BY E. C. NOWELL. 



55 



assumption that the moon was the cause of the disease. We 

 have seen that she does produce such an effect upon the 

 atmosphere as to bring on rain under certain conditions. 

 But as the organism of both men and animals is affected by 

 changes of weather, and as such changes are, more or less, 

 brought about by lunar action, it follows of necessity that 

 the moon does exercise a certain amount of control over the 

 bodies and minds of living things, though, doubtless, not m 

 the way and to the extent formerly imagined. Many persons 

 of sensitive temperament are powerfully affected by moon- 

 light ; and we can easily understand how much greater the 

 impression must be when the mind is off its balance. 



Take, again, astrology. Of course, none of us believes in 

 astrology, as commonly understood — that is, we do not believe 

 that men's future destinies can be read in the stars in the 

 same way as the astrologers pretended ; but I think there are 

 grounds for admitting that the stars may, like the moon, only 

 in a less degree, haveaninfluenceonhumanaffairs. Some years 

 ago (in 1876) it was predicted that a rare conjunction of the 

 greater planets would cause unusualperturbations on our earth; 

 and certainly in the last ten years there have been greater 

 disturbances in the physical world than have ever occurred 

 before in my time. And in the moral world there have been 

 corresponding disorders. It is quite conceivable that these 

 abnormal phenomena may have had their origin in some 

 changes of the other planets in relation to the earth, altering 

 the force of their attraction, and so, perhaps, the magnetic 

 condition of our globe. Whatever affects our physical state 

 produces a corresponding change in the mind and its affec- 

 tions, and thus many of the remarkable tendencies of our 

 time may be the result of atmospheric or telluric influences 

 due to some obscure changes occurring elsewhere in the 

 universe of which we form a part. If it be true, as modern 

 science teaches, that the whole of creation is so bound together, 

 and so finely adj usted, that whatever takes place anywhere 

 produces some effect on every other portion, we need not 

 stumble at the thought that the vast masses of matter which 

 whirl round the centre of our system may, by their changes 

 of position, alter the condition of things on our planet, and 

 so have an influence upon our physical, moral, social and 

 spiritual life. 



If this be so, then it will be within the province of science 

 to extend its researches in this direction, in order to discover, 

 if possible, what are the exact nature and limits of the 

 influence exerted upon the earth and its inhabitants by the 

 moon and the remoter planets— the lesser forces— as well as 

 hy the great central source of power — the sun itself. 



