THREE:Daemonism, however, does not fill a very great place in the creed of Plutarch; and a comparison of him with his successors shows that the saner traditions of Greek thought only gradually gave way to the rising flood of ignorance and unreason. It is true that, as a moralist, the philosopher of Chaeronea considered religion of inestimable importance to human virtue and human happiness; while, as a historian, he accepted stories of supernatural occurrences with a credulity recalling that of Livy and falling little short of Dion Cassius. Nor did his own Platonistic monotheism prevent him from extending a very generous intellectual toleration to the different forms of polytheism which he found everywhere prevailing.395 In this respect, he and probably all the philosophers of that and the succeeding age, the Epicureans, the Sceptics, and some of the Cynics alone excepted, offer a striking contradiction to one of Gibbons most celebrated epigrams. To them the popular religions were not equally false but equally true, and, to a certain extent, equally useful. Where Plutarch drew the line was at what he called Deisidaimonia, the frightful mental malady which, as already mentioned, began to afflict Greece soon after the conquests of Alexander. It is generally translated superstition, but has a much narrower meaning. It expresses the beliefs and feelings of one who lives in perpetual dread of provoking supernatural vengeance, not254 by wrongful behaviour towards his fellow-men, nor even by intentional disrespect towards a higher power, but by the neglect of certain ceremonial observances; and who is constantly on the look-out for heaven-sent prognostications of calamities, which, when they come, will apparently be inflicted from sheer ill-will, Plutarch has devoted one of his most famous essays to the castigation of this weakness. He deliberately prefers atheism to it, showing by an elaborate comparison of instances that the formerwith which, however, he has no sympathy at allis much less injurious to human happiness, and involves much less real impiety, than such a constant attribution of meaningless malice to the gods. One example of Deisidaimonia adduced by Plutarch is Sabbatarianism, especially when carried, as it had recently been by the Jews during the siege of Jerusalem, to the point of entirely suspending military operations on the day of rest.396 That the belief in daemons, some of whom passed for being malevolent powers, might yield a fruitful crop of new superstitions, does not seem to have occurred to Plutarch; still less that the doctrine of future torments of which, following Platos example, he was a firm upholder, might prove a terror to others besides offenders against the moral law,especially when manipulated by a class whose interest it was to stimulate the feeling in question to the utmost possible intensity.
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THREE:Afterwards I sauntered through the very quiet little town, until I suddenly saw something quite uncommon, namely two civilians who, like myself, were walking about. When I came near, one of them recited a rhyme:
THREE:Sandys grip was less cordial, but he played the part of an unsuspecting youth as well as he could by finishing the handshake with a tighter grip and a smile.Evidently this kind of thing had happened before, and this was the fee usually paid. Bruce slipped the money in his pocket, feeling that he had earned it. The guide picked up a Bradshaw from the table and indicated Dover therein. Two strapped portmanteaus were on the floor.
THREE:"I will show you where she is," he said hoarsely."Lamp used by murderer waiting for his victim," he deduced. "Did not want any more light than was necessary, so probably lay low in a back room. When the hour for the victim came, lighted the hall gas so as not to look suspicious. Then why the dickens didn't the officer on duty notice it?"
