Page "religion" Paragraph 7

Even Mr. Miller himself seems uncertain on this score.

In a long commentary which he has inserted in the published text of the first act of the play, he says at one point: `` However, that experience never raised a doubt in his mind as to the reality of the underworld or the existence of Lucifer's many-faced lieutenants.

And his belief is not to his discredit.

Better minds than Hale's were -- and still are -- convinced that there is a society of spirits beyond our ken ''.

( page 33 ) On the other hand, a little later on he says: `` Since 1692 a great but superficial change has wiped out God's beard and the Devil's horns, but the world is still gripped between two diametrically opposed absolutes.

The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon -- such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas.

When we see the steady and methodical inculcation into humanity of the idea of man's worthlessness -- until redeemed -- the necessity of the Devil may become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time again in every age to whip men into a surrender to a particular church or church-state ''.

( page 34 )