the history of the devil and the idea of evil

Taken in their literal meaning, they are untenable, but understood in their symbolical nature they are seeds from which a purer conception of the truth will grow. Similarly, the religious ideas of the present time are symbols. The Animism of the savage is a necessary stage of man's mental evolution: it appears as an error to the higher-developed man of a half-civilised period but the error contains a truth which naturally develops into a more perfect conception of the surrounding world. The monistic tendencies of the age will not destroy, but purify and elevate religion. Guyau prophesies, a period in which religion will disappear and give way to irreligion?Those who do not appreciate the mission of Dualism in the evolution of human thought, and only know its doctrines to be untenable, naturally expect that the future of mankind will be irreligious, and there are freethinkers who declare that Atheism will supersede all the different conceptions of God. Will Monism eliminate the idea of the Devil in order to make God the One and All? Or will it abolish both God and the Devil, to leave room only for a world of matter in motion? Will the future of mankind be, as M. As soon as the thinkers of mankind become aware of the Dualism implied in this interpretation of the world, the tendency is again manifested towards a higher conception, which is a purely monistic view.

Nevertheless, it is not the final goal of human philosophy. Monotheism and Monodiabolism, both originating simultaneously in the monistic tendencies of man's mental evolution, together constitute a Dualism which to many is still the most acceptable world-conception. Accordingly, while the belief in good spirits tended towards the formation of the doctrine of Monotheism, the belief in evil spirits led naturally to the acceptance of a single supreme evil deity, conceived as embodying all that is bad, destructive, and immoral.

Man tries to unify his conceptions in a consistent and harmonious Monism. But the principle of unity dominates the development of thought. We find the same views of good and evil spirits prevailing among all the peoples of the earth at the very beginning of that stage of their development which, in the phraseology of Tylor, is commonly called Animism. The dualistic conception of nature has been a necessary phase in the evolution of human thought. There is light and shade, there is heat and cold, there is good and evil, there is God and the Devil. This world of ours is a world of opposites.

The history of the devil and the idea of evil