mblances between real and fictitious persons or gods
that never had any existence except in the minds of fanatical
romancers and a deluded people, whose faith was kept alive by
deception and artifice.

It was an early belief that ether, air, land, and water were full of
living spirits; and people believed, soon after man was created, that
the souls of just men, subsequent to death, had part of the universe
committed to them. This opinion being once established, assistance was
sought from the spirits of departed men and women, and efforts were
made in various ways to secure their favour. In course of time altars
were set up, temples consecrated, and sometimes victims offered to
obtain favour from spirits and false gods. Some rabbis affirmed that
the angel Raziel was Adam's master, and taught him the Cabbala; and
that Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Elias, etc. had each
his guardian angel, who directed his thoughts and actions. Jewish
doctors assign to magic great antiquity; they assert that it was known
to those who lived before the Flood. There is a tradition that one of
the causes of the Flood was the intercourse men had with demons.
Though it has been stated by ancient historians that Abraham was given
to magic, and that he taught it to his children, Josephus (obviously
overlooking what had been written prior to his time, and forgetting
what Moses had seen performed by the Egyptian priests before Pharaoh)
thinks Solomon was the first who practised this art. The Jewish
historian gives credit to the "wisest man" for inventing and
transmitting to posterity certain incantations for the cure of
diseases, and for the expulsion of evil spirits from the bodies of
those possessed with such demons. According to Josephus, the expulsion
was brought about by the use of a certain root sealed up in a wrapper,
and held under the afflicted person's nose while the name of Solomon
and words prescribed by him were pronounced. The learned historian
does not seem to doubt the wonderful power of Solomon, but rather
advances statements corroborative of what he had heard, for he asserts
that he himself was an eye-witness to a like cure effected, by equally
mysterious means, on a person named Eleazar in presence of the Emperor
Vespasian. Descendants of Abraham believed that their great ancestor
wore round his neck a precious stone, the sight of which cured every
kind of disease.

Suppose we set aside these assertions as fables, w