+689+. Ethical dualism is most fully embodied in the Persian conception of two gods, good and bad, with the understanding that the good god, Ahura Mazda, exercises a certain restraint on the bad god, Angro Mainyu, who is finally to be crushed.[1171] This optimistic point of view, which has no doubt existed in germinal shape among all peoples, appears also in the modified dualism of the Old Testament and the late Jewish and Christian schemes. The Old Testament Satan is originally a divine being, one of the "sons of the Elohim" (that is, he belongs to the Elohim, or divine, class); his function is that of inspector of human conduct, prosecutor-general, with a natural tendency to disparage men and demand their punishment. As a member of Yahweh's court and council he makes regular reports to his divine lord and pleads cases before the divine court.[1172] In this character he is suspicious and mischievous but not immoral; but a little later a trace of malice appears in him,[1173] and in the uncanonical Jewish book of the Wisdom of Solomon and in the New Testament he advances to the position of the head of the kingdom of moral evil, so that he is called also "the god of the present age"[1174]--that is, he is the controller of the existing unregenerate element in human society, and is to be displaced when the ideal age shall be established. +690+. _Man's attitude toward demons._ Demons[1175] (the term being taken to include all early malefic superhuman beings, whether ghosts or spirits) are feared and guarded against, but rarely receive worship. As they are the authors of all physical ills that cannot be explained on natural grounds, measures, usually magical, are taken to thwart their purposes--to prevent their intervention or to overcome and banish the evil begun by them. As they are not credited with moral principle, hostility to them rests not on ethical feeling but merely on fear of suffering.[1176] If they are placated, it is in cases in which they approach the character of gods and in so far cease to be demons in our sense of the word. They serve a useful purpose in that, taking on their shoulders all the ills of life, they leave the clan gods free from the suspicion of unfriendliness to men.[1177] On the other hand, the belief in them has created a pseudo-science of relief from suffering and a great host of pseudo-doctors who for a long time exercised a large control over society and bound men in fetters of ignorance.