Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/449

Rh history of religions, and of certain of the moral conceptions and the aids to their realization which these religions embody. The scope of the work is more various than the title would suggest, for it includes the consideration of the outlying topics that are indirectly but not inherently connected with the idea of evil and its personal embodiment. It thus loses in its systematic character, but gains somewhat in its acceptability as a popular presentation. The author has made good use of the extensive literature of his special topic and of the themes with which it is associated; but the compilation can not and presumably does not lay claim to any marked originality of contribution or presentation. In one aspect the volume shows commendable industry, namely, in the collection of illustrations, which give an unusually realistic account of the vagaries of the human mind, and especially the human imagination, in dealing with the mystery of good and evil. In five hundred pages of text we have three hundred illustrations, ranging from savage and Assyrian and Chaldean and Egyptian and Classic and Medieval and modern pictures of the incarnation of evil, to the acts of sacrifice and worship instituted in his honor, to Faust legends and the fate of the damned, to demon-possession and exorcism, to the scenes at the stake and the persecution of witches, to the portrayal of the devil in art and literature, in folk-lore, and finally his degradation in the caricature and drama of the day. This panoramic unfoldment of the changes of attitude towards the monarch of evil affords an interesting corollary to the conquests of culture over the terrifying realms of the imagination. The flight to evil that we know not of has in all ages been made by the fancy of the religious devotee, the ascetic, the churchman, and through them as well as by reason of the inherent necessity for a fear of consequences as an incentive to moral action, has the devil continued to live and exert his influence over the affairs of men. "The Devil of the Salvation Army," says Dr. Carus, "proves that there is still need of representing spiritual ideas in drastic allegories; but though Satan is still painted in glaring colors, he has become harmless and will inaugurate no more witch-persecutions. He is curbed and caged so that he can do no more mischief. We smile at him as we do at a tiger behind the bars in a zoological garden."

The scope of the work may be briefly indicated. An introductory consideration of the nature of good and evil as religious ideas leads to a general account of demonolatry; this cult and its various expressions in ancient Egypt, in Persia, among the Jews, in Brahmamsm and Buddhism, are then described; the new era introduced by the spread of Christian conceptions is portrayed, and its combination with the conceptions of Greece and Rome, its later encounter with the traditions of Northern mythology are further characterized; the successive periods of inquisition, witchpersecutions, reformation, constitute the zenith of the diabolical epoch; the reconstruction of the notions in regard to Satan is well illustrated in the literature, while the philosophical problem of good and evil still remains for discussion, even after science and the progress of civilization have crowded the personal devil out of his occupation.

The main value of this volume is the service which it is capable of performing as a work of reference, and again as an interesting presentation of a range of ideas with which many scholars with various purposes have to deal, and which forms a significant chapter in the history of culture.