His subsequent defence of the proposed grant, on the ground that it would be improper and unjust to exclude the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland from a " more indiscriminating support " which the state might give to various religious beliefs, was regarded by men of less sensitive conscience as only proving that there had been no adequate cause for his resignation.
But Severus was no indiscriminating adherent of monasticism.
So too, many of the spirits especially concerned with the operations of nature are conceived as neutral or even benevolent; the European peasant fears the corn-spirit only when he irritates him by trenching on his domain and taking his property by cutting the corn; similarly, there is no reason why the more insignificant personages of the pantheon should be conceived as malevolent, and we find that the Petara of the Dyaks are far from indiscriminating and malignant, though disease and death are laid at their door.