XLIX] Studies ia primitive Greek religion 67 



daemon-conception as in other respects, we cannot, of course 

 histörically follow the Greek religion from its beginning. But 

 there is much to support the assertion that in earliest times 

 the dcuiiiMV was not a term exclasively applied to any special 

 kind of deity, whether ghost of the dead or spirit of nature. 

 It was simply a word used to signify a snpernatural being in 

 general. In this sense the word occurs, for instance, in Ho- 

 mer ^), being sometimes applied even to the Olympian gods 

 whose character of nature deities is obvious. If in Aeschj^lus 

 and elsewhere the word öai/ncov is incidentally used even of 

 the spirit of a dead, this only confirms the assumption that 

 originally it was not exclusively applied to any special kind of 

 supernatural being. It was only in låter times, when the 

 higher gods had been more clearly distinguished from the 

 lower spirits and the daif^ioveg had become beings of a lower 

 order ^}, that the latter were sometimes, as with Lucian, iden- 

 tified with the spirits of the dead. 



As long as the psychological origin ot the animistic view 

 of nature was obscure it may have seemed natural to derive 

 it in one way or another from the belief in the surviving 

 spirits of the dead whicli is, perhaps, easier to explain. But 

 if we understand savage man-s intrinsic tendency to obliterate 

 the boundary between the animate and the inanimate and to 

 ascribe life and conscious will even to lifeless objects of na- 

 ture, we cannot but reject the theory which sees the root of 

 religion in the reverence paid to deified human souls. The 

 worship of the dead as well as the worship of nature-spirits 

 are both different applications of the general rule that un- 



') See Horn. 11. I, 222. III, 420 V, 438. IX. 600. XI, 480, 792. XV. 

 403, 418, 468. XVII, 98. XXI, 93. XXIII, 595. Od. II, 134. III, 27, 166. 

 V, 396, 421. IX, 381. XIX, 201. XXIV, 149. — Cf. Plut. I)e def. nrac. 

 c. 10, p. 415. ' EXXi^vmv bk "OurjQog ukv q^aiverai yoivMg åiKpoTiooa ygtbiievog 

 Toi^; ovöuaat, yai Tovg &eovi tnriv ore öainovai ^Qocrayootvwv. 



') See, for instance, Plato, Legg. VIII, 828, 834, 848. Symp. p. 435. 

 Plut. De def. orac. c. 10, p. 415. Schol. Enrip. Hec. 164. Apul. De deo Socr. 

 c. 6. Max. Tyr. Diss. XIV, 8. XV, 2. Porph. De abst. II, 37 etc. On the 

 Greek daemons, cf. Gerhard, Wesen, Verioandtschnft nnd Urspruvg der Dä- 

 moncn. Ukert, Uber Dämonen, Heroen und Genien, in Ahhh. der Königl. 

 Sachs. Ges. der Wiss. Bd 2, p. 139 sqq. 



