, in an ideally magnified form. The resemblance of demons to gods is due primarily to the magic power which they exert. The demons of sickness torture and destroy men; the cloud demons bring rain and blessing to the fields, or plot ruin when rain does not relieve the drought of the burning sun. By means of magic incantations and ceremonies, these demons can be won over, or, when angry, reconciled. Their own activity, therefore, is magical, and, as regards the effects that it produces, superhuman. In their fleeting and impersonal character, however, they are subhuman. Since the dominant emotions that call them into being are fear and terror, they are generally regarded as enemies not only of man but even of the gods. The struggle between gods and nature-demons is a recurrent theme in the cosmogonies of all cultural peoples. This hostility between demons and gods is connected with the contrast in the feelings evoked by darkness and radiant brightness. Hence the mighty nature-demons are, as a rule, consigned to gloomy abysses, from which they rise to the sky only occasionally, as, for example, in the case of thunder-clouds. The abode of the gods, however, is in the bright celestial realms, and they themselves are radiant beings upon whose activity the harmonious order of nature and the happiness of mankind are dependent. In the strife which the demons carry on with gods, they occasionally develop into counter-gods, as occurred in the case of the Persian Ahriman and the Jewish-Christian Satan. Yet it is significant of the almost insuperable lack of personality characteristic of the demon, that even these counter-gods of darkness and evil are wanting in _one trait_ which is indispensable for a completely developed personality--namely, changes in motives and the capacity to determine at will the nature of these