CHAPTER V.

CLASSIFICATION.

The obstructions of man--The twelve chief classes--Modifications
of particular forms for various functions--Theological demons.


The statements made concerning the fair names of the chief demons
and devils which have haunted the imagination of mankind, heighten
the contrast between their celestial origin and the functions
attributed to them in their degraded forms. The theory of Dualism,
representing a necessary stage in the mental development of every
race, called for a supply of demons, and the supply came from the
innumerable dethroned, outlawed, and fallen deities and angels which
had followed the subjugation of races and their religions. But though
their celestial origin might linger around them in some slight legend
or characteristic as well as in their names, the evil phenomenon to
which each was attached as an explanation assigned the real form and
work with which he or she was associated in popular superstition. We
therefore find in the demons in which men have believed a complete
catalogue of the obstacles with which they have had to contend in the
long struggle for existence. In the devils we discover equally the
history of the moral and religious struggles through which priesthoods
and churches have had to pass. And the relative extent of this or
that particular class of demons or devils, and the intensity of
belief in any class as shown in the number of survivals from it,
will be found to reflect pretty faithfully the degree to which the
special evil represented by it afflicted primitive man, as attested
by other branches of pre-historic investigation.

As to function, the demons we shall have to consider are those
representing--1. Hunger; 2. Excessive Heat; 3. Excessive Cold;
4. Destructive elements and physical convulsions; 5. Destructive
animals; 6. Human enemies; 7. The Barrenness of the Earth, as rock and
desert; 8. Obstacles, as the river or mountain; 9. Illusion, seductive,
invisible, and mysterious agents, causing delusions; 10. Darkness
(especially when unusual), Dreams, Nightmare; 11. Disease; 12. Death.

These classes are selected, in obedience to necessary limitations,
as representing the twelve chief labours of man which have given
shape to the majority of his haunting demons, as distinguished from
his devils. Of course all classifications of this character must be
understood as made for convenience, and the divisions are not to be
too sharply taken. What Plotinus said of the gods, that each contained
all the rest, is equally true of both demons and devils. The demons
of Hunger are closely related to the demons of Fire: Agni devoured
his parents (two sticks consumed by the flame they produce); and
from them we pass easily to elemental demons, like the lightning,
or demons of fever. And similarly we find a relationship between
other destructive forces. Nevertheless, the distinctions drawn are
not fanciful, but exist in clear and unmistakable beliefs as to the
special dispositions and employments of demons; and as we are not
engaged in dealing with natural phenomena, but with superstitions
concerning them, the only necessity of this classification is that
it shall not be arbitrary, but shall really simplify the immense mass
of facts which the student of Demonology has to encounter.

But there are several points which require especial attention as
preliminary to a consideration of these various classes of demons.

First, it is to be borne in mind that a single demonic form will often
appear in various functions, and that these must not be confused. The
serpent may represent the lightning, or the coil of the whirlwind, or
fatal venom; the earthquake may represent a swallowing Hunger-demon,
or the rage of a chained giant. The separate functions must not be
lost sight of because sometimes traceable to a single form, nor their
practical character suffer disguise through their fair euphemistic
or mythological names.

Secondly, the same form appears repeatedly in a diabolic as well as
a demonic function, and here a clear distinction must be maintained
in the reader's mind. The distinction already taken between a demon
and a devil is not arbitrary: the word demon is related to deity;
the word devil, though sometimes connected with the Sanskrit deva,
has really no relation to it, but has a bad sense as 'calumniator:'
but even if there were no such etymological identity and difference,
it would be necessary to distinguish such widely separate offices as
those representing the afflictive forces of nature where attributed
to humanly appreciable motives on the one hand, and evils ascribed to
pure malignancy or a principle of evil on the other. The Devil may,
indeed, represent a further evolution in the line on which the Demon
has appeared; Ahriman the Bad in conflict with Ormuzd the Good may
be a spiritualisation of the conflict between Light and Darkness, Sun
and Cloud, as represented in the Vedic Indra and Vritra; but the two
phases represent different classes of ideas, indeed different worlds,
and the apprehension of both requires that they shall be carefully
distinguished even when associated with the same forms and names.

Thirdly, there is an important class of demons which the reader
may expect to find fully treated of in the part of my work more
particularly devoted to Demonology, which must be deferred, or further
traced in that portion relating to the Devil; they are forms which in
their original conception were largely beneficent, and have become of
evil repute mainly through the anathema of theology. The chequer-board
on which Osiris sat had its development in hosts of primitive shapes of
light opposing shapes of darkness. The evil of some of these is ideal;
others are morally amphibious: Teraphim, Lares, genii, were ancestors
of the guardian angels and patron saints of the present day; they were
oftenest in the shapes of dogs and cats and aged human ancestors,
supposed to keep watch and ward about the house, like the friendly
Domovoi respected in Russia; the evil disposition and harmfulness
ascribed to them are partly natural but partly also theological,
and due to the difficulty of superseding them with patron saints and
angels. The degradation of beneficent beings, already described in
relation to large demonic and diabolic forms, must be understood as
constantly acting in the smallest details of household superstition,
with what strange reaction and momentous result will appear when we
come to consider the phenomena of Witchcraft.

Finally, it must be remarked that the nature of our inquiry renders
the consideration of the origin of myths--whether 'solar' or other--of
secondary importance. Such origin it will be necessary to point out
and discuss incidentally, but our main point will always be the forms
in which the myths have become incarnate, and their modifications
in various places and times, these being the result of those actual
experiences with which Demonology is chiefly concerned. A myth, as
many able writers have pointed out, is, in its origin, an explanation
by the uncivilised mind of some natural phenomenon--not an allegory,
not an esoteric conceit. For this reason it possesses fluidity, and
takes on manifold shapes. The apparent sleep of the sun in winter
may be represented in a vast range of myths, from the Seven Sleepers
to the Man in the Moon of our nursery rhyme; but the variations all
have relation to facts and circumstances. Comparative Mythology is
mainly concerned with the one thread running through them, and binding
them all to the original myth; the task of Demonology is rather to
discover the agencies which have given their several shapes. If it be
shown that Orthros and Cerberus were primarily the morning and evening
twilight or howling winds, either interpretation is here secondary to
their personification as dogs. Demonology would ask, Why dogs? why
not bulls? Its answer in each case detaches from the anterior myth
its mode, and shows this as the determining force of further myths.