COMETAKY INFLUENCES. 



is thought of. The appearance presented in the heavens, what- 

 ever it be, is simply regarded as the harbinger, precursor, or 

 presage of the terrestrial events which are supposed to accompany 

 or to succeed it. When the celestial phenomena thus regarded 

 are from their nature periodical and recurring, as in the case of 

 the succession of lunar phases, some attempt is made to generalise 

 the imputed effects, and to reduce them to rules. In the case, 

 however, of celestial appearances, which are occasional and extra- 

 ordinary, and which have no discovered periodicity, no such 

 general rule can be established. In such cases mankind is, how- 

 ever, not less prompt and confident in ascribing to their appearance 

 any extraordinary events whatever which may have taken place 

 simultaneously with or immediately after them. 



2. Among this latter class of occasional phenomena comets 

 hold a conspicuous place, and have at all times and in all countries 

 operated powerfully on the superstitious feelings of mankind. 

 These bodies, scarcely less in modern and enlightened times than 

 in the more remote and darker ages, and scarcely less among the 

 most civilised than among the most barbarous nations, have been 

 regarded with feelings of inexpressible awe and terror, and looked 

 upon as the harbingers and precursors of the most extraordinary 

 diversity of effects, physical, physiological, social, and political. 

 To them are unhesitatingly ascribed extraordinary extremes of 

 heat and cold of the seasons, whether general or local ; storms of 

 snow, hail, wind and rain, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic 

 eruptions, floods, droughts, and fogs ; every form and character 

 of epidemic malady, whether affecting the human race or the 

 lower animals, the state of the harvest and the vintage, whether 

 it be that of scarcity or abundance, of good or bad quality ; the 

 fruitfulness of women, the births and deaths of extraordinary 

 men, the march of armies, and the fall of empires. 



3. Without insisting, as we very well might, upon the manifest 

 absurdity and glaring contradiction and inconsistency of most of 

 these supposed influences or effects, let us first explain briefly, so 

 far as observation has informed us, what the bodies are, to which 

 effects so diverse and extraordinary are imputed. Such an 

 explanation will of itself go far to dispel most of these errors. 

 We shall also compare the effects ascribed to the presence and 

 influence of comets with the dates of the appearances of these 

 bodies, their number, magnitude, and proximity, so as to ascertain 

 whether any such correspondence has really existed as has been 

 assumed. 



Comets are not, as was anciently supposed, atmospheric pheno- 

 mena. They move through the regions of space occupied by the 

 planets. Most of them come into the solar system from parts of 

 6G 



