The worship of a class of spirits which were thought to be superior to the soul of man; but inferior to those intelligences which animated the sun, the moon, and the planets, and to whom were committed the government of the world, particular nations, &c. Though they were generally invisible, they were not supposed to be pure disembodied spirits, but to have some kind of ethereal vehicle. They were of various orders, and according to the situation over which they presided, had different names. Hence the Greek and Roman poets talk of satyrs, dryads, nymphs, fawns &c.&c. These different orders of intelligences which, though worshipped as gods or demigods, were yet believed to partake of human passions and appetites, led the way to the deification of departed heroes, and other eminent benefactors of the human race; and from this latter probably arose the belief of natural and tutelar gods, as well as the practice of worshipping these gods through the medium of statues cut into a human figure.
See IDOLATRY and POLYTHEISM. Warburton's Divine Legation; Farmer on the Worship of Daemons; Gale's Court of the Gentiles.