side with the popular gods, there existed, in the popular imagination, subordinate beings of two kinds, both described as Dæmons: the first class comprising the good and benevolent Dæmons of Hesiod, the second including Dæmons of an evil character and disposition, the belief in which had developed naturally out of the Hesiodic conception, from the necessity of fixing the responsibility of evil deeds on supernatural beings different in nature from the purity and goodness of Deity.[245] Such a classification of supernatural beings—gods, Dæmons, and evil Dæmons—could not, of course, be rigidly maintained; the more the good Dæmons were discriminated from their evil brethren, the more they would tend to become identified with the gods of the popular tradition, and the line of demarcation between the divine and the dæmonic nature would be broken down,[246] Dæmons and gods would be identified, and the splendour and purity of the Supreme God of all would shine out more fully when contrasted with those other gods, who, after all, were only Dæmons. Such, at least, is the process which appears to be taking place in the numerous contributions which Plutarch makes to the subject of Dæmonology. He is evidently a sincere believer in the existence of Dæmons, not a believer in the Platonic sense, and not a believer merely because he wishes to come to terms with popular ideas. But the final result, so it appears to us, is that the popular gods become identified with Dæmons, and are prepared, even in Pagan times, to take that position which was assigned to them with such whole-hearted sincerity by the early Christian Fathers;[247] to become the fiends and devils and sprites of another dispensation; to aid Saladin in excluding the Crusaders from the Holy Land; to “drink beer instead of nectar” as day labourers in German forests; or to shine with a sinister splendour on the lives of monks and peasants in the rural districts of France.[248]