But it seems probable that the oracles were given by daemons, and were genuine up to the point of discovering a thief, or the loss of property, and things of that kind, which it was not unlikely that beings who passed their time in the air should have knowledge of: but they were never responsible for a good and wise philosophic saying, or for a state, or for a law laid down by right reason; nay, more, (b) if I may speak quite frankly, one ought to consider them all instigators of evil; for when they listened either to the odes and hymns and recitals of men, or to the secret rites of the mysteries, retailing their own Adulteries and unnatural crimes, their marriage of mothers and lawless union with sisters, and the many contests of the gods, enmities and wars of gods against gods, not one of them has ever, so far (c) as I know, been angry at what was said, as if it were only suitable for lustful, and not for pure, minds to think and say such things. And why need I enlarge, when from one most significant example I can crowd into one view their cruelty, inhumanity and real viciousness? I refer to the human sacrifices. Surely to delight not only in the slaughter of irrational beasts, but also in the destruction of men, overshot the highest limit of cruelty.