DEMOIVRE DEMON. 



633 



which they consist. In the act of vision, images se- 

 parate from the external body, and enter the eye. 

 The motion of a body (for instance, of the lips in 

 speaking) divides the air, and gives it a motion, vary- 

 ing according to the direction of the moving body. 

 The parts of air thus put in motion arrive at the ear, 

 and produce hearing. In a similar way arise the 

 sensations of tasting and smelling. The images of the 

 objects received by the eye arrive through it to the 

 soul, and produce within us notions. If, therefore, 

 no notions come to the soul by means of the eye, its 

 activity ceases, as is the case in sleep. The know- 

 ledge conveyed by the senses is obscure and deceitful, 

 and represents mere motions of the exterior bodies. 

 What we know by the way of reason lias a higher 

 degree of certainty, yet it is not beyond doubt. The 

 continuation of the soul after death was denied by 

 Democritus, who believed it to be composed of atoms. 

 He divided it into two parts ; into the rational part, 

 which has its seat in the breast, and the sensual part, 

 which is diffused through the whole body. Both con- 

 stitute only one substance. The greatest good, ac- 

 cording to Democritus, is a tranquil mind. He ap- 

 plied liis atomical theory, also, to natural philosophy 

 and astronomy. The popular notions of the gods he 

 connected with his system, perhaps merely to accom- 

 modate himself to the prevailing creed. Even the 

 gods he considered to have arisen from atoms, and- to 

 be perishable like the rest of tilings existing. 



Democritus is said to have written a great deal ; of 

 which, however, nothing has come to us. He died 

 370 B.C., at an advanced age. His school was sup- 

 planted by that of Epicurus. 



DEMOIVRE, ABRAHAM; a mathematician of the 

 last century. He was a native of Vitri, in Cham- 

 pagne, and was driven from liis native country by the 

 revocation of the edict of Nantes. He settled in 

 London, and gained a livelihood by becoming a 

 teacher of mathematics. He was particularly cele- 

 brated for his skill and accuracy as a calculator, 

 whence he is thus referred to by Pope : 



" Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line." 



He died in 1754, at the age of eighty-six. His works 

 are, Miscellanea Analytica, 4to ; The Doctrine of 

 Chances, or a Method of calculating the Probabilities 

 of Events at Play, 4to ; and a ^work on annuities ; 

 besides papers in the Transactions of the royal society, 

 of which he was a fellow. 



DEMON,DEMONIAC,DEMONOLOGY,(Grcek 

 and Oriental). Good and evil, wisdom and folly, 

 piety and superstition, have been connected with the 

 belief in spirits. The name demons (?/,<*<, 'Saipons , 

 genii), by which those spirits which are said to have 

 some influence upon the destiny of men are generally 

 called, directs us to Greece. We find demons spoken 

 of by Homer. He called his gods demons : they ad- 

 dress each other by ttiis title, and Sz^owo,- is so often 

 synonymous with godlike, that the derivation of the 

 word demon from Sa/^wv, intelligent, wise, is highly 

 probable. Hesiod uses it in a different sense. Plu- 

 tarch says, that Hesiod admitted four classes of 

 rational beings gods, demons, heroes, and men. 

 (HES. Op. et Dies. 121126.) A strict classifica- 

 tion was not made until the popular belief had been 

 introduced into the schools of the philosophers. Aris- 

 totle divides the immortals into gods and demons : 

 the mortals into heroes and men. In the Greek phi- 

 losophy, these demons early played an important 

 part. Thales and Pythagoras, Socrates and Xeno- 

 phon, Empedocles and the Stoics, invented many 

 fictions concerning them, each in his own way. The 

 poetic Plato, however, goes further tlian any of the 

 others. In The Banquet, the character of the demons 

 is thus explained : " Demons are intermediate be- 



tween God and mortals ; their function is to interpret 

 and convey to the gods what comes from men, and to 

 men what comes from the gods ; the prayers and 

 offerings of the one, and the commands of the others . 

 These demons are the source of all prophecy, and of 

 the art of the priests, in relation to sacrifices, conse- 

 crations, conjurations, &c.; for God has no immediate 

 intercourse with men, but all the intercourse and 

 conversation between the gods and mortals is carried 

 on by means of the demons, both in waking and 

 in sleeping. There are many kinds of such demons, 

 or spirits." In other places, he says of them, they 

 are clothed with air, wander over heaven, hover over 

 the stars, and abide on the earth ; they behold un- 

 veiled the secrets of the time to come, and regulate 

 events according to their pleasure ; every mortal 

 receives at birth a particular demon, who accom- 

 panies him until his end, and conducts his soul to the 

 place of purification and punishment. The people 

 generally understood by them the godhead, as far as 

 it guides the destinies of men, and divided them, in 

 reference to the effects ascribed to them, into good 

 and bad spirits Agathodemons and Cacodemons. 

 The Romans still further developed the Greek 

 demonology ; with less, however, of a poetical cha- 

 racter, and mixed with Etruscan notions. 



We perceive in all this the original idea : wher- 

 ever an inexplicable power operates in nature, there 

 exists some demon. This idea was developed by the 

 philosophers, who endeavoured to regulate the popu- 

 lar belief, and to' reconcile reason with this belief. In 

 order to represent the idea of deity in its purity, they 

 were compelled to displace, by degrees, the mytho- 

 logical notions of the people ; and this could not be 

 done in a less perceptible and obnoxious way, than 

 by the introduction of demons. But, although Greek 

 philosophers did this for Greece, we must not believe 

 that these ideas, like the word demon, are of. Greek 

 origin. It is much more credible, that the whole 

 doctrine of demons was only transplanted into Greece, 

 We ought to look for their real origin in the East. 

 The Hindoos reckon, besides the highest being, Par- 

 ama, 33,000 gods, to which they add an infinite num- 

 ber of servants of the gods. The highest rank among 

 these gods was ascribed to the trinity, Brama, Vish- 

 nu, and Seeva, who, in eternal change, create, pre- 

 serve, and destroy. When the adorers of the de- 

 stroyer die, he sends his servants to convey them to 

 his presence, that he may make them participators 

 in his happiness. The demons there are the Devetas. 

 We find this doctrine systematically set forth in the 

 religion of Zoroaster, or the Chaldaic-Persian magic, 

 or doctrine of the magi, which is to be looked upon 

 as a chief source of demonology. 



In order to explain the origin of evil, Zoroaster 

 adopted, besides a good principle, a bad one also, 

 and made the two the sources of all good and evil, 

 explaining his ideas thus : There is a kingdom of 

 light, and a kingdom of darkness. Ormuzd, the 

 author of all good, resides in the first ; in the other, 

 Ahriman, the source of all evil, moral as well as 

 physical. Around the throne of Ormuzd stand the 

 seven Amshaspands (archangels), the princes of light. 

 The Izeds, the genii of all that is good, of whatever 

 kind, are subordinate to them; and to these the 

 Feruers. In the same way the kingdom of darkness 

 under Ahriman is arranged. His throne is sur- 

 rounded by the seven superior Dives, the princes of 

 evil, and an innumerable multitude of inferior Dives 

 stand under them, like the Izeds under the Amshas- 

 pands. The two kingdoms carry on an everlasting 

 war; but Ahriman will eventually be conquered, 

 and the kingdom of darkness will be entirely de- 

 stroyed. Heerpn endeavoured to show, that these 

 systems are formed according to the constitutions 



