ON THE INFLUENCE OF COMETS. 219 



what kind of influence Comets may possess, nor even that they do 

 absolutely possess an influence, but simply to point out that, as we 

 have no proof to the contrary, so we have some inducement to sus- 

 pect its existence. 



It has been always a commonly received opinion, whose origin 

 may be plainly traced in the melancholy anticipations of this state 

 of mortality, that a Comet is the unfailing precursor of calamity 

 and trouble. Those who could not perceive the mode of the con- 

 nection did not fail to acknowledge its certainty ; but some there 

 were whose powers of imagination carried them much farther, and 

 enabled them to comprehend, with the most satisfactory distinctness, 

 the whole progress of the mischief. So curious a specimen of the 

 scientific discoveries of the followers of Aristotle, in the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries, has been given, by Pingre, from Fortu- 

 nius Licetus, that I shall here transcribe the substance of them. 



The light and heat of a Comet being incapable of producing the 

 effects attributed to it, its influence must be derived from the matter 

 of which it is composed. 



1. This matter consists of terrestrial exhalations, not such as are 

 continually evaporated from the surface, but derived from the inte- 

 rior ; such as issue from volcanos, hot, dry, sulphureous, and bitu- 

 minous. When very abundant, their efforts to escape are the cause 

 of earthquakes, tempests, and hurricanes. 



2. Having escaped, they heat and dry the air in their passage^ 

 thus producing the most powerful effects upon men in general, espe- 

 cially those of a warm and melancholic temperament ; hence pro- 

 ceed anger, hatred, sedition, conspiracy, war, sickness, and epidemic 



3. These materials having risen to form a Comet in the upper 

 regions of the air, cease to affect us otherwise than by continually 

 drawing up fresh supplies fronJKhe earth. 



4. Of these additional exhalations, the heavier particles, less lofty 

 in their ascent, corrupt the air we breathe ; the lighter seize upon, 

 volatilize, and dissipate the humidity of the atmosphere, thus pro- 

 ducing winds and drought : the latter is the cause of famine and of 

 atrabiliary complaints, to which princes, according to Aristotle, 

 being remarkably subject, must, of course, be most affected by the 



