Elizabethan Demonology | Page 7

definite conclusion is wanting; to the savage, the
notion of any necessity for, or advantage to be derived from, such
self-restraint never once occurs. Neither the lightning that strikes his
hut, the blight that withers his crops, the disease that destroys the life of
those he loves; nor, on the other hand, the beneficent sunshine or
life-giving rain, is by him traceable to any known physical cause. They
are the results of influences utterly beyond his
understanding--supernatural,--matters upon which imagination is
allowed free scope to run riot, and from which spring up a legion of
myths, or attempts to represent in some manner these incomprehensible
processes, grotesque or poetic, according to the character of the people
with which they originate, which, if their growth be not disturbed by
extraneous influences, eventually develop into the national creed. The
most ordinary events of the savage's every-day life do not admit of a
natural solution; his whole existence is bound in, from birth to death,

by a network of miracles, and regulated, in its smallest details, by
unseen powers of whom he knows little or nothing.
13. Hence it is that, in primitive societies, the functions of legislator,
judge, priest, and medicine man are all combined in one individual, the
great medium of communication between man and the unknown,
whose person is pre-eminently sacred. The laws that are to guide the
community come in some mysterious manner through him from the
higher powers. If two members of the clan are involved in a quarrel, he
is appealed to to apply some test in order to ascertain which of the two
is in the wrong--an ordeal that can have no judicial operation, except
upon the assumption of the existence of omnipotent beings interested in
the discovery of evil-doers, who will prevent the test from operating
unjustly. Maladies and famines are unmistakeable signs of the
displeasure of the good, or spite of the bad spirits, and are to be averted
by some propitiatory act on the part of the sufferers, or the mediation of
the priest-doctor. The remedy that would put an end to a
long-continued drought will be equally effective in arresting an
epidemic.
14. But who, and of what nature, are these supernatural powers whose
influences are thus brought to bear upon every-day life, and who appear
to take such an interest in the affairs of mankind? It seems that there are
three great principles at work in the evolution and modification of the
ideas upon this subject, which must now be shortly stated.
15. (i.) The first of these is the apparent incapacity of the majority of
mankind to accept a purely monotheistic creed. It is a demonstrable fact
that the primitive religions now open to observation attribute specific
events and results to distinct supernatural beings; and there can be little
doubt that this is the initial step in every creed. It is a bold and
somewhat perilous revolution to attempt to overturn this doctrine and to
set up monotheism in its place, and, when successfully accomplished,
is rarely permanent. The more educated portions of the community
maintain allegiance to the new teaching, perhaps; but among the lower
classes it soon becomes degraded to, or amalgamated with, some form
of polytheism more or less pronounced, and either secret or declared.
Even the Jews, the nation the most conspicuous for its supposed
uncompromising adherence to a monotheistic creed, cannot claim
absolute freedom from taint in this respect; for in the country places, far

from the centre of worship, the people were constantly following after
strange gods; and even some of their most notable worthies were liable
to the same accusation.
16. It is not necessary, however, that the individuality and
specialization of function of the supreme beings recognized by any
religious system should be so conspicuous as they are in this case, or in
the Greek or Roman Pantheon, to mark it as in its essence polytheistic
or of polytheistic tendency. It is quite enough that the immortals are
deemed to be capable of hearing and answering the prayers of their
adorers, and of interfering actively in passing events, either for good or
for evil. This, at the root of it, constitutes the crucial difference between
polytheism and monotheism; and in this sense the Roman Catholic
form of Christianity, representing the oldest undisturbed evolution of a
strictly monotheistic doctrine, is undeniably polytheistic. Apart from
the Virgin Mary, there is a whole hierarchy of inferior deities, saints,
and angels, subordinate to the One Supreme Being. This may possibly
be denied by the authorized expounders of the doctrine of the Church
of Rome; but it is nevertheless certain that it is the view taken by the
uneducated classes, with whom the saints are much more present and
definite deities than even the Almighty Himself. It is worth