ASTRONOMICAL SUPERSTITIONS 475 



abusive language employed; as for the almanac, everybody knew that 

 almanacs were frequently published under the names of people who 

 had long been dead. 



An adequate account of the superstitions of astrology would make 

 a volume, and it would be easy to compile a list of one hundred lunar 

 superstitions that still govern the actions of the uninformed. For 

 example, the new moon if first seen over the right shoulder will bring 

 good luck. If seen over tbe left shoulder, bad luck. Meat killed when 

 the moon is waning shrinks in the pot. Whatever grows above ground 

 must be planted when the moon is waxing. Whatever grows under- 

 ground must be planted when the moon is waning. One of the com- 

 monest lunar superstitions is that the changes of the moon, at the quarter, 

 affect the weather, and many of our almanacs still publish so-called 

 " Plerschel's weather tables," for foretelling changes of the weather, not 

 only throughout all the lunations of the year, but for all future time. 

 We are assured by the almanac makers that the tables are the result 

 of careful consideration of the attractions of the sun and the moon 

 " and so near the truth as to seldom or never fail." Belief in the 

 moon's influence over terrestrial conditions is a mild lunacy by no 

 means wholly confined to the ignorant. A tabulated meteorological 

 record, kept at Greenwich running back for forty years, shows that 

 there are no constant relations between the moon's columns and those 

 recording the readings of the instruments. In other words, lunar 

 meteorological influences are almost inappreciable. Idle fancies are still 

 cherished that the mind and body are affected by the light of the moon, 

 that the rays sometimes produce blindness by shining on the sleeper's 

 eyes, and that death occurs at the time of the changes of tide. 



When Copernicus published his work on the " Eevolutions of the 

 Heavenly bodies," in 1543, he was already on his deathbed. A few 

 men of learning read it, the doctors of the church rejected it, and it 

 received but little attention until the time of Bruno, Galileo and 

 Kepler, half a century later. During the previous thirteen hundred 

 years the astronomical system of Ptolemy had been regarded with super- 

 stitious reverence. It was natural that a geocentric and anthropocentric 

 universe should be drawn, because these errors were conducive to man's 

 interests, pleasing to his extreme egotism, and resulted in the apotheosis 

 of himself. The anthropocentric dogma culminated in the belief that 

 man was the preordained center and aim of all creation, while the 

 new heliocentric mechanism of the planetary system relegated both 

 the earth and man to subordinate positions. 



In 1610 Galileo ascended the tall campanile of St. Mark's, in 

 Venice, and with his newly devised telescope showed the assembled 

 noblemen and senators that Venus was a crescent, Jupiter the center 

 of a miniature Copernican system, the moon had tall mountains casting 

 dark shadows across her surface, that the star cluster of the Pleiades 



