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altern deities. Hence they became the objects of idolatrousworship. Ilesiod and other poets, who have recorded the ancienthistory of traditions, on which the public faith and worship werefounded, assert, that the men of the golden age, who were sup-posed to be very good, became daemons after death, and dispen-sers of good things to mankind. Though daemon is often used ina general sense, as equivalent to a deity, and is accordingly ap-plied to fate or fortune, or whatever else was regarded as a god ;yet these dtemnns who were the more immediate objects of wor-ship amongst the heathens were human spirits: as is shewn by-Farmer on Miracles, chap. iii. sect. 2. The word dxmon is usedindifferently in a good and in a bad sense. In the former sense,it was very commonly used among the ancient heathens. Butthey are mistaken who affirm, that dxmon never signified an evilbeing till after the time of Christ. Pythagoras held that dxmonssent diseases to men and cattle. (Diogen . Laert. Vit. Pythag.)Zaleucus , in his preface to his I.aws, supposes that an evil dxmonmight be present with a man, to influence him to justice. Thedxmons of Empedocles were evil spirits, and exiles from heaven.And Plutarch in his life of Dion says, “ It was the opinion of theancients, that evil and mischievous dxmons, out of envy andhatred to good men, oppose whatever they do.” Scarce did anyopinion more generally prevail in ancient times than this, viz. thatas the departed souls of good men became good d.rmons, so thedeparted souls of bad men became evil dxmons. It has beengenerally thought, that by dxmons we are to understand devils, inthe Sept’uagint version of the Old Testament . Others think the wordis in that version applied to the ghosts of such dead men as theheathens deified. '1 hat dxmon often bears the same meaning inthe New Testament , and particularly in Acts xvii. 18. 1 Cor. x.21. lJTim. iv. 1. Rev. ix. 20. is shewn at large by Mr. JosephMede . (See his Works, p. 625. et seq.) That the word is ap- iplied always to human spirits in the New Testament , Mr. Farmer |has attempted to shew in his Essay on Demoniacs, p. 208, et seq. >As to the meaning of the word dxmon in the fathers of the Chris- :tian church, it is used by them in the same sense as it was by theheathen philosophers, especially the latter Platonists ; that is, some-times for departed human spirits, and at other times for such spiritsas had never inhabited human bodies. In the fathers indeed theword is more commonly taken in an evil sense, than in the ancientphilosophers. Besides the two forementioned kinds of dxmons,the fathers, as well as the ancient philosophers, held a third, viz.such as sprang from the congress of superior beings with the daugh-ters of men. In the theology of the fathers, these were the worstkind of dxmons. Different orders of dxmons had different stationsand employments assigned them by the ancients. Good dxmonswere considered as the authors of good to mankind; evil dxmonsbrought innumerable evils both upon men and beasts. Amongstevil dxmons there was a great distinction with respect to the officesassigned them; some compelled men to wickedness, others stimu-lated them to madness. See Demoniac.

DzEMONES, among ancient medical authors, diseases, whichcould not be assigned to any natural cause, and proceeded, or weresupposed to proceed, from the influence or possession of the devil.See Djemoniacs.

D.EMONIAC, [from daman,] a human being whose volitionand other mental faculties are overpowered and restrained, and hisbody possessed and actuated, by some created spiritual being of. superior power. The Greeks and Romans imagined, that theirdeities, to reveal future events, frequently entered into the pro-phet or prophetess who was consulted, overpowered their (acuities,and uttered responses with their organs of speech. Apollo wasbelieved to enter into the Pythoness , and to dictate the propheticanswers received by those who consulted her. Other oracles be-sides that of Delphi were supposed to unfold futurity by the samemachinery. And in various other cases, either malignant dxmonsor benevolent deities were thought to enter into and to actuatehuman beings. The Lymphatici, the Cerriti, the Larvuti, of (heRomans, were all of this description ; and the Greeks, by the useof the word shew that they referred to this cause the

origin of madness. Among the ancient heathens, therefore, it ap-pears to have been a generally received opinion, that superiorV beings entered occasionally into men, overpowered the facultiesof their minds, and actuated their bodily organs.

D.«MoNi - rs, Arguments against the Existence of. Those*ho are unw illing to allow that angels or devils have ever intermed-

dled with the concerns of human life, urge a number of speciousarguments. Thu Greeks and Romans of old, say they, did be-lieve in the reality of dxmoniacal possession. They supposedthat spiritual beings did at times enter into the sons or daughtersof men, and distinguish themselves in that situation by capriciousfreaks, deeds of wanton mischief, or prophetic enunciations. Butin the instances in which they supposed this to happen, it is evi-dent that no such thing took place. Their accounts of the stateand conduct of those persons whom they believed to be possessedin this supernatural manner, shew plainly that what they ascribedto the influence of dxmons were merely the effects of naturaldiseases. Whatever they relate concerning the larvati, the cerriti,and the lymphatici, shews that these were merely people dis-ordered in mind, in the same unfortunate situation with those mad-men and idiots and melancholy persons whom we have amongourselves. Festus describes the Larvati as being furiosi et meit-lemoti. Plato , in hisTimxus, says, aJiif yij !mn; ita-nlirai |U.ctvrix:i;-Lucian describes dxmoniacs as lunatic, and as start-ing with their eyes, foaming at the mouth, and being speechless.It appears still more evidently, that all the persons spoken of as pos-sessed with devils in the New Testament , were either mad or epi-leptic, and precisely in the same condition with tlie madmen andepileptics of modern times. Tire Jews , among other reproacheswhich they threw out against our Saviour, said. “ He hath adevil, and is mad ; why hear ye him r” The expressions he hatha devil, and’is mad, were certainly used on this occasion as syno-nymous. With all their virulence, they would not surely ascribeto him at once two things that were inconsistent and contradictory.Those who thought more favourably of the character of Jesus ,asserted concerning his discourses, in reply to his adversaries,These are not the words of him that hath a dxmon ; meaning, nodoubt, that he spoke in a more rational manner than a madmancould be expected to speak. The Jews appear to have ascribedto the influence of dxmons, not only that species of madness inwhich the patient is raving and furious, blit also melancholy mad-ness. Of John, who secluded himself from intercourse with theworld, and was distinguished for abstinence and acts of mortifi-cation, they said, He hath a dxmon. The youth, whose fatherapplied to Jesus to free him from an evil spirit, describing his un-happy condition in these words. “ Have mercy on my son for heis lunatic, and sore vexed with a dxmon: for oft-times he fallethinto the lire, and oft into the water,” was plainly epileptic. Everything indeed that is related in the New Testament concerningdxmoniacs, proves that they were people affected with such natu-ral diseases as are far from being uncommon among mankind in thepresent age. When the symptoms of disorders cured by ourSaviour and his apostles as cases of da-moniacal possession, cor-respond so exactly with those of diseases well known as natural inthe present age, it would be absurd to impute them to a super-natural cause. It is much more consistent with common senseand sound philosophy to suppose, that our Saviour and his apostleswisely, and with that condescension to the weakness and prejudicesof those with whom they conversed, which so eminently distin-guished the character of the author of our holy religion, and mustalways be a prominent feature in the character of the true Christian,adopted the vulgar language in speaking of those unfortunate per-sons who were groundlessly imagined to be possessed with dx-mons, though they well knew the notions which had given rise tosuch modes of expression to he ill-founded, than to imagine thatdiseases which arise at present from natural causes, were producedin days of old by the intervention of dxmons, or that evil spiritsstill continue to enter into mankind in all cases of madness, melan-choly, or epilepsy. Besides, it is by no means a sufficient reasonfor receiving any doctrine as true, (fiat it has been generally re-ceived through the world. Error, like an epidemical disease, iscommunicated from one to another. In certain circumstancestoo, the influence of imagination predominates, ami restrains theexertions of reason. Many false opinions have extended tfieir in-fluence through a very wide circle, and maintained it long. Onevery such occasion as the present, therefore it becomes us to en-quire, not so much how generally any opinion has been received,or how long it lias prevailed, as trom what cause it has originated,and on what evidence it rests. When we contemplate the frameof nature, we behold a grand and beautiful simplicity prevailingthrough the whole. Notwithstanding its immense extent, anathough it contains such numberless diversities ol being: yet the1 simplest