er him is to be won. The power of creating anything is
also denied the devil, and only the power of corrupting substances is
conceded to him. But it is only at the Last Judgment that his power is
wholly annihilated; he is himself delivered up to eternal punishment."
This belief in the devil was specially strong in Scotland among both
clergy and laity in the 17th century. "The devil was always and
literally at hand," says Buckle, "he was haunting them, speaking to
them, and tempting them. Go where they would he was there."

In more recent times a great variety of opinions has been expressed on
this subject. J. S. Semler denied the reality of demonic possession, and
held that Christ in his language accommodated himself to the views of
the sick whom he was seeking to cure. Kant regarded the devil as a
personification of the radical evil in man. Daub in his _Judas
Ishcarioth_ argued that a finite evil presupposes an absolute evil, and
the absolute evil as real must be in a person. Schelling regarded the
devil as, not a person, but a real principle, a spirit let loose by the
freedom of man. Schleiermacher was an uncompromising opponent of the
common belief. "The problem remains to seek evil rather in self than in
Satan, Satan only showing the limits of our self-knowledge." Dorner has
formulated a theory which explains the development of the conception of
Satan in the Holy Scriptures as in correspondence with an evolution in
the character of Satan. "Satan appears in Scripture under four leading
characters:--first as the tempter of freedom, who desires to bring to
decision, secondly as the accuser, who by virtue of the law retorts
criminality on man; thirdly as the instrument of the Divine, which
brings evil and death upon men; fourthly and lastly he is described,
especially in the New Testament, as the enemy of God and man." He
supposes "a change in Satan in the course of the history of the divine
revelation, in conflict with which he came step by step to be a sworn
enemy of God and man, especially in the New Testament times, in which,
on the other hand, his power is broken at the root by Christ." He argues
that "the world-order, being in process as a moral order, permits
breaches everywhere into which Satan can obtain entrance" (pp. 99, 102).
H. L. Martensen gives even freer rein to speculation. "The evil
principle," he says, "has in itself no personality, but attains a
progressively universal personality in its kingdom; it h