[Footnote 1: I Hen. IV. III. i. 148.]
[Footnote 2: p. 521, c. 2.]
44. (iii.) But the third proposed section, which deals with the powers
and functions exercised by the evil spirits, is by far the most
interesting and important; and the first branch of the series is one
that suggests itself as a natural sequence upon what has just been said
as to the ordinary shapes in which devils appeared, namely, the capacity
to assume at will any form they chose.
45. In the early and middle ages it was universally believed that a
devil could, of his own inherent power, call into existence any manner
of body that it pleased his fancy to inhabit, or that would most conduce
to the success of any contemplated evil. In consequence of this belief
the devils became the rivals, indeed the successful rivals, of Jupiter
himself in the art of physical tergiversation. There was, indeed, a
tradition that a devil could not create any animal form of less size
than a barley-corn, and that it was in consequence of this incapacity
that the magicians of Egypt--those indubitable devil-worshippers--failed
to produce lice, as Moses did, although they had been so successful in
the matter of the serpents and the frogs; "a verie gross absurditie," as
Scot judiciously remarks.[1] This, however, would not be a serious
limitation upon the practical usefulness of the power.
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