holding that some of these demons are by nature inclined to do harm, and that these tormentors are used by the deity for the punishment of the wicked, [921] especially when in such a strict system of necessity these demons could only work, like the powers of nature, conformably with the laws of the universe and without disturbing those laws, occupying the same ground as lightning, earthquakes, and drought? And yet the language of Chrysippus, when speaking of evil demons who neglect the duties entrusted to them, [922] sounds as though it were only figurative and tentative language, not really meant. Besides, the later Stoics made themselves merry over the Jewish and Christian notions of demons and demoniacal possession. [923] [B. The Allegorising Spirit.] Even without accepting demons, there were not wanting in the Stoic system points with which the popular beliefs could be connected, if it was necessary to find in these beliefs some deeper meaning. It mattered not that these beliefs were often so distorted in the process of accommodation as to be no [(1) Allegorical interpretation of myths.] longer recognised. The process required a regular code of interpretation by means of which a philosophic mind could see its own thoughts in the utterances of commonplace thinkers. By the Stoics, as by their Jewish and Christian followers, this code of interpretation was found in the method of allegorical interpretation—a method which received a most extended application, in order to bridge over the gulf between the older and the more modern types of culture. [924] Zeno, and still more Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and their successors, sought to discover natural principles and moral ideas—the λόγοι φυσικοὶ, or physicæ rationes,—in the Gods of popular belief and the stories of these Gods, [925] and supposed that such principles and ideas were represented in these stories in a sensuous form. [926] In this attempt, they clung to the poems of Homer and Hesiod, the Bible of the Greeks, [927] without, however, excluding other mythology from the sphere of their investigation. One chief instrument which they, and modern lovers of the symbolical following in their footsteps, employed was a capricious playing with etymologies of which so many instances are on record. [928] Like most allegorisers, they also laid down certain principles of interpretation sensible enough theoretically, [929] but proving, by the use which was made of them, that their scientific appearance was only a blind to conceal the most capricious vagaries. Approaching in some of their explanations to the original bases of mythological formation, they were still unable to shake off the curious notion that the originators of myths, fully conscious of all their latent meanings, had framed them as pictures to appeal to the senses; [930] and, in innumerable cases, they resorted to explanations so entirely without foundation that they would have been impossible to