domestic incident as grave history and holy writ, (for which, even from
learned Roman Catholics, he would gain more credit as a very obedient
child of the Church than as a biblical critic), he will find it no easy
matter to support this assertion of his by the passages of Scripture
here referred to, consistently with any sane interpretation of their
import and purpose.

I. The Fallen Spirits.

This is the mythological form, or, if you will, the symbolical
representation, of a profound idea necessary as the 'prae-suppositum' of
the Christian scheme, or a postulate of reason, indispensable, if we
would render the existence of a world of finites compatible with the
assumption of a super-mundane God, not one with the world. In short,
this idea is the condition under which alone the reason of man can
retain the doctrine of an infinite and absolute Being, and yet keep
clear of pantheism as exhibited by Benedict Spinosa.

II. The Egyptian Magicians.

This whole narrative is probably a relic of the old diplomatic
'lingua-arcana,' or state-symbolique--in which the prediction of
events is expressed as the immediate causing of them. Thus the prophet
is said to destroy the city, the destruction of which he predicts. The
word which our version renders by '"enchantments"' signifies
"flames or burnings," by which it is probable that the Egyptians were
able to deceive the spectators, and substitute serpents for staves. See
Parkhurst 'in voce.'

And with regard to the possessions in the Gospels, bear in mind first of