ASTRONOMICAL SUPERSTITIONS 469 



ASTKONOMICAL SUPEKSTITIONS 



By JOHN CANDEE DEAN 



INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 



THE great majority of our superstitions had their birth in attempts 

 to interpret natural phenomena from erroneous ideas which 

 consist of fancies suggested by the imagination. In other words, most 

 superstitions are attempted short cuts to explain phenomena while 

 omitting natural causation. The average man loves superstition, loves 

 the fictitious, both loves and fears the supernatural and is fascinated 

 by the incomprehensible. From the infancy of the human race men 

 have attempted to explain things according to their external appear- 

 ances, and whatever was strange or vast, especially if it had visible 

 motion, impressed the beholder with the fear of invisible powers. 



During September, 1908, a score of people called the writer by 

 telephone to ask about a brilliant star that had appeared in the eastern 

 morning sky. They had been informed that it was the star of Bethle- 

 hem, which appears only once every 300 years. They generally seemed 

 disappointed when told that it was not the star of Bethlehem, but the 

 planet Venus, which instead of becoming visible only once in 300 

 years, regularly appears twice in a period of 584 days. On attempting 

 to impart further information it soon became evident that their interest 

 was in the mystery of the star of Bethlehem and not in any facts re- 

 lating to Venus. 



Fashionable society will enthusiastically discuss telepathy, astrology, 

 christian science, psychic force, palmistry, spiritualism, etc., but if one 

 should introduce a subject relating to astronomy or physics, he would 

 be regarded as a pedantic bore. Du Maurier illustrated the indifference 

 of society to science by a drawing in Punch entitled " Science and 

 Music at an Evening Party." The scene was in a large London draw- 

 ing room. In the foreground was a professor earnestly talking to a 

 gentleman, while at the back of the room all the rest of the company 

 were eagerly crowding around a piano. Chesterfield wrote to his son: 



Pocket all your knowledge with your watch and never pull it out in com- 

 pany unless desired; the producing of one unasked, implies that you are weary 

 of the company, and production of the other will make the company weary 

 of you. 



While it is true that there is but a small circle of people interested 

 in what is called plrysical science, yet that science now rules the world 

 and is nearly as despotic as nature herself. Human progress is almost 

 entirely scientific and even our industrial progress is based on applied 

 science. 



