Daniel Defoe - The History of the Devil, As Well Ancient as Modern - In Two Parts

From his Expulsion, I take his first View of Horror to be that, of looking back towards the Heaven which he had lost; there to see the Chasm or Opening made up, out at which, as at a Breach in the Wall of the holy Place, he was thrust Head-long by the Power which expel’d him; I say, to see the Breach repair’d, the Mounds built up, the Walls garison’d with millions of Angels, and arm’d with Thunders; and, above all, made terrible by that Glory from whose Presence they were expel’d, as is Poetically hinted at before.

Upon this sight, ’tis no wonder (if there was such a Place) that they fled till the Darkness might cover them, and that they might be out of the View of so hated a Sight.

Wherever they found it, you may be sure they pitch’d their first Camp, and began, after many a sour Reflection upon what was pass’d, to consider and think a little, upon what was to come.

If I had as much personal Acquaintance with the Devil , as would admit it, and could depend upon the Truth of what Answer he would give me, the first Question I would ask him, should be, what Measures they resolv’d on at their first Assembly? and the next should be, how they were employ’d in all that space of Time, between their so flying the Face of their almighty Conqueror, and the Creation of Man? as for the Length of the Time, which, according to the Learn’d, was twenty thousand Years, and according to the more Learned, not half a Quarter so much, I would not concern my Curiosity much about it; ’tis most certain, there was a considerable time between, but of that immediately; first let me enquire what they were doing all that time.

The Devil and his Host, being thus, I say, cast out of Heaven, and not yet confin’d strictly to Hell , ’tis plain they must be some where . Satan and all his Legions did not lose their Existence, no, nor the Existence of Devils neither; God was so far from annihilating him, that he still preserv’d his Being; and this not Mr. Milton only, but God himself has made known to us, having left his History so far upon record; several expressions in Scripture also make it evident, as particularly the story of Job , mentioned before; the like in our Saviour’s time, and several others.

If Hell did not immediately ingulph them, as Milton suggests, ’tis certain, I say, that they fled Somewhere, from the anger of Heaven, from the face of the Avenger; and his absence, and their own guilt, wonder not at it , would make Hell enough for them wherever they went.

Nor need we fly to the Dreams of our Astronomers , who take a great deal of pains to fill up the vast Spaces of the starry Heavens with innumerable habitable Worlds; allowing as many solar Systems as there are fix’d Stars, and that not only in the known Constellations, but even in Gallaxie it self; who, to every such System allow a certain number of Planets, and to every one of those Planets so many Satellites or Moons , and all these Planets and Moons to be Worlds; solid, dark, opaque Bodies, habitable, and (as they would have us believe) inhabited by the like Animals and rational Creatures as on this Earth; so that they may, at this rate, find room enough for the Devil and all his Angels, without making a Hell on purpose; nay they may, for ought I know, find a World for every Devil in all the Devil’ s Host , and so every one may be a Monarch or Master-Devil , separately in his own Sphere or World, and play the Devil there by himself.

And even if this were so, it cannot be denied but that one Devil in a place would be enough for a whole systemary World, and be able, if not restrained, to do mischief enough there too, and even to ruin and overthrow the whole body of People contain’d in it.

But, I say, we need not fly to these shifts, or consult the Astronomers in the decision of this point; for wherever Satan and his defeated Host went, at their expulsion from Heaven , we think we are certain, none of all these Beautiful Worlds, or be they Worlds or no, I mean the fix’d Stars, Planets, &c. had then any existence; for the Beginning, as the Scripture calls it, was not yet Begun.

But to speak a little by the rules of Philosophy, that is to say, so as to be understood by others, even when we speak of things we cannot fully understand ourselves: Tho’ in the Beginning of Time all this glorious Creation was form’d, the Earth, the starry Heavens, and all the Furniture thereof, and there was a Time when they were not; yet we cannot say so of the Void, or that nameless no-where , as I call’d it before, which now appears to be a some-where , in which these glorious Bodies are plac’d. That immense Space which those take up, and which they move in at this Time, must be supposed, before they had Being, to be plac’d there: As God himself was, and existed before all Being, Time, or Place, so the Heaven of Heavens, or the Place, where the Thrones and Dominions of his Kingdom then existed, inconceivable and ineffable, had an existence before the glorious Seraphs, the innumerable company of Angels which attended about the Throne of God existed; these all had a Being long before, as the Eternal Creator of them all had before them.

Into this void or abyss of Nothing, however unmeasurable, infinite, and even to those Spirits, themselves Inconceivable, they certainly launch’d from the bright Precipice which they fell from, and here they shifted as well as they could.

Here expanding those Wings which Fear, and Horror at their Defeat furnish’d them, as I hinted before, they hurried away to the utmost Distance possible, from the Face of God their Conqueror, and then most dreaded Enemy; formerly their Joy and Glory.

Be this utmost remov’d Distance where it will , Here, certainly, Satan and all his Gang of Devils , his numberless, tho’ routed Armies retired. Here Milton might, with some good Ground, have form’d his Pandemonium , and have brought them in, consulting what was next to be done, and whether there was any room left to renew the War, or to carry on the Rebellion; but had they been cast immediately into Hell , closed up there, the Bottomless pit lock’d upon them, and the Key carried up to Heaven to be kept there, as Mr. Milton himself in part confesses, and the Scripture affirms; I say, had this been so, the Devil himself could not have been so ignorant as to think of any future Steps to be taken, to retrieve his Affairs, and therefore a Pandemonium or Divan in Hell, to consult of it, was ridiculous.

All Mr. Milton ’s Scheme of Satan ’s future Conduct, and all the Scripture Expressions about the Devil and his numerous Attendants, and of his actings since that time, make it not reasonable to suggest that the Devils were confin’d to their eternal Prison, at their Expulsion out of Heaven ; But that they were in a State of Liberty to act, tho’ limited in acting, of which I shall also speak in its place.

Several things have been suggested to set us a calculating the number of this frightful throng of Devils , who with Satan, the Master-Devil , was thus cast out of Heaven ; I cannot say, I am so much Master of Political Arithmetick as to cast up the Number of the Beast, no, nor the Number of the Beasts or Devils , who make up this Throng. St. Francis , they tell us, or some other Saint, they do not say who, ask’d the Devil once, how strong he was? for St. Francis , you must know, was very familiar with him; The Devil , it seems, did not tell him, but presently raised a great Cloud of Dust, by the help, I suppose, of a Gust of Wind, and bid that Saint count it; He was, I suppose, a Calculator, that would be call’d grave, who dividing Satan ’s Troops into three Lines, cast up the Number of the Devils of all sorts in each Battalia, at ten hundred times a hundred thousand millions of the first Line, fifty millions of times as many in the second Line, and three hundred thousand times as many as both in the third Line.