POPULAE EEEOES. 



MONSTEES AND SUPEESTITIONS. 



I pvirpose to terminate this sketch of the glories of 

 nature, by giving as a contrast a short account of the 

 ridiculous fictions which our forefathers were too often 

 pleased to substitute for them. We shall then have com- 

 pleted the picture of the march of science. 



The people of antiquity had their superstitions and their 

 fabulous legends, but those were never so widely diffused 

 as they became in the middle ages, a period of simple 

 ignorance and ardent faith. "At that time," as M. Figuier 

 says in his excellent work on this epoch, "all classes of 

 the people, and even a great part of the nobility, the magis- 

 tracy, and the clergy, believed in magic." 



The Eenaissance itself did not throw ofl" this weakness 

 of the human mind; on the contrary, learned men vied with 

 each other in collecting all the fables of their forefathers 

 and recording them in their works. They found monsters 

 in every kingdom of nature, and equally in the depths of 

 the sea as in the heavens. Ambrose Pare even devoted 

 a chapter to " Celestial JNIonsters," in which he descril^es 

 the fabulous comets we have spoken of 



All that a fantastic imagination could beget, all that 



