468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Fromundus, at the University of Louvain, the oracle of his age, who 

 had demonstrated the futility of the Copernican theory, now tends 

 toward the inevitable attempt at compromise, and declares that devils, 

 though often, are not always, or even "for the most part," the causes 

 of thunder.* And the learned Jesuit, Caspar Schott, whose " Physica 

 Curiosa" was one of the most popular books of the seventeenth cent- 

 ury, ventures only the same mild statement, f But even such a con- 

 cession by so great champions of orthodoxy did not prevent frantic 

 efforts in various quarters to bring the world back under the old 

 dogma, and, as late as 1743, we find a manual by Father Vincent of 

 Berg,J in which the superstition is taught to its fullest extent, issued 

 for the use of priests, under the express sanction of the theological 

 professors of the University of Cologne. 



It was hardly out of press, when there came a death-blow to the 

 whole theory. In 1752 Franklin made his experiments with the kite 

 on the banks of the Schuylkill ; and, at the moment when he drew the 

 electric spark from the cloud, the whole tremendous fabric of theologi- 

 cal meteorology reared by the Fathers, the Popes, the mediaeval Doc- 

 tors, and the long line of great theologians, Catholic and Protestant, 

 collapsed ; the " Prince of the power of the air " tumbled from his 

 seat ; the great doctrine which had so long afflicted the earth was 

 prostrated forever. 



The experiment of Franklin was repeated in various parts of Eu- 

 rope, but, at first, the Church seemed careful to take no notice of it. 

 The old church formulas against the powers of the air were still 

 used, but the theological theory, especially in the Protestant Church, 

 began to grow milder. Four years after Franklin's discovery Pastor 

 Karl Koken, member of the Consistory and official preacher to the City 

 Council of Hildesheim, was moved by a great hailstorm to preach and 

 publish a sermon on " The Revelation of God in Weather." # Of 

 "the prince of the power of the air" he says nothing the whole 

 theory of diabolical agency is thrown overboard altogether ; his whole 

 attempt is to save the older and more harmless theory, that the storm 

 is the voice of God. He insists that, since Christ told Nicodemus that 

 men " know not whence the wind cometh," it can not be of mere natural 

 origin, but is sent directly by God himself, as David intimates in the 

 Psalm, " out of His secret places." As to the hailstorm, he lays great 

 stress upon the plague of hail sent by the Almighty upon Egypt, and 



* See Fromundus's " Meteorologica " (London, 1656) lib. iii, c. 9, and lib. ii, c. 3. 

 f See Schott's "Physica Curiosa" (edition of Wiirzburg, 166*7), p. 1249. 



\ His " Enchiridium quadripartitum " (Cologne, 1743). Besides benedictions and ex- 

 orcisms for all emergencies, it contains full directions for the manufacture of the Agnus 

 Dei, and of another sacred panacea called " IJeiligthum," not less effective against evil 

 powers, gives formulae to be worn for protection against the devil, suggests a list of 

 signs by which diabolical possession may be infallibly recognized, and prescribes the 

 questions to be asked by priests in the examination of witches. 



* "Die Offenbarung Gottes in Wetter" (Hildesheim, 1756). 



