in Antiquity, priests of Ceres. That goddess having lost her daughter Proserpine, began, according to the mythologists, to make search for her at the beginning of the night. In order to do this in the dark, she lighted a torch, and thus set forth on her travels throughout the world; for which reason it is that she is always represented with a lighted torch in her hand. On this account, and in commemoration of her pretended exploit, it became a custom for the priests, at the feasts and sacrifices of the goddess, to run about in the temple, with torches in their hands. One of them took a lighted torch from off the altar, and holding it in his hand, ran with it to a certain part of the temple, where he gave it to another, saying to him, Tibi trado; the second, in like manner, ran to another part of the temple, and gave it to the third, and so of the rest. From this ceremony the priests came to be denominated daduchi, bæzœœ, or torch-bearers; from bæzœœ, an unctuous resinous wood, as pine or fir, of which the ancients made torches; and εγὼ, I have or I hold. The Athenians also gave the name daduchus to the high-priest of Hercules.

DÆDALA, a mountain and city of Lycia, where, according to Pliny, Dædalus was buried; and also two festivals in Boeotia, so called. One of these was observed by the Plateans at Alalcomenos, in a large grove, where they exposed in the open air pieces of boiled flesh, and carefully noticed whither the crows which came to prey upon these directed their flight. All the trees upon which any of the birds alighted were immediately cut down, and out of them statues were formed, called Dædala, in honour of Dædalus. The other festival was of a more solemn kind. It was celebrated every sixty years throughout all the cities of Boeotia, as a compensation for the intermission of the smaller festivals, during that number of years, on account of the exile of the Plateans. Fourteen of the statues called Dædala were distributed by lot among the Plateans, Lebedians, Coroneans, Orchomenians, Thespians, Thebans, Tanagraeans, and Charoneans, because they had effected a reconciliation among the Plateans, and caused them to be recalled from exile about the time that Thebes was restored by Cassander the son of Antipater. During this festival a woman in the habit of a bridemaid accompanied a statue which was dressed in female garments, to the banks of the Eurotas. This procession was attended to the top of Mount Cithaeron by many of the Boeotians, who had places assigned them by lot. Here an altar of square pieces of wood cemented together like stones was erected, and upon it were thrown large quantities of combustible materials.

Afterwards a bull was sacrificed to Jupiter, and an ox or heifer to Juno, by every one of the cities of Boeotia, and by the most opulent who attended. The poorer citizens offered small cattle; and all these oblations, together with the Dedala, were thrown into the common heap, set on fire, and totally reduced to ashes. The origin of the observance was this: When Juno, after a quarrel with Jupiter, had retired to Euboea, and refused to return to his bed, the god, anxious for her return, went to consult Citharon, king of Platæa, in order to find some effectual measure for breaking her obstinacy. Citheron advised him to dress a statue in woman's apparel, carry it in a chariot, and publicly report that it was Platæa, the daughter of Asopus, whom he was going to marry. The advice was followed; and Juno, informed of her husband's approaching marriage, repaired in haste to meet the chariot, and was easily united to him, when she discovered the artful measures which he made use of to effect a reconciliation.

DÆDALUS, an Athenian, the son of Eupalamus, was descended from Erechtheus, king of Athens. He was the most ingenious artist of his age; and to him we are indebted for the invention of the wedge and many other mechanical instruments, as also the sails of ships. He made statues which moved of themselves, and seemed to be endowed with life. Talus, his sister's son, promised to become as great as his uncle by the ingenuity of his inventions; and therefore from envy the latter threw him down from a window and killed him. After the murder of this youth, Dædalus, together with his son Icarus, fled from Athens to Crete, where Minos, king of the country, gave him a cordial reception. Dædalus constructed a famous labyrinth for Minos, and assisted Pasiphaë the queen to gratify an unnatural passion. For this action Dædalus justly incurred the displeasure of Minos, who ordered him to be confined in the labyrinth which he had constructed. Here he made himself wings with feathers and wax, and carefully fitted them to his body and that of his son, who was the companion of his confinement; and having threaded their way out of the labyrinth, they took their flight in the air from Crete; but the heat of the sun melted the wax on the wings of Icarus, whose flight was too high, and he fell into that part of the ocean which from him was afterwards called the Icarian Sea. The father, by a proper management of his wings, alighted at Cumæ; where he built a temple to Apollo, and thence directed his course to Sicily, where he was kindly received by Cocalus, who then reigned over part of the country. He left many monuments of his ingenuity in Sicily, which still existed in the age of Diodorus Siculus. At last he was dispatched by Cocalus, from terror of the power of Minos, who had declared war against him because he had given an asylum to Dædalus. The flight of Dædalus from Crete with wings is explained by observing that he was the inventor of sails, which in his age might pass at a distance for wings. He lived about 1400 years before the Christian era. There were two statuaries of the same name; one of Sicyon, son of Patroclus, and the other a native of Bithynia.

DÆMON (Δαιμων), a name given by the ancients to certain spirits or genii, which they say appeared to men, either to do them service or to injure them.

The Greek word δαιμων is derived, according to Plato, from δαίμων, knowing or intelligent; but according to others from δαίμων, to distribute. This is the derivation given by the scholiast on Homer. Either of these derivations agrees with the office ascribed to daemons by the

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1 Cratylus, p. 398, ed. Serrani, vol. 1. 2 Iliad, l. ver. 222. ancient heathens, as the spirit intrusted with the inspection and government of mankind. For, according to the philosophers, demons held a middle rank between the celestial gods and men upon earth, and carried on all intercourse between them; conveying the addresses of men to the gods, and the divine benefits to men. It was the opinion of many, that the celestial divinities did not themselves interpose in human affairs, but committed the entire administration of the government of this lower world to these subaltern deities: *Necque enim pro majestate deim celestium fuit hic curare.*1 Cuncta celestium voluntate, numine, et auctoritate, sed daemonum obsequio, et opera et ministerio fieri arbitrandum est.2 Hence they became the objects of divine worship.3 "If idols are nothing," says Celsus,4 "what harm can there be to join in the public festivals? If they are demons, then it is certain that they are gods, in whom we ought to confide, and to whom we should offer sacrifices and prayers to render them propitious."

Several of the heathen philosophers held that there were different kinds of demons; that some of them were spiritual substances of a more noble origin than the human race, and that others had once been men.

But those demons who were the more immediate objects of the established worship among the ancient nations were human spirits, such as were believed to become demons or deities after their departure from their bodies. Plutarch teaches, "that according to a divine nature and justice, the souls of virtuous men are advanced to the rank of demons; and that from demons, if they are properly purified, they are exalted into gods, not by any political institution, but according to right reason."5 The same author says in another place,6 "that Isis and Osiris were, for their virtue, changed from good demons into gods, as were Hercules and Bacchus afterwards, receiving the united honours both of gods and demons." Hesiod and other poets, who have recorded the ancient history or traditions on which the public faith and worship were founded, assert, that the men of the golden age, who were supposed to be very good, became demons after death, and dispensers of good things to mankind.

Though *daemon* is often used in a general sense as equivalent to a deity, and is accordingly applied to fate or fortune, or whatever else was regarded as a god, yet those demons who were the more immediate objects of divine worship amongst the heathens were human spirits, as is shown by Farmer in his Essay on Miracles.

The word *daemon* is used indifferently in a good and in a bad sense. In the former sense, it was very commonly employed amongst the ancient heathens. "We must not," says Menander, "think any daemon to be evil or hurtful to a good life, but every god to be good." Nevertheless, those are certainly mistaken who affirm that *daemon* was not used to signify an evil being until after the times of Christ. Pythagoras believed in demons who afflicted with diseases both men and cattle.7 Zaleucus, in his preface to his laws,8 supposes that an evil daemon might be present with a man, to influence him to injustice. The daemons of Empedocles were evil spirits; and exiles from heaven; and Plutarch, in his life of Dion, says that it was the opinion of the ancients that evil and mischievous demons, out of envy and hatred to good men, oppose whatsoever they do. Scarcely did any opinion more generally prevail in ancient times than this, that as the departed souls of good men became good demons, so the departed souls of bad men became evil demons.

It has been generally thought, that by *daemons* we are to understand *devils*, in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament; but others think that the word in that version is applied to the ghosts of such dead men as the heathens deified. That *daemon* often bears the same meaning in the New Testament, is shown at large by Mr Joseph Mede, in his works; and that the word is applied always to human spirits in the New Testament, Mr Farmer has attempted to show in his Essay on Daemoniacs. As to the meaning of the word *daemon* in the writings of the fathers of the Christian church, it is used by them in the same sense as it was by the heathen philosophers, especially the latter Platonists; that is, sometimes for departed human spirits, and at other times for such spirits as had never inhabited human bodies. In the fathers, indeed, the word is more commonly employed in an evil sense, than in that of the ancient philosophers. Besides the two kinds of demons before mentioned, the fathers, as well as the ancient philosophers, believed in a third, namely, such as sprung from the congress of superior beings with the daughters of men. In the theology of the fathers, these were the worst kind of demons.

Different orders of demons had different stations and employments assigned them by the ancients. Good demons were considered as the authors of good to mankind; whereas evil demons brought innumerable ills both upon men and beasts. Amongst evil demons there was a great distinction with respect to the offices assigned them; as some compelled men to wickedness, and others stimulated them to madness.

**Daemoniac** (from *daemon*), a human being whose volition and other mental faculties are overpowered and restrained, and his body possessed and actuated by some created spiritual being of superior power.

Such seems to be the determinate sense of the word; but it is disputed whether any of mankind ever were in this unfortunate condition. It is generally agreed, that neither good nor evil spirits are known at present to exert such authority over the human race; but in the ancient heathen world, and amongst the Jews, particularly in the days of our Saviour, evil spirits are thought by many to have been much more troublesome.

The Greeks and Romans imagined that their deities, in order to reveal future events, frequently entered into the prophet or prophetess who was consulted, overpowered their faculties, and uttered responses by their organs of speech. Apollo was believed to enter into the Pythones, and to dictate the prophetic answers received by those who consulted her. Other oracles besides that of Delphi were supposed to unfold futurity by the same machinery. And in various cases either malignant demons or benevolent deities were thought to enter into and to actuate human affairs. The *Lymphatici*, the *Ceritii*, and the *Larontii* of the Romans, were all of this description; and the Greeks, by the use of the word *daemonia*, show that they referred to this cause the origin of madness. Among the ancient heathens, therefore, it appears to have been a generally received opinion, that superior beings entered occasionally into men, overpowered the faculties of their minds, and actuated their bodily organs. They might imagine that this happened in instances in which the effects were owing to the operation of different causes; but an opinion so generally prevalent had surely some plausible foundation.

The Jews, too, if we may trust the sacred writings and Josephus, appear to have believed in daemoniacal possess-

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1 Apuleius De Deo Socratis, p. 677. 2 Id. p. 675. 3 Apud Orig. contr. Celsum, lib. viii. p. 393. 4 Vit. Romul. p. 36, ed. Paris. 5 De Is. et Osir. p. 361. 6 Diog. Laert. in Vit. Pythagor. p. 514, ed. Amstel. 7 Apud Stobaeum, Serm. 42. The case of Saul may be recollected as one among many in which superior created beings were believed by the Jews to exert in this manner their influence over human life. The general tenor of their history and language, and their doctrines concerning good and evil spirits, prove that the opinion of daemoniacal possession had been well known and generally received among them.

In the days of our Saviour, it would appear that daemoniacal possession was very frequent amongst the Jews and the neighbouring nations. Many were the evil spirits whom Jesus is related in the gospels to have ejected from patients who were brought unto him as possessed and tormented by these malevolent demons. His apostles too, and the first Christians, who were most active and successful in the propagation of Christianity, appear to have frequently exerted the miraculous powers with which they were endowed on similar occasions. The demons displayed a degree of knowledge and malevolence which sufficiently distinguished them from human beings; whilst the language in which the daemoniacs are mentioned, and the actions and sentiments ascribed to them in the New Testament, show that our Saviour and his apostles did not consider the idea of daemoniacal possession as being merely a vulgar error concerning the origin of a disease or of diseases produced by natural causes.

The more enlightened cannot always avoid the use of metaphorical modes of expression; which, though founded upon error, have yet been so established in language by the influence of custom, that they cannot be suddenly dismissed. When we read in the book of Joshua that the sun on a certain occasion stood still, in order to allow that hero time to complete a victory, we easily find an excuse for the conduct of the sacred historian, in accommodating his narrative to the popular ideas of the Jews concerning the relative motions of the heavenly bodies. In all similar instances we do not complain much of the use of a single phrase, originally introduced by the prevalence of some groundless opinion, the falsity of which is well known to the writer.

But in descriptions of characters, in the narration of facts, and in laying down systems of doctrine, we require very different rules to be observed. Should any person, in compliance with popular opinions, talk in serious language of the existence, dispositions, declarations, and actions of a race of beings whom he knew to be absolutely fabulous, we surely could not praise him for candour or integrity, but must suppose him to be either exulting in irony over the credulity of those around him, or taking advantage of their weakness, with the dishonest and the selfish views of an impostor. And if he himself should pretend any connection with this imaginary system of beings, and should claim, in consequence of his connection with them, particular honours from his contemporaries, whatever might be the dignity of his character in all other respects, nobody could hesitate for a moment to brand him as an impostor of the basest character.

Precisely in this light must we regard the conduct of our Saviour and his apostles, if the ideas of daemoniacal possession were to be considered merely as a vulgar error. They talked and acted as if they believed that evil spirits had actually entered into those who were brought to them as possessed with devils, and as if those spirits were actually expelled by their authority out of the unhappy persons whom they had possessed. They expected, they demanded too, to have their profession and declarations believed, in consequence of their performing such mighty works, and to be honoured as having thus triumphed over the powers of hell. The reality of daemoniacal possession stands upon the same evidence with the gospel system in general.

Neither is there anything absurd or unreasonable in Daemoniacal doctrine. It does not appear to contradict those ideas which the general appearance of nature and the series of events suggest concerning the benevolence and wisdom of the Deity, and the councils by which he regulates the affairs of the universe. We often fancy ourselves able to comprehend things to which our understanding is wholly inadequate; and we persuade ourselves, at times, that the whole extent of the works of the Deity must be well known to us, and that his designs must always be such as we can fathom. We are then ready, whenever any difficulty arises, in considering the conduct of Providence, to model things according to our own ideas; to deny that the Deity can possibly be the author of things which we cannot reconcile; and to assert that he must act on every occasion in a manner consistent with our narrow views. This is the pride of reason; and it seems to have suggested the strongest objections that have been at any time urged against the reality of daemoniacal possession. But the Deity may surely connect one order of his creatures with another. We perceive mutual relations and a beautiful connection prevalent throughout all that part of nature which falls within the sphere of our observation. The inferior animals are connected with mankind, and subjected to their authority, not only in instances in which it is exerted for their advantage, but even where it is tyrannically abused to their destruction. Amongst the evils to which mankind have been subjected, why might not their being liable to daemoniacal possession be one? Whilst the Supreme Being retains the sovereignty of the universe, he may employ whatever agents he thinks proper in the execution of his purposes; he may either commission an angel or let loose a devil, as well as bend the human will, or communicate any particular impulse to matter.

All that revelation makes known, all that human reason can conjecture, concerning the existence of various orders of spiritual beings, good and bad, is perfectly consistent with, and even favourable to, the doctrine of daemoniacal possession. It was generally believed throughout the ancient heathen world; it was equally well known to the Jews, and equally respected by them; it is mentioned in the New Testament in such language, and such narratives are related concerning it, that the gospels cannot well be regarded in any other light than as pieces of imposture, and Jesus Christ must be considered as a man who dishonestly took advantage of the weakness and ignorance of his contemporaries, if this doctrine be nothing but a vulgar error. But it teaches nothing inconsistent with the general conduct of Providence; it is not the caution of philosophy, but the pride of reason, which suggests objections against this doctrine.

Those, again, who are unwilling to allow that angels or devils have ever intermeddled so much with the concerns of human life, urge a number of specious arguments in opposition to such a supposition. The Greeks and Romans of old, say they, did believe in the reality of daemoniacal possession. They supposed that spiritual beings did at times enter into the sons or daughters of men, and distinguish themselves in that situation by capricious freaks, deeds of wanton mischief, or prophetic enunciations. But in the instances in which they supposed this to happen, it is evident that no such thing took place. Their accounts of the state and conduct of those persons whom they believed to be possessed in this supernatural manner, show plainly that what they ascribed to the influence of demons were merely the effects of natural diseases. Whatever they relate concerning the larvati, the cerriti, and the lymphatici, shows that these were merely people disordered in mind, or in the same unfortunate situation with those madmen and idiots and melancholy persons whom we have And Lucian describes daemoniacs as lunatic, and as staring with their eyes, foaming at the mouth, and speechless.

It appears still more evidently, that all the persons spoken of as possessed with devils in the New Testament, were either mad or epileptic, and precisely in the same condition with the madmen and epileptics of modern times. The Jews, amongst other reproaches which they threw out against our Saviour, said, "He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?" The expressions, he hath a devil, and is mad, were certainly used on this occasion as synonymous. With all their virulence, they would not surely ascribe to him at once two things which were inconsistent and contradictory. Those who thought more favourably of the character of Jesus, asserted concerning his discourses, and in reply to his adversaries, "that these are not the words of him that hath a devil," meaning, no doubt, that he spoke in a more rational manner than a madman could be expected to speak. The Jews appear to have ascribed to the influence of demons, not only that species of madness in which the patient is raving and furious, but also melancholy madness. Of John, who secluded himself from intercourse with the world, and was distinguished for abstinence and acts of mortification, they said, "He hath a devil." The youth whose father applied to Jesus to free him from an evil spirit, describing his unhappy condition in these words, "Have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed with a devil; for oft times he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water," was plainly epileptic. Every thing indeed that is related in the New Testament concerning daemoniacs, proves that they were people affected with such natural diseases as are far from being uncommon amongst mankind in the present age. When the symptoms of the disorders cured by our Saviour and his apostles as cases of daemoniacal possession, correspond so exactly with those of diseases well known as natural in the present age, it would be absurd to impute them to a supernatural cause. It is much more consistent with common sense and sound philosophy to suppose, that our Saviour and his apostles wisely, and with that condescension to the weakness and prejudices of those with whom they conversed, which so eminently distinguished the character of the author of our holy religion, and must always be a prominent feature in the character of the true Christian, adopted the vulgar language in speaking of those unfortunate persons who were groundlessly imagined to be possessed with demons, though they well knew the notions which had given rise to such modes of expression to be ill founded; than to imagine that diseases, which arise at present from natural causes, were produced in days of old by the intervention of demons, or that evil spirits still continue to enter into mankind in all cases of madness, melancholy, or epilepsy.

Besides, it is by no means a sufficient reason for receiving any doctrine as true, that it has been generally received throughout the world. Error, like an epidemical disease, is communicated from one to another. In certain circumstances, too, the influence of imagination predominates, and restrains the exertions of reason. Many false opinions have extended their influence throughout a very wide circle, and maintained it long. On every such occasion as the present, therefore, it becomes us to inquire, not so much how generally any opinion has been received, or how long it has prevailed, as from what causes it has originated, and on what evidence it rests.

When we contemplate the frame of nature, we behold a grand and beautiful simplicity prevailing throughout the whole. Notwithstanding its immense extent, and although it contains such numberless diversities of being, yet the simplest machine constructed by human art does not display greater simplicity, or a happier connection of parts. We may therefore venture to draw an inference, by analogy, from what is observable of the order of nature in general to the present case. To permit evil spirits to meddle with the concerns of human life, would be to break through that order which the Deity appears to have established throughout his works; it would be to introduce a degree of confusion unworthy of the wisdom of Divine Providence.

Such are the most rational arguments which have been urged on both sides in this controversy. Perhaps the demonists have the stronger probabilities on their side; but we will not presume to take upon ourselves the office of arbitrators in the dispute.

Demoniacs, in Ecclesiastical History, a branch of the Anabaptists, whose distinguishing tenet it is that the devils will be all saved at the end of the world.

Dagelet's Island, in the Sea of Japan, was so named by Le Perouse, who landed there in 1787. It is about nine miles in circumference, of the most precipitous aspect, being environed, except at some small sandy creeks, with a rampart of bare rocks as perpendicular as a wall. Perouse's men saw in some of these creeks boats resembling those of the Chinese in their construction, but the carpenters all fled into the forest as soon as they saw the French navigators doubling the west point of the island. Perouse conjectured that they resorted thither from Corea, which is not more than sixty miles distant, for the purpose of building boats, which they sell on the continent. The island is covered in the highest part with wood. Long. 131. 22. E. Lat. 37. 25. N.