It is probable also that the belief in evil spirits may have had, in some cases, a different origin. It has been often pointed out on historical as well as on philological grounds that, in many cases, the conquest of one tribe by another has degraded the religion of the conquered into a secondary and dishonorable position. When the Saxon convert renounced Woden, Thunor, and Saxnote and all their words and works, the gods of Asgard still remained, in the belief of both convert and converter, as malignant enemies of Christianity. Whether from a primitive fear or a degraded polytheism, the result has been the same; man tends to surround himself with a host of invisible foes. The monotheistic religions, especially, have waged a bitter warfare upon this form of polytheism, as derogating from the honors due only to the highest. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have all declared war against the witch and the magician, at times by stern legislation, at times by wise teaching of the unreality and nothingness of the pretences of those who claim supernatural powers. Perhaps the most strange fact in the history of the subject, and a remarkable example of the impossibility of anticipating every result of an action, is that the very efforts which were made by the enlightened lawgivers of Israel to eradicate this debasing superstition have been in later times the provocation of the continued recurrence of the delusion. The words of the law of Israel have been used to prove the reality of the existence of the offence it had attempted to obliterate, while the severity of the punishments employed among a people just rescued from barbarism has been made an excuse for equal severity under circumstances the most widely different. Even now such superstitions are extremely common among the negroes of the southern portion of the United States, and of the West India Islands, as they are among the Slavs in Bohemia and Russia, and among the ignorant in every land. Even among the educated classes there is a more than half-serious belief in “charms,” “mascots,” and “hoodoos,” which is laughed at but acted upon. The superstitions about Friday, the number thirteen, and many others of the same nature, are still acted upon all over the world, and the belief in the evil eye is not confined to any one class or nation. Spiritualistic materializations and the marvels of Hindu theosophy are modern examples of this same recurrence to the fears and follies of our savage ancestors. In the seventeenth century, it was only a few emancipated spirits who did not so believe, and they were looked upon with horror by the majority of religious men as Sadducees and unbelievers. No less an authority than King James himself, the British Solomon, had written a most “learned and painful” treatise to prove the necessity of such a belief for all Christian people, a treatise in which he expounded satisfactorily, to himself at least, all the most recondite minutiæ of the subject.[52]