VI 



POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 



[1891] 



IN the course of a discussion which has been going 

 on during the last two years, 1 it has been main- 

 tained by the defenders of ecclesiastical Christ- 

 ianity that the demonology of the books of the 

 New Testament is an essential and integral part 

 of the revelation of the nature of the spiritual 

 world promulgated by Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, 

 if the historical accuracy of the Gospels and of 

 the Acts of the Apostles is to be taken for granted, 

 if the teachings of the Epistles are divinely in- 

 spired, and if the universal belief and practice of 

 the primitive Church 'are the models which all 

 later times must follow, there can be no doubt 

 that those who accept the demonology are in the 

 right. It is as plain as language can make it, that 

 the writers of the Gospels believed in the existence 



1 1889-1891. See the next Essay (VII) and those which 

 follow it. 



