242 SPRING. 



It is by no means improbable that the chief cause 

 why there has been more superstition and error on the 

 subject of the weather than on any other subject, is 

 the number of illiterate persons that are deeply inte- 

 rested in it. Those whose object it has been to " un- 

 ship the rudder" with the great body of the people, 

 so that they might require to be " taken in tow," have 

 always made the changes of the atmosphere one of 

 their grand subjects. These and the^ aspects of the 

 celestial bodies are, indeed, the two, and they have 

 been so mixed up with the destinies of human beings, 

 (matters into which the untaught and unoccupied mind 

 is most anxious to pry), that science has always found 

 them much more obstinate than any other species of 

 folly. 



Natural appearances, as has been said, are in them- 

 selves proofs of what has been, and not of what is to 

 be ; though man may, by careful and continued ob- 

 servation, make them such, if he does not, which we 

 are all but too apt to do, connect the consequent with 

 the wrong antecedent. This is apt to be the case both 

 with the thoughtless and the thinking. The thought- 

 less join in the order of cause and effect those events 

 that make the deepest impression upon themselves, in 

 all cases where they are not familiar with the con- 

 nexion ; and the thinking too often come with some 

 theory, which as they find, or fancy, is of great use in 

 what they are acquainted with, they use as a sort of 

 talisman for opening the unknown. Even those very 

 superstitions and mistakes are, as has been hinted, 

 however, double inducements to examine. We should 

 do it to get rid of the superstition, and we should do it 

 for a higher reason. The field where neglect produces 



