ASTRONOMICAL SUPERSTITIONS 473 



century in which Dante lived, there had been no progress in scientific 

 knowledge. He still held to the four elements of the Greeks : 



Thou sayest, the air, the fire I see, 



The earth and water, and all things of them 



Compounded, to corruption turn and soon 



Dissolve. 



Although Shakespeare was not born until twenty years after the 

 death of Copernicus, all allusions made by him to the heavens are 

 either astrological or Ptolemaic. 



The tendency of a superstition to persist even after closely allied 

 phenomena have been explained on a purely natural basis, is illustrated 

 in the belief that planetary motion was due to " blessed movers." Al- 

 though Copernicus discovered that the planets revolve around the 

 sun instead of the earth, he still believed that their motion was con- 

 trolled by guiding spirits. Galileo conclusively confirmed the correct- 

 ness of the heliocentric theory, but faith in the supernatural motion of 

 the planets was undisturbed. Not until the genius of Newton had dis- 

 covered and formulated the law of universal gravitation and provided 

 a mathematical foundation for Kepler's laws, were these conducting 

 spirits dismissed. It required the discoveries of three men of genius 

 and two centuries of time to overthrow the foolish superstition of 

 mediocre man. 



From the end of the fourth to the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury superstition had given to society a form that prevented the man 

 of genius from being heard. Buckle says that from the sixth to the 

 tenth century there were not in all Europe more than three men who 

 dared to think for themselves, and through fear of punishment even 

 they were obliged to veil their meaning in mystical language. The 

 remaining part of society Avas sunk in degrading ignorance. Progress 

 became possible only when science essayed to explain observed phe- 

 nomena by depending on natural causation. 



For ages the superstitions of astrology ruled the world by tbe 

 terror that they inspired. The figure of a man, with entrails exposed, 

 in the front of the family almanac is a survival of Egyptian astrology. 

 Around the figure are the twelve signs of the zodiac with lines extend- 

 ing to the parts of the body supposed to be influenced by the celestial 

 signs. Aries the head, Leo the heart, Capricornus the knees, Pisces the 

 feet, etc. Faith in the influence of the signs of the zodiac remained 

 unshaken in spite of knowledge that the inconstant stars were shifting 

 from one sign to another by the precession of the equinoxes. When the 

 pyramids were built, what is now known as the pole star was so far from 

 the celestial pole that the Egyptians saw it rise and set in the Medi- 

 terranean. The Southern Cross was then visible not only in northern 

 Egypt but throughout Europe as far north as London. 



Coincidences have ever been mistaken for causes. Owing to the 



