The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

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Just downloaded it on my Kindle.
Problems with auto-correct:
In Helaman 6:39, we see the Badmintons, so similar to Skousenite Mormons, taking over the government and abusing the rights of many.
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

Among the Mohammedans we have a curious example of
the same tendency toward a kindly interpretation of stars
and meteors, in the belief of certain Mohammedan teachers
that meteoric showers are caused by good angels hurling
missiles to drive evil angels out of the sky.

Eclipses were regarded in a very different light, being
supposed to express the distress of Nature at earthly calami-
ties. The Greeks believed that darkness overshadowed the
earth at the deaths of Prometheus, Atreus, Hercules, AEscu-
lapius, and Alexander the Great. The Roman legends held
that at the death of Romulus there was darkness for six
hours. In the history of the Caesars occur portents of all
three kinds ; for at the death of Julius the earth was shrouded
in darkness, the birth of Augustus was heralded by a star,
and the downfall of Nero by a comet. So, too, in one of the
Christian legends clustering about the crucifixion, darkness
overspread the earth from the sixth to the ninth hour. Nei-
ther the silence regarding it of the only evangelist who
claims to have been present, nor the fact that observers like
Seneca and Pliny, who, though they carefully described
much less striking occurrences of the same sort and in more
remote regions, failed to note any such darkness even in
Judea, have availed to shake faith in an account so true to
the highest poetic instincts of humanity.

This view of the relations between Nature and man con-
tinued among both Jews and Christians. According to Jew-
ish tradition, darkness overspread the earth for three days
when the books of the Law were profaned by translation
into Greek. Tertullian thought an eclipse an evidence of
God's wrath against unbelievers. Nor has this mode of
thinking ceased in modern times. A similar claim was made
at the execution of Charles I ; and Increase Mather thought
an eclipse in Massachusetts an evidence of the grief of Nature
at the death of President Chauncey, of Harvard College.
Archbishop Sandys expected eclipses to be the final tokens
of woe at the destruction of the world, and traces of this
feeling have come down to our own time. The quaint story
of the Connecticut statesman who, when his associates in the
General Assembly were alarmed by an eclipse of the sun,
and thought it the beginning of the Day of Judgment, quietly
ordered in candles, that he might in any case be found doing
his duty, marks probably the last noteworthy appearance of
the old belief in any civilized nation.

In these beliefs regarding meteors and eclipses there was
little calculated to do harm by arousing that superstitious
terror which is the worst breeding-bed of cruelty. Far
otherwise was it with the belief regarding comets. During
many centuries it gave rise to the direst superstition and
fanaticism. The Chaldeans alone among the ancient peoples
generally regarded comets without fear, and thought them
bodies wandering as harmless as fishes in the sea ; the
Pythagoreans alone among philosophers seem to have had
a vague idea of them as bodies returning at fixed periods of
time ; and in all antiquity, so far as is known, one man alone,
Seneca, had the scientific instinct and prophetic inspira-
tion to give this idea definite shape, and to declare that the
time would come when comets would be found to move in
accordance with natural law. Here and there a few strong
men rose above the prevailing superstition. The Emperor
Vespasian tried to laugh it down, and insisted that a certain
comet in his time could not betoken his death, because it
was hairy, and he bald ; but such scoffing produced little
permanent effect, and the prophecy of Seneca was soon for-
gotten. These and similar isolated utterances could not stand
against the mass of opinion which upheld the doctrine that
comets are " signs and wonders."
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

The belief that every comet is a ball of fire flung from
the right hand of an angry God to warn the grovelling
dwellers of earth was received into the early Church, trans-
mitted through the Middle Ages to the Reformation period,
and in its transmission was made all the more precious by
supposed textual proofs from Scripture. The great fathers
of the Church committed themselves unreservedly to it. In
the third century Origen, perhaps the most influential of the
earlier fathers of the universal Church in all questions be-
tween science and faith, insisted that comets indicate catas-
trophes and the downfall of empires and worlds. Bede, so
justly revered by the English Church, declared in the eighth
century that " comets portend revolutions of kingdoms, pes-
tilence, war, winds, or heat " ; and John of Damascus, his
eminent contemporary in the Eastern Church, took the same
view. Rabanus Maurus, the great teacher of Europe in
the ninth century, an authority throughout the Middle Ages,
adopted Bede's opinion fully. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great
light of the universal Church in the thirteenth century, whose
works the Pope now reigning commends as the centre and
source of all university instruction, accepted and handed
down the same opinion. The sainted Albert the Great, the
most noted genius of the mediaeval Church in natural science,
received and developed this theory. These men and those
who followed them founded upon scriptural texts and the-
ological reasonings a system that for seventeen centuries
defied every advance of thought.*

The main evils thence arising were three : the paralysis
of self-help, the arousing of fanaticism, and the strengthen-
ing of ecclesiastical and political tyranny. The first two of
these evils — the paralysis of self-help and the arousing of
fanaticism — are evident throughout all these ages. At the
appearance of a comet we constantly see all Christendom,
from pope to peasant, instead of striving to avert war by
wise statesmanship, instead of striving to avert pestilence by
observation and reason, instead of striving to avert famine
by skilful economy, whining before fetiches, trying to bribe
them to remove these signs of God's wrath, and planning to
wreak this supposed wrath of God upon misbelievers.

As to the third of these evils — the strenofthenino: of eccle-
siastical and civil despotism — examples appear on every side.
It was natural that hierarchs and monarchs whose births
were announced by stars, or whose deaths were announced
by comets, should regard themselves as far above the com-
mon herd, and should be so regarded by mankind ; passive
obedience was thus strengthened, and the most monstrous
assumptions of authority were considered simply as mani-
festations of the Divine will. Shakespeare makes Calphurnia
say to Caesar:

" When beggars die, there are no comets seen ;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."

Galeazzo, the tyrant of Milan, expressing satisfaction on
his deathbed that his approaching end was of such impor-
tance as to be heralded by a comet, is but a type of many
thus encouraged to prey upon mankind ; and Charles V, one
of the most powerful monarchs the world has known, ab-
dicating under fear of the comet of 1556, taking refuge in
the monastery of San Yuste, and giving up the best of his
vast realms to such a scribbling bigot as Philip II, furnishes
an example even more striking.

But for the retention of this belief there was a moral
cause. Myriads of good men in the Christian Church down
to a recent period saw in the appearance of comets not
merely an exhibition of ''signs in the heavens" foretold in
Scripture, but also Divine warnings of vast value to human-
ity as incentives to repentance and improvement of life —
warnings, indeed, so precious that they could not be spared
without danger to the moral government of the world. And
this belief in the portentous character of comets as an essen-
tial part of the Divine government, being, as it was thought,
in full accord with Scripture, was made for centuries a
source of terror to humanity. To say nothing of examples
in the earlier periods, comets in the tenth century especially
increased the distress of all Europe. In the middle of the
eleventh century a comet was thought to accompany the
death of Edward the Confessor and to presage the Norman
conquest; the traveller in France to-day may see this belief
as it was then wrought into the Bayeux tapestry

Nearly every decade of years throughout the Middle
Ages saw Europe plunged into alarm by appearances of
this sort, but the culmination seems to have been reached in
1456. At that time the Turks, after a long effort, had made
good their footing in Europe. A large statesmanship or
generalship might have kept them out; but, while different
religious factions were disputing over petty shades of dogma,
they had advanced, had taken Constantinople, and were evi-
dently securing their foothold. Now came the full bloom
of this superstition. A comet appeared. The Pope of that
period, Calixtus III, though a man of more than ordinary
ability, was saturated with the ideas of his time. Alarmed
at this monster, if we are to believe the contemporary his-
torian, this infallible head of the Church solemnly decreed
several days of prayer for the averting of the wrath of God,
that whatever calamity impended might be turned from the
Christians and against the Turks." And, that all might join
daily in this petition there was then established that midday
Angelus which has ever since called good Catholics to prayer
against the powers of evil. Then, too, was incorporated
into a litany the plea, " From the Turk and the comet, good
Lord, deliver us." Never was papal intercession less effect-
I've ; for the Turk has held Constantinople from that day to
this, while the obstinate comet, being that now known un-
der the name of Halley, has returned imperturbably at short
periods ever since.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

But the superstition went still further. It became more
and more incorporated into what was considered '' scriptural
science" and "sound learning." The encyclopedic summa-
ries, in which the science of the Middle Ages and the Ref-
ormation period took form, furnish abundant proofs of this.

Yet scientific observation was slowly undermining this
structure. The inspired prophecy of Seneca had not been
forgotten. Even as far back as the ninth century, in the
midst of the sacred learning so abundant at the court of
Charlemagne and his successors, we find a scholar protest-
ing against the accepted doctrine. In the thirteenth cen-
tury we have a mild question by Albert the Great as to the
supposed influence of comets upon individuals; but the pre-
vailing theological current was too strong, and he finally
yielded to it in this as in so many other things.

So, too, in the sixteenth century, we have Copernicus
refusing to accept the usual theory, Paracelsus writing to
ZwingH against it, and Julius Cassar Scaliger denouncing it
as " ridiculous folly."

At first this scepticism only aroused the horror of theo-
logians and increased the vigour of ecclesiastics ; both as-
serted the theological theory of comets all the more strenu-
ously as based on scriptural truth. During the sixteenth
century France felt the influence of one of her greatest
men on the side of this superstition. Jean Bodin, so far
before his time in political theories, was only thoroughly
abreast of it in religious theories : the same reverence for
that establishing the Angelus (as given by Raynaldus in the Annales Eccl.)
contains no mention of the comet. But the authority of Platina (in his Vitce
Pontijicum, Venice, 1479, sub Calistus III), who was not only in Rome at the time,
but, when he wrote his history, archivist of the Vatican, is final as to the Pope's
attitude. Platina's authority was never questioned until modern science had
changed the ideas of the world. The recent attempt of Pastor (in his Geschichte
der Pdpste) to pooh-pooh down the whole matter is too evident an evasion to carry
weight with those who know how even the most careful histories have to be modi-
fied to suit the views of the censorship at Rome.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _huckelberry »

computers have become amazing, why I found a utube image which sees back in time. We have the very words and face of a medieval know it all from a thousand years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOPsvOWW9H0

I was impressed by the purity of the opening statements. I really am unable to proceed through it all so do not know what revelations are found beyond the first few minutes.

It is too bad he didn't grasp the wisdom of his daughters comment early on.
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

In 1532, just at the transition period from the old Church
to the new, Cranmer, paving the way to his archbishopric,
writes from Germany to Henry VIII, and says of the comet
then visible : " What strange things these tokens do signify
to come hereafter, God knoweth ; for they do not lightly
app)ear but against some great matter."

Twenty years later Bishop Latimer, in an Advent ser-
mon, speaks of eclipses, rings about the sun, and the like, as
signs of the approaching end of the world.

In 1580, under Queen Elizabeth, there was set forth an
''order of prayer to avert God's wrath from us, threatened
by the late terrible earthquake, to be used in all parish
churches." In connection with this there was also com-
mended to the faithful "a godly admonition for the time
present " ; and among the things referred to as evidence of
God's wrath are comets, eclipses, and falls of snow.

This view held sway in the Church of England during
Elizabeth's whole reign and far into the Stuart period :
Strype, the ecclesiastical annalist, gives ample evidence of
this, and among the more curious examples is the surmise
that the comet of 1572 was a token of Divine wrath pro-
voked by the St. Bartholomew massacre.

As to the Stuart period, Archbishop Spottiswoode seems
to have been active in carrying the superstition from the
sixteenth century to the seventeenth, and Archbishop Bram-
hall cites Scripture in support of it. Rather curiously, while
the diary of Archbishop Laud shows so much superstition
regarding dreams as portents, it shows little or none regard-
ing comets ; but Bishop Jeremy Taylor, strong as he was,
evidently favoured the usual view. John Howe, the emi-
nent Nonconformist divine in the latter part of the century,
seems to have regarded the comet superstition as almost a
fundamental article of belief ; he laments the total neglect
of comets and portents generally, declaring that this neg-
lect betokens want of reverence for the Ruler of the world ;
he expresses contempt for scientific inquiry regarding com-
ets, insists that they may be natural bodies and yet super-
natural portents, and ends by saying, " I conceive it very
safe to suppose that some very considerable thing, either
in the way of judgment or mercy, may ensue, according as
the cry of persevering wickedness or of penitential prayer
is more or less loud at that time."

The Reformed Church of Scotland supported the super-
stition just as strongly. John Knox saw in comets tokens of
the wrath of Heaven ; other authorities considered them " a
warning to the king to extirpate the Papists"; and as late as
1680, after Halley had won his victory, comets were an-
nounced on high authority in the Scottish Church to be
''prodigies of great judgment on these lands for our sins,
for never was the Lord more provoked by a people."
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

While such was the view of the clergy during the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, the laity generally ac-
cepted it as a matter of course. Among the great leaders
in literature there was at least general acquiescence in it.
Both Shakespeare and Milton recognise it, whether they
fully accept it or not. Shakespeare makes the Duke of
Bedford, lamenting at the bier of Henry V, say :

" Comets, importing change of time and states.
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky ;
And with them scourge the bad revoking stars.
That have consented unto Henry's death."

Milton, speaking of Satan preparing for combat, says :

" On the other side.
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from its horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war."

We do indeed find that in some minds the discoveries of
Tycho Brahe and Kepler begin to take effect, for, in 162 1,
Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy alludes to them as
changing public opinion somewhat regarding comets; and,
just before the middle of the century, Sir Thomas Browne
expresses a doubt whether comets produce such terrible
effects, " since it is found that many of them are above the
moon." Yet even as late as the last years of the seven-
teenth century we have English authors of much power
battling for this supposed scriptural view ; and among the
natural and typical results we find, in 1682, Ralph Thoresby,
a Fellow of the Royal Society, terrified at the comet of that
year, and writing in his diary the following passage : ' Lord,
fit us for whatever changes it may portend ; for, though I
am not ignorant that such meteors proceed from natural
causes, yet are they frequently also the presages of immi-
nent calamities." Interesting is it to note here that this was
Halley's comet, and that Halley was at this very moment
making those scientific studies upon it which were to free
the civilized world forever from such terrors as distressed
Thoresby.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

The belief in comets as warnings against sin was. espe-
cially one of those held " always, every where, and by all,"
and by Eastern Christians as well as by Western. One of the
most striking scenes in the history of the Eastern Church is
that which took place at the condemnation of Nikon, the
great Patriarch of Moscow. Turning toward his judges,
he pointed to a comet then blazing in the sky, and said,
"God's besom shall sweep you all away!"

Of all countries in western Europe, it was in Germany
and German Switzerland that this superstition took strong-
est hold. That same depth of religious feeling which pro-
duced in those countries the most terrible growth of witch-
craft persecution, brought superstition to its highest devel-
opment regarding comets. No country suffered more from
it in the Middle Ages. At the Reformation Luther declared
strongly in favour of it. In one of his Advent sermons he
said, " The heathen write that the comet may arise from
natural causes, but God creates not one that does not fore-
token a sure calamity." Again he said, " Whatever moves
in the heaven in an unusual way is certainly a sign of God's
wrath." And sometimes, yielding to another phase of his
belief, he declared them works' of the devil, and declaimed
against them as " harlot stars."

Melanchthon, too, in various letters refers to comets as
heralds of Heaven's wrath, classing them, with evil conjunc-
tions of the planets and abortive births, among the "signs "
referred to in Scripture. Zwingli, boldest of the greater
Reformers in shaking off traditional beliefs, could not shake
off this, and insisted that the comet of 1531 betokened calam.
ity. Arietus, a leading Protestant theologian, declared, '' The
heavens are given us not merely for our pleasure, but also
as a warning of the wrath of God for the correction of our
lives." Lavater insisted that comets are signs of death or
calamity, and cited proofs from Scripture.

Catholic and Protestant strove together for the glory of
this doctrine. It was maintained with especial vigour by
Fromundus, the eminent professor and Doctor of Theology
at the Catholic University of Louvain, who so strongly op-
posed the Copernican system ; at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, even so gifted an astronomer as Kepler
yielded somewhat to the belief; and near the end of that
century Voigt declared that the comet of 161 8 clearly pre-
saged the downfall of the Turkish Empire, and he stigma-
tized as '* atheists and Epicureans" all w^ho did not believe
comets to be God's warnings.*

Out of this belief was developed a great series of efforts
to maintain the theological view of comets, and to put down
forever the scientific view. These efforts may be divided
into two classes: those directed toward learned men and
scholars, through the universities, and those directed to-
ward the people at large, through the pulpits. As to the
first of these, that learned men and scholars might be kept
in the paths of " sacred science" and ''sound learning," es-
pecial pains was taken to keep all knowledge of the scien-
tific view of comets as far as possible from students in the
universities. Even to the end of the seventeenth century
the oath generally required of professors of astronomy over
a large part of Europe prevented their teaching that comets
are heavenly bodies obedient to law. Efforts just as earnest
were made to fasten into students' minds the theological
theory. Two or three examples out of many may serve as
types. First of these may be named the teaching of Jacob
Heerbrand, professor at the University of Tubingen, who in
1577 illustrated the moral value of comets by comparing the
Almighty sending a comet, to the judge laying the execu-
tioner's sword on the table between himself and the criminal
in a court of justice ; and, again, to the father or schoolmaster
displaying the rod before naughty children. A little later
we have another churchman of great importance in that
region, Schickhart, head pastor and superintendent at Gop-
pingen, preaching and publishing a comet sermon, in which
he denounces those who stare at such warnings of God with-
out heeding them, and compares them to " calves gaping at
a new barn door." Still later, at the end of the seventeenth
century, we find Conrad Dieterich, director of studies at the
University of Marburg, denouncing all scientific investiga-
tion of comets as impious, and insisting that they are only
to be regarded as "signs and wonders."
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

The results of this ecclesiastical pressure upon science
in the universities were painfully shown during generation
after generation, as regards both professors and students ;
and examples may be given typical of its effects upon each
of these two classes.

The first of these is the case of Michael Maestlin. He
was by birth a Swabian Protestant, was educated at Tu-
bingen as a pupil of Apian, and, after a period of travel, was
settled as deacon in the little parish of Backnang, when the
comet of 1577 gave him an occasion to apply his astronom-
ical studies. His minute and accurate observation of it is to
this day one of the wonders of science. . It seems almost im-
possible that so much could be accomplished by the naked
eye. His observations agreed with those of Tycho Brahe,
and won for Maestlin the professorship of astronomy in the
University of Heidelberg. No man had so clearly proved
the supralunar position of a comet, or shown so conclusively
that its motion was not erratic, but regular. The young as-
tronomer, though Apian's pupil, was an avowed Copernican
and the destined master and friend of Kepler. Yet, in the
treatise embodying his observations, he felt it necessary to
save his reputation for orthodoxy by calling the comet a
*' new and horrible prodigy," and by giving a chapter of
'' conjectures on the signification of the present comet," in
which he proves from history that this variety of comet be-
tokens peace, but peace purchased by a bloody victory.
That he really believed in this theological theory seems im-
possible ; the very fact that his observations had settled
the supralunar character and regular motion of comets
proves this. It was a humiliation only to be compared to
that of Osiander when he wrote his grovelling preface to the
great book of Copernicus. Maestlin had his reward : when,
a few years later, his old teacher. Apian, was driven from his
chair at Tubingen for refusing to sign the Lutheran Concord-
Book, Maestlin was elected to his place.

Not less striking was the effect of this theological pres-
sure upon the minds of students. Noteworthy as an ex-
ample of this is the book of the Leipsic lawyer, Buttner.
From no less than eighty-six biblical texts he proves the Al-
mighty's purpose of using the heavenly bodies for the in-
struction of men as to future events, and then proceeds to
frame exhaustive tables, from which, the time and place of
the comet's first appearance being known, its signification
can be deduced. This manual he gave forth as a triumph
of religious science, under the name of the Comet Hour-Bookr

The same devotion to the portent theory is found in the
universities of Protestant Holland. Striking is it to see in
the sixteenth century, after Tycho Brahe's discovery, the
Dutch theologian, Gerard Vossius, Professor of Theology and
Eloquence at Leyden, lending his great weight to the super-
stition. '' The history of all times," he says, " shows comets
to be the messengers of misfortune. It does not follow that
they are endowed with intelligence, but that there is a
deity who makes use of them to call the human race to
repentance." Though familiar with the works of Tycho
Brahe, he finds it 'hard to believe " that all comets are
ethereal, and adduces several historical examples of sublu-
nary ones.

Nor was this attempt to hold back university teaching to
the old view of comets confined to Protestants. The Roman
Church was, if possible, more strenuous in the same effort.
A few examples will serve as types, representing the ortho-
dox teaching at the great centres of Catholic theology.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
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Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

One of these is seen in Spain. The eminent jurist Torre-
blanca was recognised as a controlling authority in all the
universities of Spain, and from these he swayed in the sev-
enteenth century the thought of Catholic Europe, especially
as to witchcraft and the occult powers in Nature. He lays
down the old cometary superstition as one of the founda-
tions of orthodox teaching. Begging the question, after the
fashion of his time, he argues that comets can not be stars,
because new stars always betoken good, while comets be-
token evil.

The same teaching was given in the Catholic universities
of the Netherlands. Fromundus, at Louvain, the enemy of
Galileo, steadily continued his crusade against all cometary
heresy."

But a still more striking case is seen in Italy. The rev-
erend Father Augustin de Angelis, rector of the Clementine
College at Rome, as late as 1673, after the new cometary
theory had been placed beyond reasonable doubt, and even
while Newton was working out its final demonstration, pub-
lished a third edition of his Lectures on Meteorology. It was
dedicated to the Cardinal of Hesse, and bore the express
sanction of the Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome and of
the head of the religious order to which De Angelis be-
longed. This work deserves careful analysis, not only as
representing the highest and most approved university
teaching of the time at the centre of Roman Catholic Chris-
tendom, but still more because it represents that attempt to
make a compromise between theology and science, or rather
the attempt to confiscate science to the uses of theology,
which we so constantly find whenever the triumph of sci-
ence in any field has become inevitable.

As to the scientific element in this compromise, De Ange-
lis holds, in his general introduction regarding meteorology,
that the main material cause of comets is " exhalation," and
says, *' If this exhalation is thick and sticky, it blazes into a
comet." And again he returns to the same view, saying
that ''one form of exhalation is dense, hence easily inflam-
mable and long retentive of fire, from which sort are espe-
cially generated comets." But it is in his third lecture that
he takes up comets specially, and his discussion of them is
extended through the fourth, fifth, and sixth lectures. Hav-
ing given in detail the opinions of various theologians and
philosophers, he declares his own in the form of two conclu-
sions. The first of these is that '* comets are not heavenly
bodies, but originate in the earth's atmosphere below the
moon ; for everything heavenly is eternal and incorruptible,
but comets have a beginning and ending — ergo, comets can
not be heavenly bodies." This, we may observe, is levelled
at the observations and reasonings of Tycho Brahe and Kep-
ler, and is a very good illustration of the scholastic and me-
diaeval method — the method which blots out an ascertained
fact by means of a metaphysical formula. His second con-
clusion is that " comets are of elemental and sublunary na-
ture ; for they are an exhalation- hot and dry, fatty and well
condensed, inflammable and kindled in the uppermost regions
of the air." He then goes on to answer sundry objections
to this mixture of metaphysics and science, and among other
things declares that " the fatty, sticky material of a comet
may be kindled from sparks falling from fiery heavenly
bodies or from a thunderbolt"; and, again, that the thick,
fatty, sticky quality of the comet holds its tail in shape, and
that, so far are comets from having their paths beyond the
moon's orbit, as Tycho Brahe and Kepler thought, he him-
self in 1618 saw '' a bearded comet so near the summit of
Vesuvius that it almost seemed to touch it." As to sorts
and qualities of comets, he accepts Aristotle's view, and
divides them into bearded and tailed.* He goes on into
long disquisitions upon their colours, forms, and motions.
Under this latter head he again plunges deep into a sea of
metaphysical considerations, and does not reappear until he
brings up his compromise in the opinion that their move-
ment is as yet uncertain and not understood, but that, if we
must account definitely for it, we must say that it is effect-
ed by angels especially assigned to this service by Divine
Providence. But, while proposing this compromise be-
tween science and theology as to the origin and movement
of comets, he will hear to none as regards their mission as
" signs and wonders " and presages of evil. He draws up a
careful table of these evils, arranging them in the following
order: Drought, wind, earthquake, tempest, famine, pesti-
lence, war, and, to clinch the matter, declares that the comet
observed by him in 1618 brought not only war, famine, pes-
tilence, and earthquake, but also a general volcanic eruption,
'' which would have destroyed Naples, had not the blood of
the invincible martyr Januarius withstood it."
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
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