64 Hutton Webster 



tive a people as the Andaman Islanders, and at the other end of 

 the scale by the Babylonians, furnishes another element of 

 mystery in the lunar phenomena.^- That changes in the moon 

 are associated with weather changes as cause and effect is an 

 ancient superstition not yet wholly obsolete in rural com- 

 munities.^^ 



Comparative studies have shown how very general is the 

 belief that the moon exerts great influence on growth, particularly 

 on the growth of vegetation and on all human life and activity.^* 

 For this opinion there appear to have been two principal causes. 

 Observation showed that moisture in the air and soil are favor- 

 able to organic growth, and further that atmospheric moisture is 

 greater at night than in the day. It was reasonable to suppose 

 the moon itself the source of dew and moisture, especially when 

 it was also noticed that the dew is heaviest on cloudless nights. 

 These beliefs were entertained by the ancients who attributed 

 heat to the sun, but moisture to the moon.^^ 



Another fallacy has had an even greater part in generating 

 these lunar fancies. The apparent growth of the moon in the 

 former half of each lunation is associated with the ripening of 

 plants and f-ruits, the increase of animals, and hence with the 

 prosperous issue of human undertakings. From this doctrine of 

 lunar sympathy have arisen those numerous rules for the guidance 

 of shepherds and husbandmen which had a wide prevalence in 



"Man, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1883, xii. 2>2>7'> '^^■ 

 Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, 1898, p. 358. 



^^ Hazen, " The Origin and Value of Weather Lore," Journal of Ameri- 

 can Folk-Lorc, 1900, xiii. 191-98; E. G. Dexter, Weather Influences, New 

 York, 1904, pp. 10-26. 



"Payne, op. cit., i. 547 sq.; Tylor, Primitive Culture,^ i. 130; W. G. 

 Black, Folk-Medicine, London, 1883, pp. 124 sqq. 



^^Roscher, Ubcr Selene und Verwandtes, 49 sqq., 61-67. The New Zea- 

 landers believed that it was in the night that everything grew (R. Taylor, 

 Te Ika a Maui, London, 1855, p. 175). The single Old Testament passage 

 which may possibly embody a like conception is Deuteronomy, xxxiii. 14: 

 " and for the precious things put forth by the moon." But the text is 

 almost certainly corrupt. 



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