This doctrine, he thinks, is amply illustrated and confirmed by an appeal to the consentient opinion of mankind or the argument from universal belief, which has been so often and so effectively urged in proof of the existence of God. If the maxim _universitas non delinquit_ has the same validity in the province of philosophy as in that of law, then we are justified in assuming that the whole human race cannot go wrong even in purely metaphysical speculation and that unanimity in error is a psychological impossibility. The criterion of truth, _quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_, by which the Roman hierarchy is willing to have its claims to ecclesiastical catholicity and doctrinal orthodoxy tested, is confined to Christendom in its application and does not consider the views of persons outside of the body of believers. In the question under discussion the argument is not subject to such limitations, but gathers testimony from all races and religions, showing that there is not a civilized nation or savage tribe on the face of the earth, which does not regard or has not regarded the lower animals as embodiments of evil spirits and sought to propitiate them. That “the devil is an ass” is a truth so palpable that it has passed into a proverb. Baal-zebub means fly-god; and the Christian Satan betrays his presence by the cloven foot of the goat or the solid hoof of the horse. In folk-lore, which is the _débris_ of exploded mythologies adrift on the stream of popular tradition, cats, dogs, otters, apes, ravens, blackcocks, capercailzies, rabbits, hedgehogs, wolves, were-wolves, foxes, polecats, swine, serpents, toads, and countless varieties of insects, reptiles and vermin figure as incarnations and instruments of the devil; and Mephistopheles reveals himself to Faust as
“Der Herr der Ratten und der Mäuse, Der Fliegen, Frösche, Wanzen, Läuse.”
“The Lord of rats and of the mice, Of flies and frogs, bed-bugs and lice.”
The worship of animals originates in the belief that they are embodiments of devils, so that zoölatry, which holds such a prominent place in primitive religions, is only a specific form of demonolatry. The objection that a flea or a fly, a mite or a mosquito is too small a creature to furnish fit lodgment for a demon, Father Bougeant dismisses with an indulgent smile and disparaging shrug as implying a gross misconception of the nature and properties of spirit, which is without extension or dimension and therefore capable of animating the most diminutive particle of organized matter. Large and little are purely relative terms. God, he says, could have made man as small as the tiniest puceron without any decrease of his spiritual powers. “It is, therefore, no more difficult to believe that a devil may be incorporated in the delicate body of a gnat than in the huge bulk of an elephant.” The size of the physical habitation, in which spirits take up their temporary abode, is a thing of no consequence. In fact, devils in the forms of gnats and tiny insects were thought to be especially dangerous, since one might swallow them unawares and thus become diabolically possessed. The demon, liberated by the death and dissolution of the insect, was supposed to make a tenement of the unfortunate person’s stomach, producing gripes and playing ventriloquous tricks. Thus it is recorded in the _Dies Caniculuares_ of Majolus (Meyer: _Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters_, p. 296-7) that a young maiden in the Erzgebirge near Joachimsthal, in 1559, swallowed a fly, while drinking beer. The evil spirit, incarnate in the fly, took possession of the maiden and began to speak out of her, thus attracting crowds of people, who put questions to the devil and tried to drive him out by prayers, in which the unhappy girl sometimes joined, greatly to her discomfort, since the devil waxed exceeding wroth and unruly and caused her much suffering, whenever she uttered the name of Christ. Finally the parish priest had her brought into the church, where he succeeded with considerable difficulty in exorcising her. The stubborn demon resisted for two years all efforts to cast him out; he even tried to compromise with the girl, promising to be content with a finger nail or a single hair of her head, but she declined all overtures, and he was at last expelled by means of a potent conjuration, which lasted from midnight till midday.