But the value and moral dignity of any principle depend upon the method of its interpretation and application. That sense of personal dependence upon a benevolent supernatural power which Plutarch associates with the teachings of Dæmonology may be identical with the purest and loftiest religion, or may degenerate into the meanest and most degrading superstition, according to its development in the mind of the individual believer. If this intercourse is regarded as spiritual only, the communion of soul with soul in the “sessions of sweet, silent thought,” high religious possibilities issue which no form of faith can dispense with. Any attempt to degrade this intercourse to material ends, or to appeal to it through material channels, involves recourse to magical rites, and superstitious practices of the grossest description. It is necessary, too, that even where there is no recourse to materialistic avenues of access to the spiritual world, the mind should cultivate a belief in the benevolence of the Higher Powers so that it may maintain a rational dignity and fearlessness in its communion with them. Plutarch is aware of these clangers. He knows that Dæmonology, and even Theology, may involve Superstition, and he takes pains to close those avenues to its approach, which a misunderstanding of the subject, a mistaken mental attitude towards it, may easily throw widely open. He seldom misses an opportunity of inculcating the proper attitude of mind to assume in face of questions of Religion, or of placing such questions in an atmosphere of clear and rational daylight, which is equally unlike the dim gloom of Superstition, and the blinding glare of Atheism. In a word, he continues to make Reason his Mystagogue to Religion. Polemically, as against the Epicureans, he is inclined to argue that Atheism is an unmixed evil, since it deprives mankind of Hope, Courage, and Pleasure, and leaves us no refuge in God from the sorrows and troubles of life.[325] He adds that Superstition should be removed as a dimming rheum from before our eyes; but, if that is impossible, we must not knock the eye out for the sake of removing the rheum, or turn the sight of Faith to the blindness of Atheism in order to destroy false ideas of the Deity. Although he admits that there are some men for whom it is best to be in fear of God; although he knows that a much greater number combine with their honour and worship of the Deity a certain superstitious fear and dread of Him; yet he insists most strongly that these feelings are totally eclipsed by the hope and joy that attend their communion with God.[326] He draws a beautiful picture of the happiness accompanying participation in divine services, asserting, in a lofty strain of religious feeling, that it is from a recognition of the presence of God in these services that the sense of happiness proceeds. “He that denies the Providence of God has no share in this exceeding joy. For it is not abundance of wine