The Monsters Among Us (1665)

"In the ancient world, both the sophisticated and the credulous, and the knowing and the ignorant, believed in monsters. Monsters were considered a part of the natural world, representing punishment for sin or the diversity and fecundity of life. In a world whose religions and mythology accepted belief in demons, spirits, the afterlife of ancestors into the present, and legendary beasts, monsters fit right into the scheme of things."

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