310 OF ATMOSPHERICAL CHAP. 10. 2. 



SECTION II. 



Of some additional Atmospherical Superstitions 

 and their causes. 



ANOTHER source of meteorological super- 

 stition may be sought for in the form of iden- 



other physical knowledge, with the institutions necessarily 

 connected with their particular festivals by the church : the 

 authenticity of whose religious institutions and ceremonies 

 cannot be considered as affected in any other way by these 

 harmless acts of supererogation, than by the tendency the 

 latter have to prove how firm a hold the former had on the 

 human mind during the middle ages. 



The same argument may be applied to the setting up of 

 various images by catholics, which some protestants have 

 endeavoured to represent them as paying a superstitious 

 worship to ; whereas, in reality, nothing can be more false 

 than this libel. The truth is, the facts of Sacred History 

 themselves were so very impressive, that a thousand emblems 

 and figured representations of them were set up by various 

 persons as memorials, the natural disposition of the human 

 mind being to form to itself such mementos. And the early 

 Christians did no more than substitute various emblematical 

 figures, which represented real persons or real historical facts, 

 for the emblems of the powers of the elements and of imaginary 

 deities worshipped by the Pagans. The arguments of Dupius, 

 Volney, and Middleton, who endeavour to confound super- 

 stitious and catholic rites, have already been too often answered 

 to need further confutation. 



