THE DEMONS.

Origin of the belief in demons. — The demons according to the Church.

— The demons according to Spiritism.

Origin of the belief in demons.

— In all ages demons have played a prominent part in the various theogonies, and, although considerably fallen in general esteem, the importance still attributed to them today gives the question a certain gravity, since it touches the very foundation of religious beliefs. This is why it becomes useful to examine it, with the developments it permits.

Belief in a superior power is instinctive in man.

We find it, under different forms, in all the ages of the world. But if today, given the degree of culture attained, the nature and attributes of this power are still discussed, imagine what notions man could have had on this subject in the infancy of Humanity.

— As proof of his innocence, the picture of primitive men in ecstasy before Nature and admiring in it the goodness of the Creator is, no doubt, very poetic, but hardly real.

In fact, the closer he is to the primitive state, the more man enslaves himself to instinct, as is still seen today among contemporary barbarous and savage peoples; what most occupies him, or rather what exclusively occupies him, is the satisfaction of material needs, all the more because he has no others.

The only sense that can make him accessible to purely moral enjoyments develops only gradually and slowly; 4 the soul also has its infancy, its adolescence, and its manhood, like the human body; 5 but to comprehend the abstract, how many evolutions must it not undergo throughout Humanity! Through how many existences must it not pass!

Without going back to primitive times, let us look around at the country folk and scrutinize the sentiments of admiration awakened in them by the splendor of the rising sun, by the starry vault of the firmament, the trilling of the birds, the murmur of the clear waters, the flowering orchard of the meadows. For these people the sun rises out of habit, and provided it gives off the heat necessary to ripen the harvests, but not so much as to scorch them, all they desired is accomplished; they look at the sky to know whether good or bad weather will come; whether the birds sing or not, they care little, so long as they do not strip the grain from the harvest; to the melodies of the nightingale they prefer the cackling of the hens and the grunting of the pigs; what they wish from the crystalline, or muddy, brooks is that they neither dry up nor flood; from the plowed fields, that they produce good grass, with or without flowers: that is all these people long for, or, what is more, all that they grasp of Nature, although already far removed from primitive men.

— If we go back to these latter, then we shall surprise them even more exclusively preoccupied with the satisfaction of material needs, summing up good and evil in this world solely as regards the satisfaction or harm of those needs.

Believing in an extra-human power, and because material harm is always what most closely concerns them, they attribute it to this power, of which they form, moreover, a very vague idea.

And since they conceive of nothing outside the visible and tangible world, such power appears to them identified in the beings and things that harm them.

Harmful animals are for them nothing but the natural and direct representatives of this power.

For the same reason, they see in useful things the personification of good: hence the worship devoted to certain plants and even to inanimate objects.

But man is commonly more sensitive to evil than to good; the latter seems natural to him, whereas the former affects him more; 7 nor by any other reason is it explained that, in primitive worship, the ceremonies in honor of the maleficent power are always more numerous: fear supplants gratitude.

For a long time man understood only physical good and evil; the moral sentiments only later marked the progress of human intelligence, making him glimpse in spirituality an extra-human power outside the visible world and material things.

This work was surely accomplished by elite intelligences, but ones that could not exceed certain limits.

— The struggle between good and evil being proven and evident, the latter often triumphing over the former, and it being impossible rationally to admit that evil derived from a beneficent power, it was concluded that there existed two rival powers in the government of the world.

From this arose the doctrine of the two principles, logical, moreover, in an epoch when man was incapable, by reasoning, of penetrating the essence of the Supreme Being.

How then would he understand that evil is merely a transitory state from which good may emanate, leading him to happiness through suffering and aiding his progress?

The limits of his moral horizon, allowing him to see nothing beyond his present, in the past as in the future, also did not allow him to understand that he had already progressed, that he would progress still individually, and much less that the vicissitudes of life resulted from the imperfections of the spiritual being residing in him, which preexists and survives the body, in dependence on a series of purifying existences until it attains perfection.

To understand how good can result from evil, one must consider not one but many existences; one must grasp the whole from which — and only from which — the causes and their respective effects emerge clearly.

— The double principle of good and evil was, for many centuries, and under various names, the basis of all religious beliefs.

We see it thus synthesized in Oromasdes and Ahriman among the Persians, in Jehovah and Satan among the Hebrews.

However, since every sovereign must have ministers, the religions generally admitted secondary powers, or good and evil genii.

The pagans made of them individualities under the generic denomination of gods and gave them special attributions for good and for evil, for vices and for virtues.

The Christians and the Muslims inherited from the Hebrews the angels and the demons.

— The doctrine of demons has, consequently, its origin in the ancient belief of the two principles. It falls to us to examine it here solely from the Christian point of view, to see whether it agrees with the more exact notions we possess today of the attributes of the Divinity.

These attributes are the point of departure, the basis of all religious doctrines; the dogmas, the worship, the ceremonies, the customs, and the morals, all are relative to the more or less just, more or less elevated idea one forms of God, from fetishism to Christianity.

If the essence of God continues to be a mystery for our intelligences, we nevertheless understand it better than ever, thanks to the teachings of the Christ.

Christianity rationally teaches us that:

God is one, eternal, immutable, immaterial, omnipotent, supremely just and good, infinite in all perfections.

It was for this reason that we said elsewhere (chapter VI. Doctrine of the eternal punishments): “If one were to take away from Him the smallest portion of a single one of His attributes, there would be no more God, since a more perfect being could coexist.”

These attributes, in their absolute plenitude, are therefore the criterion of all religions, the standard of the truth of each of the principles they teach.

And for any of these principles to be true, it is necessary that it not contain an offense against the divine perfections.

Let us see whether this is indeed so in the common doctrine of demons.

The demons according to the Church.

— Satan, the chief or king of the demons, is not, according to the Church, an allegorical personification of evil, but a real entity, practicing exclusively evil, while God practices exclusively good. Let us take him, then, just as they represent him to us.

Does Satan exist from all eternity, like God, or is he posterior to Him? If he exists from all eternity he is uncreated, and, consequently, equal to God.

This God, in turn, will cease to be one, for there will be a god of evil.

But if he is posterior to Him? In that case he becomes a creature of God.

As such, practicing only evil because incapable of doing good and likewise incapable of repenting, God would have created a being devoted exclusively and eternally to evil.

Evil not being the work of God, it would nonetheless be the work of one of His creatures, and God would not for that cease to be the author of it, ceasing equally to be profoundly good.

The same holds, exactly, with respect to the evil beings called demons.

— Such was, for a long time, the belief in this regard. Today they say: n

“God, who is goodness and holiness par excellence, had not created them perverse and evil. The paternal hand that delights in imprinting on all His works the stamp of infinite perfections had heaped upon them magnificent endowments. To the most eminent qualities of their nature, He had joined the liberalities of His grace: in everything He had made them equal to the sublime Spirits of glory and felicity; subdivided through all their orders and assigned to all their classes, they had the same end and identical destinies. Their chief was the most beautiful of the archangels. They might even have attained the confirmation of the just for ever and ever, and been admitted to the enjoyment of the blessedness of the Heavens. This last favor, which was to be the complement of all the others, constituted the prize of their docility, but of it they made themselves unworthy through insane and audacious revolt.

“What was the stumbling block of their perseverance? What truth did they fail to recognize? What act of adoration, of faith, did they refuse to God? The Church and the annals of the holy scriptures do not tell us positively, but it seems certain that they did not acquiesce in the mediation of the Son of God, nor in the exaltation of human nature in Jesus Christ.

“The Divine Word, creator of all things, is also the mediator and sole savior, on Earth as in Heaven. The supernatural end was given to the angels and to men only in the foresight of His incarnation and merits, for there is no proportion whatever between the work of the eminent Spirits and the reward, which is God Himself. No creature could attain such an end without this marvelous and sublime intervention of charity. Now, to fill the infinite distance that separates His essence from His works, it was necessary that He unite in His person the two extremes, associating to the divinity the natures either of the angel or of man: and He then preferred human nature.

“This plan, conceived from all eternity, was manifested to the angels long before its execution: the Man-God was shown to them as He who was to confirm them in grace and guide them to glory, on the condition that they adore Him during the terrestrial mission, and for ever and ever in Heaven. An unexpected revelation, a ravishing vision for generous and grateful hearts, but — a profound mystery — humiliating for proud spirits! This supernatural end, this immense glory proposed to them, would not be solely the reward of their personal merits. Never could they attribute to themselves the titles of that glory! A mediator between God and them! What an injury to their dignity! And the spontaneous preference for human nature? What injustice! what an affront to their rights! And will they come to see this Humanity, so inferior to them, deified by union with the Word, seated at the right hand of God on a resplendent throne? Will they consent, in the end, that it offer to God, eternally, the homage of its adoration?

“Lucifer and a third part of the angels succumbed to such thoughts of envy and pride. Saint Michael, and with him many, exclaimed: ‘Who is like unto God? He is the master of His gifts, the sovereign Lord of all things. Glory to God and to the Lamb, who is to be immolated for the salvation of the world.’ The chief of the rebels, however, forgetting that to God he owed his nobility and prerogatives, verging on temerity, said: ‘It is I who shall ascend to heaven; I shall fix my residence above the stars; I shall sit upon the mount of the covenant, on the flanks of the North, I shall dominate the highest clouds and shall be like the Most High.’ Those who shared such sentiments received these words with murmurs of approval, and there were partisans in all the hierarchies. Their multitude, however, does not preserve them from punishment.”

— This doctrine gives rise to several objections:

1st If Satan and the demons were angels, they were perfect; how, being perfect, could they fail to the point of disregarding the authority of this God, in whose presence they found themselves?

Had they attained such an eminence gradually, after having traversed the scale of perfection, we could conceive a sad retrogression; not, however, in the manner in which they are presented to us, that is, perfect from the origin.

The conclusion is this: God willed to create perfect beings, since He had favored them with all gifts, but He was mistaken: therefore, according to the Church, God is not infallible! n

2nd Since neither the Church nor the sacred annals explain the cause of the rebellion of the angels against God, and only give as problematic (almost certain) the reluctance in recognizing the future mission of the Christ, what value — we ask — what value can the so precise and detailed picture of the scene then taking place have?

To what source did they resort, to infer whether such clear words and even simple colloquies were indeed pronounced? It is one of two things: either the scene is true or it is not. In the first case, there being no doubt whatever, why does the Church not settle the question? But if the Church and History are silent, if the thing only seems certain, then clearly it is nothing but a hypothesis, and the descriptive scene is a mere fruit of the imagination. n

3rd The words attributed to Lucifer reveal an admirable ignorance in an archangel who, by his nature and the degree attained, ought not to share, as regards the organization of the Universe, in the errors and prejudices that men have professed, until enlightened by Science. How then could he say that he would fix his residence above the stars, dominating the highest clouds?!

It is always the old belief in the Earth as the center of the Universe, in the sky as if formed of clouds extending to the stars, and in the limited region of these, which Astronomy shows us scattered into infinity in infinite space!

It being known, as it is known today, that the clouds rise no more than two leagues from the terrestrial surface, and speaking of dominating them from higher up, referring to mountains, it would be necessary that the observation proceed from the Earth, the Earth being, in fact, the dwelling of the angels. Granted, however, that this is in a superior region, it would be useless to rise above the clouds.

To lend the angels a language tinged with ignorance is to confess that contemporary men are wiser than the angels.

The Church has always walked in error, taking no account of the progress of Science.

— The answer to the first objection is found in the following passage:

“Scripture and tradition call heaven the place in which the angels had been set, at the moment of their creation. But this was not the Heaven of Heavens, the Heaven of the beatific vision, where God shows Himself face to face to His elect, who contemplate Him clearly and without effort, because there is there no longer any possibility nor danger of sin; temptation and doubt are there unknown; justice, peace, and joy reign immutable, holiness and glory imperishable. It was therefore another celestial region, a luminous and fortunate sphere, that in which remained such noble creatures favored by the divine communications, which they were to receive with faith and humility until they were admitted to the knowledge of their reality — the essence of God Himself.”

From the foregoing it is inferred that the fallen angels belonged to a less elevated and perfect category, not having yet attained the supreme place where error is impossible. So be it: but then there is a manifest contradiction in this assertion: — God had created them in everything similar to the sublime Spirits who, subdivided into all the orders and assigned to all the classes, had the same end and identical destinies, and that their chief was the most beautiful of the archangels. Now, in everything similar to the others, they would not be inferior to them in nature; identical in categories, they could not remain in a special place. The objection therefore subsists intact.

— And there is yet another that is, certainly, the most serious and the most grave.

They say: “This plan (the intervention of the Christ), conceived from all eternity, was manifested to the angels long before its execution.”

God knew, therefore, and from all eternity, that the angels, as much as men, would have need of this intervention.

He knew, or He did not know, that some among these angels would come to fail, bearing eternal condemnation without hope of return; that they would be destined to tempt men and to drag down to the same fate a part of Humanity.

If He knew it, then He created these angels deliberately for their irrevocable loss, as well as the greater part of the human race.

Say what they may, for us it is impossible to identify such a creation with sovereign goodness. If He did not know it, He was not all-powerful. In both cases we see the negation of attributes, without the absolute plenitude of which God would not be God.

— Admitting the fallibility of the angels like that of men, punishment is the consequence, just and natural moreover, of the fault; 2 but if we admit concomitantly the possibility of redemption, regeneration, grace, after repentance and expiation, everything becomes clear and conforms to the goodness of God.

He knew that they would err, that they would be punished, but He knew equally that such temporary punishment would be a means of making them understand the error, finally reverting to their benefit.

This is how the words of the prophet Ezekiel are explained: — God does not will the death, but the salvation of the sinner. n 5 The uselessness of repentance and the impossibility of regeneration, that indeed would imply the negation of divine goodness.

Such a hypothesis being admitted, one could even say, rigorously and exactly, “that these angels from their creation, since God could not be ignorant of it, were devoted to the perpetuity of evil, and predestined to be demons in order to drag men into evil.”

— Let us now see what the fate of such angels is and what they do:

“Scarcely had the revolt manifested itself in the language of the Spirits, that is, in the audacity of their thoughts, than they were banished from the celestial mansion and cast into the abyss.”

By these words we understand that they were hurled into a place of torments in which they suffer the punishment of fire, according to the text of the Gospel, which is the very word of the Savior. “Go, ye cursed, into the eternal fire prepared by the demon and his angels.”

Saint Peter expressly says: “that God bound them with infernal chains and tortures, without their being there, however, perpetually, seeing that only at the end of the world will they be forever enclosed with the reprobate.”

At present, God still permits them to occupy a place in this creation, to which they belong, in the order of things identical to their existence, in the relations, in short, that they were to have with men, of which they make the most pernicious abuse.

While some remain in the tenebrous dwelling, serving as the instrument of divine justice against the unhappy souls they seduced, others, in infinite number, form legions and reside in the lower layers of the atmosphere, traversing the whole globe.

They involve themselves in everything that happens here, taking even a very active part in earthly events.

As for what concerns the words of the Christ on the torment of the eternal fire, we have already explained ourselves in chapter IV: Hell.

— By this doctrine, only a part of the demons is in hell; the other roams at liberty, involving itself in everything that happens here, taking pleasure in practicing evil and that until the end of the world, whose indeterminate epoch will probably not come so soon.

But why such a distinction? Are these less guilty? Certainly not, unless they take turns, as may be inferred from these words: “While some remain in the tenebrous dwelling, serving as the instrument of divine justice against the unhappy souls they seduced.”

Their occupations consist, then, in martyring the souls they seduced. Thus, they do not take charge of punishing faults committed freely and voluntarily, but those that they themselves provoked. They are at once the cause of the error and the instrument of the punishment; 4 and, a singular thing, which human justice in its imperfection would not admit — the victim who succumbs through weakness, in circumstances alien to and perhaps superior to his will, is punished as severely or more so than the provoking agent who employs cunning and artifice, seeing that this victim, on leaving the Earth, goes to hell to suffer without respite, nor favor, eternally, while the author of his first fault, the provoking agent, enjoys a certain reprieve and liberty until the end of the world.

How can the justice of God be less perfect than that of men?

— But that is not yet all: “God permits them to occupy a place in this creation, in the relations they were to have with man and of which they perniciously make abuse.” Could God, however, be ignorant of the abuse they would make of a liberty granted by Himself? Then why did He grant it?

But in that case it is with knowledge of the cause that God abandons His creatures to their own mercy, knowing, by His omniscience, that they are going to succumb, sharing the fate of the demons.

Are they not of themselves weak enough to fail, without the provocation of an enemy all the more dangerous for being invisible?

If only the punishment were temporary and the guilty one could redeem himself through reparation!… But no: the condemnation is irrevocable, eternal! Repentance, regeneration, lamentations, all superfluous!

The demons are therefore nothing but provoking agents and beforehand destined to recruit souls for hell, this with the permission of God, who foresaw, in creating these souls, the fate that awaited them.

What would be said on Earth of a judge who resorted to such an expedient to cram the prisons? A strange idea they give us of the Divinity, of a God whose essential attributes are: sovereign justice and goodness!

And to say that it is in the name of Jesus, of Him who preached only love, forgiveness, and charity, that such doctrines are taught!

There was a time when such anomalies passed unnoticed, because they were neither understood nor felt; man, bent under the yoke of despotism, submitted to blind faith, abdicated reason.

Today, however, that the hour of emancipation has struck, this man understands justice, and, desiring it as much in life as in death, exclaims: — It is not so, it cannot be so, or God would not be God.

— Punishment follows the fallen beings everywhere: hell is in them and with them: neither peace nor repose, the sweetnesses of hope transformed into bitterness, which becomes odious to them. The hand of God dealt them their punishment in the very act of sinning, and their will became galvanized in evil. Having become perverse, they persist in being so and will be so forever.

“They are, after sin, what man is after death. The rehabilitation of those who fell becomes likewise impossible; their loss is, from then on, irreparable, they maintaining themselves in their pride before God, in their hatred against the Christ, in their envy against Humanity.

“Not having been able to appropriate the celestial glory through the excess of their ambition, they strive to implant their empire on Earth, banishing from it the kingdom of God. The incarnate Word fulfilled, in spite of this, His designs for the salvation and glory of Humanity. For this reason too they seek by every means to promote the loss of the souls redeemed by the Christ: artifice and importunity, lies and seduction, they put everything into play to drag them into evil and consummate their loss.

“And as they are indefatigable and powerful, the life of man with such enemies cannot but be a struggle without respite, from the cradle to the tomb.

“In fact these enemies are the same who, after having introduced evil into the world, came to cover it with the thick darkness of error and vice; the same who, for long centuries, made themselves adored as gods and who reigned absolutely over the peoples of antiquity; the same, in short, who still today exercise a tyrannical influence in the idolatrous regions, fomenting disorder and scandal even within the bosom of Christian societies.

“To understand all the resources at their disposal in the service of wickedness, it suffices to note that they have lost nothing of the prodigious faculties that are the appanage of the angelic nature. Certainly, the future and above all the natural order have mysteries that God has reserved for Himself and that they cannot penetrate; but their intelligence is far superior to ours, because they perceive at a single stroke the effects in the causes and vice versa. This perception permits them to predict future events that escape our conjectures. The distance and variety of places disappear before their agility. Quicker than the lightning, more rapid than thought, they find themselves almost instantaneously over various points of the globe and can describe, from a distance, events at the very hour in which they occur.

“The laws by which God governs the Universe are not accessible to them, which is why they cannot abrogate them, and, consequently, predict or work true miracles; they nevertheless possess the art of imitating and falsifying, within certain limits, the divine works; they know what phenomena result from the combination of the elements, they predict with greater or lesser success those that come about naturally, as well as those that they themselves can produce. Hence the numerous oracles, the extraordinary vaticinations that sacred and profane books have collected, founding and encouraging so very many superstitions.

“Their simple and immaterial substance withdraws them from our sight; they remain at our side without our seeing them, they engage our soul without striking our ear. Believing we obey our own thoughts, we are nevertheless, and many times, under their baleful influence. Our dispositions, on the contrary, are known to them by the impressions that show through in us, and they ordinarily attack us on the weakest side. To seduce us more surely, they are accustomed to make use of suggestions and lures in conformity with our inclinations. They modify their action according to the circumstances and the characteristic traits of each temperament. Nevertheless, their favorite weapons are hypocrisy and falsehood.”

— They affirm that punishment follows them everywhere; that they know neither peace nor repose. This assertion in no way destroys the observation we made regarding the privilege of those who are outside hell, and which we deem all the less justified in that they can do, and do, greater evil.

It is to be believed that these extra-infernal demons are not as happy as the good angels, but should not account be taken of their relative liberty? They will not possess the moral happiness that virtue confers, but they are incontestably happier than their fellows of the flaming hell.

Besides, for the evil one, there is always a certain enjoyment in the practice of evil, and all the more so freely. Ask the criminal which he prefers: to remain in prison, or to roam freely through the fields, acting at will? Well, the case is exactly the same.

They affirm, likewise, that remorse pursues them without respite nor mercy, forgetting that remorse is the immediate precursor of repentance, when it is not repentance itself.

“Having become perverse, they persist in being so, and will be so forever.” But since they persist in being perverse, it is because they have no remorse; otherwise, at the slightest sentiment of regret, they would renounce evil and ask forgiveness. Therefore, remorse is not for them a punishment.

— “They are, after sin, what man is after death. The rehabilitation of those who fell becomes, therefore, impossible.” Whence comes this impossibility? It is not understood that it is the consequence of their similitude with man after death, a proposition which, moreover, is very ambiguous. Does it perhaps come from the very will of the demons? Perhaps from the divine will?

In the first case the obstinacy denotes an extreme perversity, an absolute hardening in evil, and it is not even understood that beings so profoundly perverse could ever have been angels of virtue, preserving for an indefinite time, in the company of these, all the traits of their wicked disposition and nature.

In the second case, still less is it understood that God should inflict as punishment the impossibility of reparation, after a first fault. The Gospel says nothing that resembles this.

— “Their loss is from then on irreparable, they maintaining themselves in their pride before God.” And of what use would it be to them not to maintain such pride, since all repentance is useless?

Good could interest them only if they had a hope of rehabilitation, whatever its price. So it does not happen, however, and so if they persevere in evil it is because the door of hope has been shut to them.

But why would God shut this door to them? To avenge Himself for the offense arising from their insubordination. And thus, to satiate His resentment against a few guilty ones, God prefers not only to see them suffer, but to aggravate the evil with a greater evil; to drive all Humanity to eternal perdition, when by a simple act of clemency He could avoid so great a disaster, foreseen moreover from all eternity!

Is it, in the case at hand, a question of an act of clemency, of a pure and simple grace that might turn into an incentive for evil? No, it is a question of a conditional pardon, subordinated to a sincere and complete regeneration.

But, instead of a word of hope and mercy, it is as if God had said: “Let the whole human race perish rather than my vengeance.” And with such a doctrine many people are still astonished that there should be unbelievers and atheists!

And is it thus that Jesus represents to us His Father? He who gave us the express law of the forgetting and the forgiveness of offenses, who commands us to repay evil with good, who prescribes the love of our enemies as the first of the virtues that lead us to Heaven, would He wish in this way that men should be better, more just, more indulgent than God Himself? The demons according to Spiritism.

— According to Spiritism, neither angels nor demons are distinct entities, since the creation of intelligent beings is one.

United to material bodies, these beings constitute the Humanity that peoples the Earth and the other inhabited spheres; once freed from the material body, they constitute the spiritual world or world of the Spirits, who people the Spaces.

God created them perfectible and gave them as their aim perfection, with the happiness that flows from it.

He did not give them, however, perfection, for He willed that they obtain it by their own effort, so that the merit might also and really belong to them.

From the moment of their creation the beings progress, whether incarnate or in the spiritual state.

Having reached the apogee, they become pure spirits or angels, according to the common expression, so that, from the embryo of the intelligent being up to the angel, there is a chain in which each of the links marks a degree of progress.

From what has been expressed it results that there are Spirits in all degrees of advancement, moral and intellectual, according to the position in which they find themselves, on the immense scale of progress.

In all degrees there exist, therefore, ignorance and knowledge, goodness and wickedness.

In the inferior classes stand out Spirits still deeply inclined to evil and taking pleasure in evil. These may be called demons, for they are capable of all the malefactions attributed to the said ones.

Spiritism does not give them such a name because it does not adhere to the idea of a creation distinct from the human race, as beings of an essentially perverse nature, devoted to evil eternally and incapable of any progress toward good.

— According to the doctrine of the Church the demons were created good and became evil through their disobedience: they are angels placed primitively by God at the apex of the scale, having fallen from it.

According to Spiritism the demons are imperfect Spirits, susceptible of regeneration and who, placed at the base of the scale, are to ascend it by degrees.

Those who through apathy, negligence, obstinacy, or ill will persist in remaining, for a longer time, in the inferior classes, suffer the consequences of that attitude, and the habit of evil makes their regeneration difficult.

There comes to them, however, a day the weariness of that painful life and of its respective consequences; they compare their situation to that of the good Spirits and understand that their interest lies in good, then seeking to better themselves, but by an act of spontaneous will, without there being in this the least constraint.

Submitted to the general law of progress, by virtue of their aptitude for it, they do not progress, even so, against their will. God constantly furnishes them the means, but with the faculty of accepting or refusing them.

If progress were obligatory there would be no merit, and God wills that we all have the merit of our works.

No one is placed in the first rank by privilege; but the first rank is open to all at the cost of their own effort.

The most elevated angels conquered their degree, passing, like the rest, by the common route.

— Having arrived at a certain degree of purity, the Spirits have missions suited to their progress; they thus fill all the functions attributed to the angels of different categories.

And as God created from all eternity, it follows that from all eternity there was a sufficient number to satisfy the needs of the universal government.

In this way a single species of intelligent beings, submitted to the law of progress, satisfies all the ends of Creation.

Finally, the unity of Creation, allied to the idea of a common origin, having the same point of departure and trajectory, rising by their own merit, corresponds better to the justice of God than the creation of different species, more or less favored with natural endowments, which would be so many privileges.

— The common doctrine on the nature of the angels, of the demons, and of the souls, not admitting the law of progress, but nevertheless seeing beings of diverse degrees, concluded that they would be the product of so many special creations.

And thus it came to make of God a partial father, granting everything to some of His children, and imposing on others the harshest labor.

It is no wonder that for a long time men found justification for such preferences, when they themselves used them in regard to their children, establishing rights of primogeniture and other privileges of birth. Could such men believe that they went more astray than God?

Today, however, the circle of ideas has widened: man sees more clearly and has more precise notions of justice; desiring it for himself and not always finding it on Earth, he wishes at least to find it more perfect in Heaven.

And here is why his reason is repelled by any and every doctrine in which Divine Justice does not shine in the integral plenitude of its purity. [1] The following citations are extracted from the pastoral of Monsignor Gousset, cardinal-archbishop of Reims, for the Lent of 1865. Mindful of the personal merit and the position of the author, we may consider them the latest expression of the Church on the doctrine of demons.

[2] This monstrous doctrine is corroborated by Moses, when he says (Genesis, chapter VI, vv. 6 and 7): “He repented of having created man on the Earth and, penetrated by the most intimate sorrow, said: I will exterminate the creation from the face of the Earth; I will exterminate everything, from man to the animals, from those that crawl upon the earth to the birds of the sky, because I repent of having created them.” Now, a God who repents of what He has done is neither perfect nor infallible; therefore, He is not God. And these are the words that the Church proclaims! Nor is it perceived what there could be in common between the animals and the perversity of men, that they should merit such extermination. [3] It is found in Isaiah, chapter 14, v. 11 and following: “Thy pride was cast down into the hells; thy dead body fell to the ground; thy bed shall pour forth rottenness, and worms thy garment. How didst thou fall from Heaven, Lucifer, thou who seemedst so brilliant at the breaking of day? How wast thou hurled upon the Earth, thou who didst smite the nations with thy blows; who didst say in thy heart: I will ascend to the heavens, I will establish my throne above the stars of God, I will sit above the highest clouds and will be equal to the Most High! And yet thou wast cast down from that glory into hell, to the very bottom of the abysses. Those who see thee, drawing near, will find thee, saying: ‘Is this the man who troubled the Earth, who terrified its kingdoms, who made of the world a desert, who destroyed cities and held enchained those who surrendered to him as prisoners?’” These words of the prophet do not refer to the revolt of the angels; they are, rather, an allusion to the pride and the fall of the king of Babylon, who held the Jews in captivity, as the last verses attest. The king of Babylon is allegorically designated by Lucifer, but no mention is made there of the scene described above. These words are those of the king who had them in his heart and set himself through pride above God, whose people he had enslaved. The prophecy of the liberation of the Jewish people, of the queen of Babylon and of the destruction of the Assyrians is, moreover, the exclusive subject of that chapter. [4] See 1st Part, chapter VI, no. 25, citation of Ezekiel.