John Candee Dean

“ Thus mythology explained astronomical phenomena; the sun, moon, planets, clouds, dawn, and night with its black mantle bespangled with stars, became animated things. The sun, when setting in the brilliant evening clouds, then became Hercules in the fiery pile.
While mythology obstructed scientific progress by finding sacred explanations for every natural event, there were a few gifted, inquisitive minds among the Greeks that sought for knowledge behind the painted curtain of superstition. Thales of the sixth century b.c., was the father of Greek astronomy. ”

“ While faith may supplement observation in the search for truth, we must not confuse supernatural faith with the natural faith of science. Mark Twain has defined the former as "believing something that you know is not true." The natural faith of science and of practical life is drawn from experience. Kant, Hume, Huxley and Haeckel agree that all knowledge of the reality of phenomena is limited to that revealed to us by experience. Belief must rest on evidence. That belief which is not founded on evidence is both illogical and immoral. ”

“ While it is true that there is but a small circle of people interested in what is called physical 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. ”

“ The discoveries of the laws of the indestructibility of force and matter, the unity of nature, the mechanical theory of heat; inorganic and organic evolution and the universality of law, have explained many mysterious phenomena, and forced them out of the darkness of the supernatural to the light of the natural. It has been said that mystery has now been driven from the universe. ”

“ Philosophy is the science of which all others are but branches, hence philosophy lies in the province of physical science and not in that of letters. Haeckel says: "All true natural science is philosophy and all true philosophy is natural science." ”

“ Every one knows that they cause war, pestilence and famine. He had observed a comet at Naples which was so close that its tail almost touched Vesuvius, and it would have destroyed Naples but for the blood of the martyr Januarius. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is kept in balance by the mountains, and the sky is supported above by a huge dome so perfect that it is impossible to discover a crack in it. Above are the seven heavens, ranged one over the other, the uppermost being the abode of God, which does not rest on the earth, but is supported by winged animals. Meteors are red-hot stones thrown by angels at bad spirits, when they approach too near the seventh heaven. Of the many creation myths, the Jewish story is the one most familiar to us. According to this narrative the universe was miraculously created in six days. ”

“ One of the curious astronomical superstitions that originated with the Chaldeans, and which persisted almost to our own times, was that of the crystalline spheres. The idea of a spherical universe was a very natural one. It was difficult to see how thousands of bodies could revolve around the earth for generations, without change in their relative positions, unless there was something to retain them in their places. ”

“ Gods, men, monsters and heroes familiarly associated and acted their parts, before man had learned to judge by evidence and to place a limit on probability. The sun, the moon and the earth were living beings filled with demons, and sorcery governed belief. Under these conditions there arose no astronomical or geographical difficulties, for where superstition rules evidence becomes useless. ”

“ He taught that the earth is spherical and that the moon receives her light from the sun. Anaxagoras ascribed eclipses of the moon to natural causes and taught the existence of a creative intelligence. ”

“ Galileo conclusively confirmed the correctness of the heliocentric theory, but faith in the supernatural motion of the planets was undisturbed. Not until the genius of Newton had discovered 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. ”

“ Belief in the miraculous and the transcendental rests on the assumption that outside and beyond the natural world active forces exist that have no material basis, and of which we can learn nothing by experience, or by any natural means. ”

“ It was believed that the planets and stars were set in a series of concentric orbs or spheres, each so perfectly transparent that bodies in the outer ones were visible through all the intervening ones. The drawing shows the order of the spheres and the system of the universe according to Ptolemy. The earth is in the center enclosed by the sphere of the moon, beyond are the concentric spheres of Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Outside of all are the crystalline heavens and the abode of the blessed. ”

“ Newton's astrophysical discoveries placed the solar system on a mechanical basis and dispensed with the planetary guiding angels. Empirical science has since shown that every phenomenon has its mechanical cause, while Darwin's "Descent of Man" has shattered the dogma of anthropocentricism. In the operation of cosmic forces it may now be said that events occur by mechanical necessity regardless of man's interests. ”

“ Progress became possible only when science essayed to explain observed phenomena by depending on natural causation.
For ages the superstitions of astrology ruled the world by the 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the infancy of the human race men have attempted to explain things according to their external appearances, and whatever was strange or vast, especially if it had visible motion, impressed the beholder with the fear of invisible powers. ”

“ From the end of the fourth to the beginning of the fifteenth century 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 the 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 underground must be planted when the moon is waning. ”

“ Pocket all your knowledge with your watch and never pull it out in company 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. ”

“ It also assailed the dogma of the crystalline spheres, because the motion of a superlunar comet would send it crashing through the spheres. It was hard for superstitious man to give up the "signs of the heavens" that had so long misguided him. As late as the latter part of the seventeenth century a book was published by Father De Angelis, of the Clementine College, Rome, in defense of the old cometary faith. He claimed that comets originate in our atmosphere below the moon. Everything heavenly is eternal. We see the beginning and ending of comets, hence they are not heavenly bodies. ”

“ The astronomical ideas of primitive people have been similar the world over. The cosmogony of the Mahometans, as presented in the Koran, is so puerile as to be unworthy of serious consideration. It teaches that the earth is flat and floats in the sea. ”

“ People gave up all hope and prepared for their doom. Again in 1607 it alarmed the world by its appearance and the churches filled with terror-stricken multitudes. Kepler, who was then imperial astronomer at Prague, quietly traced its course and discovered that it was outside of the moon's orbit. Tycho had made the same observation respecting a bright comet that appeared thirty years earlier. The announcement of Kepler's discovery caused a great outcry because it attacked the very foundations of the cometary superstitions. ”

“ People were so wedded to ancient errors that it required one hundred years of telescopic work to bring the Copernican system out of the realms of hypothesis. For generations the universities taught both the geocentric and the heliocentric systems, leaving the student to decide which was right. ”

“ Such dualistic beliefs are purely idealistic and are evolved from the activity of the brain called emotion. Emotion has nothing to do with the attainment of truth and all doctrines, or opinions, are to be suspected, that are favored by our passions. ”