452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



By ANDEEW DICKSON WHITE, 



LATE PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



in. meteorology {concluded). 



WHILE the Fathers and school-men were laboring to deduce a 

 science of meteorology from our sacred books, there oozed up 

 in European society a mass of traditions and observances which had 

 been lurking since the days of paganism ; and, although here and there 

 appeared a churchman to oppose them, the theologians and ecclesias- 

 tics ere long began to adopt them and to clothe them with the author- 

 ity of religion. 



Both among the pagans of the Roman Empire and among the 

 barbarians of the North the Christian missionaries had found it easier 

 to prove the new God supreme than to prove the old gods powerless. 

 Faith in the miracles of the new religion seemed to increase rather 

 than to diminish faith in the miracles of the old ; and the Church at 

 last began admitting the latter as facts, but ascribing them to the devil. 

 Jupiter and Odin sank into the category of ministers of Satan, and 

 transferred to that master all their former powers. A renewed study 

 of Scripture by the theologians, in the light of this hypothesis, elicited 

 overwhelming proofs of its truth. They found very many sacred 

 texts to support it, and it soon became a dogma. So strong was 

 the hold it took, under the influence of the Church, that not until 

 late in the seventeenth century did its substantial truth begin to be 

 questioned. 



Now, with no field of action had the sway of the ancient deities 

 been more identified than with that of atmospheric phenomena. The 

 Roman heard Jupiter, and the Teuton heard Thor, in the thunder. 

 Could it be doubted that these powerful beings would now take occa- 

 sion, unless hindered by the command of the Almighty, to vent their 

 spite against those who had deserted their altars ? Might not the 

 Almighty himself be willing to employ the malice of these powers of 

 the air against those who had offended him ? 



It was, indeed, no great step, for those whose simple faith accepted 

 rain or sunshine as an answer to their prayers, to suspect that the un- 

 timely storms or droughts, which baffled their most earnest petitions, 

 were the work of the arch-enemy, " the prince of the power of 

 the air." 



The great Fathers of the Church had laid the basis of this doctrine 

 in Scripture. Saint Jerome declared the air to be full of devils, basing 

 this belief upon various statements in the prophecies of Isaiah and in 



