Dragon and Devil distinguished-Dragons' wings-War in HeavenExpulsion of Serpents-Dissolution of the Dragon-Theological origin of the Devil-Ideal and actual-Devil Dogma-Debasement of ideal persons-Transmigration of phantoms.
WE are all nothing other than Wills,' says St. Augustine; and he adds that of the good and bad angels the nature is the same, the will different. In harmony with this John Beaumont says, 'A good desire of mind is a good God." To which all the mythology of Evil adds, a bad desire of mind is a Devil. Every personification of an evil Will looks beyond the outward phenomena of pain, and conceives a heart that loves evil, a spirit that makes for wickedness. At this point a new element altogether enters. The physical pain incidentally represented by the Demon, generalised and organised into a principle of harmfulness in the Dragon, begins now to pass under the shadow cast by the ascending light of man's moral nature. Man becomes conscious of moral and spiritual pains: they may be still imaginatively connected with bodily
1 Treatise of Spirits.' By John Beaumont, Gent. London, 1705. VOL. II.