GENII, Wni-I (Lat., guardian spirits). Spirits supposed to protect human beings, or tutelary divinities who presided over places and things. The classical nations believed that there were or ders of spirits whose function it was to take in charge the infant at birth, to watch over the per son day and night during the whole life, to point out to him the right and fortunate thing to do, to warn him of danger and wrongdoing, and thus to guide him safely throughout his life. The genii had access to their wards at all times. and could change themselves into any desired form. The demon (Gk. datpuv) of Socrates is often mentioned as an example of a guardian spirit. In his case, however, the philosopher seemed to have believed not so much in an ever present genius prompting him, as in a friendly hand holding him back from danger and wrong doing. But, according to the classical belief, not only persons were thus cared for. but also there were special spirits in whose keeping the protec tion of the land itself was believed to be placed. Rome, for example, had its tutelary genif, and the Lares and Penates were looked upon as house hold gods embodying the spirit of the hearth and home. As such, the various genii received heners and divine worship in ancient Italy an-1 Greece.
It is an easy step from this belief in guardian spirits to that in evil, misleading, tempting spirits, who are sent either to test the virtues of the good or to guide the evil mortal in ways of wrongdoing. ( See DEMONOLOGY.) The Greeks had kakodaimones as well as agatho daimones. The Romans came to believe in evil genii as well as good. It will be readily under stood that the early Christians seized upon these ideas, and out of them grew the belief in guard ian angels, ministering spirits, and evil genii or spirits.
In classical art the genii are sometimes repre sented in the form of a youth with wings, some times as closely wrapped in a mantle and hold ing within the hand some emblem of their office; and the genius loci or guardian spirit of a place is often pictured as a serpent partaking of some offering on an altar. Under Christian influence
the good genius is frequently represented as an angel; the bad genius under some evil guise.
The idea of such spirits is a belief widely spread and by no means confined to the classical nations or ancient peoples or uncivilized races. The same sort of a conception prevailed in an cient and modern India, and the Zoroastrian doc trine of the fravashis in the Avesta as heavenly spirits presiding over man and over the house, village, tribe, and country shows how old this notion was in Persia. The Eskimo recognize the same idea in the spirit of the person after whom one is named acting as his guardian genius. Among the Mohammedans there is a kindred be lief in the existence of jinns, spirits of good and spirits of evil, who could assume any form.
The role played by the jinns in the Arabian Nights, or by the afrits, or evil genii, in Arabic stories, is familiar to every reader of Oriental lit erature or of Eastern folk-Iore. With the Arabic jinn, the Latin genius became entangled in the popular mind through the influence of the Arabian Nights, although there was no etymological con nection between the two. The Greek word Sati.uop, which was originally used in the general sense of spirit, as explained above, has become degraded to mean demon in Christian theology. The ques tion of the belief in genii lies near the inquiry into the origin of religion itself, but it is not difficult to trace backward all such beings to the primitive, childish faith which endows every thing with human traits and capabilities. The shadow, the dream-self, the physiological hallu cination all helped to give substantiality to the creatures of the imagination. See ANGELS; ANIMISM; APPARITIONS; DEMONOLOGY; JINN; RELIGIONS, COMPARATIVE.