t.[1172] In this character he is suspicious and mischievous but not
immoral; but a little later a trace of malice appears in him,[1173] and
in the uncanonical Jewish book of the Wisdom of Solomon and in the New
Testament he advances to the position of the head of the kingdom of
moral evil, so that he is called also "the god of the present
age"[1174]--that is, he is the controller of the existing unregenerate
element in human society, and is to be displaced when the ideal age
shall be established.

+690+. _Man's attitude toward demons._ Demons[1175] (the term being
taken to include all early malefic superhuman beings, whether ghosts or
spirits) are feared and guarded against, but rarely receive worship. As
they are the authors of all physical ills that cannot be explained on
natural grounds, measures, usually magical, are taken to thwart their
purposes--to prevent their intervention or to overcome and banish the
evil begun by them. As they are not credited with moral principle,
hostility to them rests not on ethical feeling but merely on fear of
suffering.[1176] If they are placated, it is in cases in which they
approach the character of gods and in so far cease to be demons in our
sense of the word. They serve a useful purpose in that, taking on their
shoulders all the ills of life, they leave the clan gods free from the
suspicion of unfriendliness to men.[1177] On the other hand, the belief
in them has created a pseudo-science of relief from suffering and a
great host of pseudo-doctors who for a long time exercised a large
control over society and bound men in fetters of ignorance.

+691+. In early societies demons have not individual names. In savage
societies there are malefic deities, with individual names, connected
with sicknesses and other ills; but such deities are not demons. Demons
do not enter into friendly social relations with men,[1178] and
observation of experiences is not carried so far as to assign every ill
to a separate author. In more advanced societies, as, for instance, the
Babylonian,[1179] demons are divided into classes according to their
various lines of activity, and to these classes names are given. If some
individual demon, representing a particular ill, becomes specially
important, it may receive an individual name. In general, the demonic
name-giving follows the theistic, but lags behind it. Clan gods have at
first some such appellation as Old One, Grandfather, or a descriptive
epithet (a