Translated From the "Gartenlaube," for The perstition which is so often met among per

Living Age.

sons, otherwise, educated. But, of course, not one of them admits being superstitious! They defend themselves by saying that the term superstition can not be at all strictly defined, that one person considers a thing superstitious which is very comprehensible and well-founded to another. And indeed, the usual way of defining superstition, as a belief in impossibilities, is not quite satisfactory. Let us try another.

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years ago, did not live to witness it! This distinguished physican has left us these excellent words on the subject of demons: that their existence and agency is to be presumed only when an ignoramus shall be able to speak correctly on scientific subjects, or keep his body freely suspended in the air for any length of time."

Ir is an established fact that since the great discoveries of modern times, Natural Superstition consists either in believing Science, which for centuries barely subsist- occurrences which contradict a known and ed, has been exercising considerable influ- recognized physical law, or in assuming suence upon intellectual development, and pernatural causes, contradictory to physical narrowing the province of superstition. laws, for certain natural phenomena actuStill the advantages thus far obtained should ally observed. As an instance of the fornot be overestimated. Though enlighten- mer we may mention a feat, directly miliment is the tendency of our age, we still tating against the law of gravitation, persee rank superstition everywhere; and not-formed some years ago by the notorious withstanding the immense strides in Natu- spiritualist Home before numbers of cultiral Philosophy in other fields, the arts, for vated Parisians, viz.: rising by some magic instance, we do not perceive an equal prog- force to the ceiling of the room, and hangress in dissipating error. The reason of ing there for several minutes. It is true, this is very obvious: all human beings have the room was dark, nor is it very evident an innate proneness to the marvellous, and how this remarkable suspension in the air hence to superstition. Phrenology, we was observed. What a pity Thomas Mayknow, assumes a special organ for the emo-erne, who died two hundred and fourteen tion of wonder, and however defective that science may be, or even if, with many, we regard it as only an empty hypothesis, it surely did not err in classing wonder among the attributes of the human mind, and assigning to it a particular seat in our brains. Truth can no more be discerned at that spot of the brain than a correct impression can be produced on a certain part of the retina; the strange, the inexplicable, and the mysterious, gain credence the more readily, the nearer they approach to the monstrous. A second reason why Natural Science has not yet been able to sweep and arrange the lumber-room of superstition is, Superstition manifests itself very differthat physics is by no means what it should ently in different individuals. From gross, the property of all the educated. palpable superstition up to the discernment What do we require of an educated man? of a mathematical truth a scale may be He must be able to speak and write with formed, with degrees as numerous, though correctness, he must be familiar with one not as precise, perhaps, as those on the or more sciences or arts; but it is not yet thermometer. Let us ascend this scale, held to show a want of education if he is leaving the benighted region of gross superscarcely acquainted with the nature and stition where, from a total ignorance of nafunctions of the skin, a subject affecting ture's laws, and an equally total want of him closely, if he has about as much knowl- unprejudiced observation, palpable impossiedge of the changes of substance, the cir- bilities are believed, where witchcraft calls culation of the blood, and the respiratory into life all sorts of vermin, where the fiery process, as a sophomore has of Sanskrit, dragon jumps down the chimney, where the if he is unable to explain the simplest phe- enchanter's wand discovers hidden treasnomena presenting themselves every instant ures, where horned and hornless spectres to his senses, because the law of falling bod-house-for the region shrouded in deep ies, the principles of friction, of sound, &c., are mysteries to him.

be

And this especially accounts for the su

To the second class of the above definition belongs the table-turning epidemic, recently prevalent, which, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, ascribed a phenomenon, easily explained by known mechanical laws, to certain magical forces hitherto unknown.

twilight, where we are received by spiritualistic murmurs, where tables dance and spirits rap, where, when it is convenient,

prophetic dreams are dreamed, and where "second sight" throws into the shade the functions of our brave visual organ.

sible to all external impressions, even to the most violent pain."

"Good," returns the other, then the moment has arrived to test your assertion effectually, both for the benefit of science and to convince the incredulous. Let us apply a hot iron to the soles of the lady's feet for a few moments and see whether all feeling is gone; I have brought the necessary articles with me, the iron, bandages, and a lenitive ointment."

The young physician assures all present that the young lady will, for the sake of science, cheerfully endure the pain she must experience on awaking. The searing iron is put into the fire, the old physician spreads out his linen, and the other young lady again falls into a swoon. At this juncture the sleeper's body is convulsed, and, fetching a deep sigh, she awakes and complains of indisposition. The old doctor gives her a piercing look, cools off his iron

Mounting higher, strong twilight still envelopes us, but its intensity is less than at the preceding degree of the scale. A dreadful sight here meets our eyes. Upon the floor lies a murdered man, with a deep cut in his head; one of the glassy eyes is removed from its socket and opened, when lo! upon the retina appears the murderer's well-executed photograph. Away from this ghastly spectacle, but before leaving this region let us enter yonder stately house, where stillness reigns supreme. A servant in livery, laying his finger upon his lips, shows us how to conduct ourselves, and softly opens the door of a chamber whose dim light reveals a pale young lady, stretched upon a couch and carefully covered by a shawl falling about her in picturesque folds. Several ladies and gentlemen stand round in reverent silence; nearest the bed in a glass of water, takes bis hat and cane we see a young man, regarding the sleeper with sympathy, and occasionally feeling her pulse. Behind him is an old gentleman, whose cold piercing eyes likewise rest upon the sleeper. Now she opens her lips and in a sweet flute-like voice says: "I shall sleep for nearly two hours; at four and a half minutes of nine I shall awake." Again profound silence ensues. Doctor," cries the sleeper, in a tone expressing fear, haste and remove from the coat pocket on your left side what you have there; the gold is burning me, and the diamonds are darting their sharp rays into my brain!"

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With an expression of the most intense astonishment the young physician draws from his pocket, and hands to the bystanders a red morocco case, which being opened is found to contain a diamond ring. Hereupon another young lady struck by the miracle falls into a swoon, the while a malicious smile of irony flits across the old gentleman's face. The somnambulist's bosom now heaves with deeper inspirations. Drawing a letter from his pocket, the young physician lays it upon the sleeper's abdomen and desires her to read it aloud, which is done without any hesitation or stammering on her part. Another pause, when an ecstatic smile crosses the somnambulist's counte

nance.

"O Moon!" again are heard those flutelike accents, "dear, sweet Moon! How my soul rejoices to be again in thy realms of light!"

Now," whispers the young practitioner to his elder colleague," she has reached the highest stage of clairvoyance, the somnambulist is now a purely spiritual being, insen

and departs, a multitude of indignant looks following him. E. T. A. Hoffman, by whom this occurrence is related, forgot to add that the old gentleman lost several former patients of his who were present; but that the somnambulist, on the other hand, continued her business with undiminished funds.

Those inhabiting this region of our scale, though loth to part from things so grateful to their lively imaginations, still have a certain honest respect for Dame Nature, since they rest their belief in these miraculous occurrences upon the agency of certain physical forces, as yet, they say, not sufficiently investigated. We shall return to this matter and only observe incidentally, that in this region the weather changes every Friday and with every change of the moon, and that every March fog is packed into an invisible receiver, where being imprisoned for exactly one hundred days it is released in the shape of a majestic thunderstorm.

Time and space bid us hasten our journey. Let us cast but one look into yonder strange land, with its dim, magical light, by which all objects appear blending their outlines. This is the land of the philosophers of nature, extensively peopled some decennaries ago, but at present inhabited by only few people, who are given to revery and musing. The philosophers of nature put up strange systems. Foremost with them stands their principle, and from it they deduce the phenomena observed - an operation which does not always pass off smoothly, being the exact reverse of the method now universally regarded as correct in in

We now rapidly pass that degree of our scale where are to be seen the dilettanti of physical science. Here we meet with an eager desire to gain an insight into and comprehend the great natural phenomena in a manner not too difficult or troublesome. Lacking the attainments and learning necessary for individual, laborious research, the dilettanti require a leader, upon whom depends their favorable progress or complete misguidance. Fortunately, the number of good leaders greatly predominates ever since professional men no longer disdain to lecture upon their science in language intelligible and palatable to all the educated. Such books as the great astronomer Bessel's popular lectures, Schleiden's " Vegetable Life," Cotta's " Letters on the Cosmos," Vogt's "The Ocean and the Mediterranean," Pöppig's "Travels," are in every respect ornaments to literature.

We have now reached the topmost part of our scale. Here stand the scientific men, laboring assiduously to fathom nature and her laws, to " bring to light golden truths," and carefully removing the imagination beyond their reach, as a veritable disturber of peace.

Yes,

vestigating nature, and which is rigorously may include physical forces or laws hitherto pursued. unknown it is not possible to deny. in relation to the highest problem of physical research it must be roundly conceded that the law underlying human thought, the rise of the individual to self-consciousness, remains unknown and will, perhaps, be never fully understood. In speaking, however, of natural laws yet to be discovered, two things should never be forgotten: First, no law of nature will or can ever be discovered contradicting, or forming an exception to, a law of nature already known. Even apparent deviations from a natural law always, on closer examination, confirm and strengthen it. The discovery of the planet Neptune, predicted with certainty by the celebrated Bessel, in 1840, from irregularities in the revolution of Uranus, and made seven years later according to Leverrier's calculations, affords us a glorious instance hereof. Contradictions may indeed occur in human codes, but never in that great law-book of Nature lying open to our view. Secondly, it is equally certain that the whole course of development hitherto observed in the natural sciences leads us to expect a simplification, a reduction, rather than a multiplication of physical laws or forces. Not many years ago electricity, galvanism, and magnetism were regarded as entirely distinct forces, having no connection with one another; now we know that all three are but modifications of a single force, or, to speak more correctly, an essential property of matter. Similar views will at no very distant day be expressed relative to heat, chemical processes, and various phenomena in organic life. It is, therefore, highly improbable that future scientific discoveries will make known to us new physical laws; but there can not be a doubt that unknown modifications of known laws, and varieties in their mode of action will be revealed. Illimitable as is the domain of research, and numberless as are the phenomena calling out the naturalist's industry and penetration, yet his most important task will essentially consist in deducing this infinitude of phenomena from very few natural laws, and in demonstrating the causal relation between them. This task is a vast one, which will never be fully accomplished; our knowledge will always be incomplete and bounded, but every age will pass the limits of the age preceding, Cotta has beautifully and tersely expressed this in the words: "There is no eternal bound to the explorer, but eternally a bound!"

It is a sad fact that if we enter any large company of intelligent people, we shall find very few not occupying one of the middle points of our scale at some time or other. am acquainted with many highly educated men, who have rendered excellent services to art and science, natural science alone excepted. As might be supposed of such men they are ardent friends of enlightenment, and ridicule superstition as every body does. Yet, hidden in the remotest nooks of their souls, I have found one, several, nay, many views and convictions belonging to what, by a contradictio in adjecto, may be termed physical mysticism, if we would avoid that offensive word superstition. In the discussions to which their opinions gave rise I have invariably encountered this argument: Nature is by no means fully explored as yet; there is, doubtless, many a physical law, as yet undiscovered, which would explain this or that phenomenon, now referred by us to the province of superstition. This objection being heard so very often, it may not be improper to say a few words regarding it here.

No physicist will be foolish enough to gainsay that his science is yet in its nonage, and gladly will he admit that the field of discoveries to be expected from the future is without limits. That these discoveries

From what has been said it appears that accounts of new and wonderful phenomena or facts, seemingly at variance with

known physical laws, should not find in- cism when investigating and explaining stant credence. They should be received natural phenomena! In nature there is with doubt, nay, with distrust. For in an nothing mystical; all is clearness, order, infinite number of such cases an unbiassed and strict logical sequence, and in every examination shows that the whole matter case, without exception, this à priori conhas deception, not reality, for its basis, or viction should determine our judgment. is no more than a simple occurrence, which, embellished by the imagination and spread, is the more readily credited the more wonderful it is.

But what of that mysterious disease, somnambulism? Can it be disputed that the moon causes somnambulists to walk in their sleep? I answer: no! but let us see how the moon acts, in order to convince ourseives that it has no wish to fraternize with mysticism. It may be assumed that sleepwalking is an abnormally vivid state of dreaming, not only of the reproductive but also of the volitive faculty. Now, it is established that such vivid dreams are promoted by every thing causing unquiet sleep, e.g., a heavy supper, stimulating drinks,

A few examples will illustrate with what ease and frivolity things are believed which the simplest investigation resolves into air. One of them is related by Bessel. In St. Malo, in France, where the tide rises to an uncommon height, it was regarded as settled that deaths took place only at the time of the water's falling. Opportunities continually offered to put this remarkable phenomenon to the proof, but it was never and other causes. It is a fact which has doubted. At length the French Academy been frequently observed that, owing to sent a commission to convince themselves, these influences, somnambulists, or sleepthen and there, of the truth of this singular walkers, often make their perambulations fact, when it was found that people died at times when moonlight is not marked in during the water's rise as well as during its the almanac, and we all know that there are fall, and that for a hundred years, accord- many persons, quite healthy too, who can ing to the parish registers, neither ebb nor not sleep at all, or only badly, when a light flow had anywise affected the mortality. is burning in their bed-rooms, by reason of being unused to it. Precisely the same influence is exercised by the moon's light on persons inclined to somnambulism. Hence some have hit upon the excellent idea to prevent the moonlight from entering the somnambulist's sleeping-room by means of shutters or thick curtains, and behold! the somnambulist remained quietly in his bed, not troubling himself about the full moon that shone brightly outside. The experiment was then reversed and, at a time when there was no moonlight, a brightly burning candle having been brought into the somnambulist's chamber, he was seen to walk in his sleep as though the finest full moon were ruling the sky.

It is a well-known assertion that a vessel filled with water, does not increase in weight if a live fish is put into it. King George of England, being desirous to learn the cause of so extraordinary a phenomenon, requested an explanation from the learned men of the country. This occasioned several very profound dissertations in which all sorts of strange hypotheses were advanced. Only one of the gentlemen hit upon the queer idea of trying the experiment before delivering an opinion, and lo! he discovered the vessel's weight to be increased by exactly the weight of the fish.

But if, after a proper examination, it should appear that a surprising phenomenon, not instantly to be accounted for by Every popular manual of astronomy will known physical laws has actually been ob- give us information concerning our nearest served, let there be no haste in giving a neighbor in space, the moon, will tell us specious explanation by some newly-discov- its distance, magnitude, gravity, the time ered law. If our own knowledge and ob- it requires to revolve upon its axis, -in servation are insufficient to clear up the short, all the discoveries science has made matter, let us wait patiently and we shall live with respect to the moon since nearly two to see the quiet, scientific research of oth- hundred years. But are there not a multiers subjecting the new phenomenon to the tude of observations touching that body old laws. Let us have done, once for all, made in the long row of centuries before with these self-styled explanations of some-Galileo and Newton? Is it not known that thing obscure by something equally ob- the moon has a powerful influence on the scure; let us have done with such phrases weather and on vegetation? that it acts as we cannot know whether," and, "it upon the human nerves, compelling many a may be that; " let us have done resorting poor mortal to leave his nice warm bed at to something which does not exist, to an night and promenade the ridges of the roof unknown law which has yet to be discov- by moonlight? that its magic influence exered! And above all, away with all mysti-tends even to where none of its beams can

very experience which contradicts the opinion of the moon's weather-making. I do not, it is true, mean that experience which is gained by the individual and inexperienced observer, who occasionally notes when rainy weather happens to set in about the time of the new moon, or fair weather at the moon's full; but that experience which is acquired in observatories and at meteor

penetrate, namely, to the worms in the intestinal tube? To these questions I reply that if men of science have failed to give us information concerning these and a thousand other of the moon's influences upon the earth, they must have had their reasons for so doing; they wish to present only actual facts, founded on accurate observation, but not "moonshine fancies." Let us give a few minutes to these supposed lunar influ-ological stations, where the general nature ences, the more as it is our duty to dislodge the imagination from a province where it has no business.

As has already been said, things are the more readily believed the more they tickle the fancy, and hence it is no sufficient reason to regard a thing as true because it has been accepted for years or even centuries. Unprejudiced observation must decide, and it proves by thousands of cases that the condition of the intestinal tube, and the effect of vermifuges, is precisely the same at the increasing as at the waning moon. If, therefore, there are physicians who to this day administer a vermifuge during the moon's wane, the consoling assurance is theirs that its action will be the same as if administered during the moon's increase.

of the weather, the state of the barometer, the direction of the wind, and the degree of moisture in the atmosphere, are recorded twice or three times every day. Now the tables at the Munich observatory, kept for more than forty years and with the greatest care, inform us that on the days of the full moon, of the new moon, and of the two quarters, respectively, the weather does not change more often, or more rarely, than on any other day. Only such experience is entitled to consideration.

The moon's physical influence upon our earth is in common life very greatly overrated. This influence, according to the known laws of physics, can be exerted in only three ways: by the moon's attraction, by the reflected light of the sun which it The belief in a special lunar influence sends to the earth, and by the emission of upon the growth of plants results from very heat. The moon's attractive power, in se defective observation and is altogether un-six times less than the earth's, dwindles into founded. It is said, for instance, that wood, a mere nothing for objects on the earth's cut during the moon's increase, rots faster than that felled during the moon's wane; but at no time and nowhere has this assertion ever been tested by a single and sensibly made experiment. One person echoes this absurdity after the other, yet it has never entered anybody's head to fell two trees, equally sound and of the same kind, to keep them under the like circumstances, and then to watch the changes. The same remarks are applicable to the assertion that certain plants thrive only when planted during the waning moon, while the contrary is the case with others. We all know that not every thing which is planted, or sown, thrives, nevertheless these people are very careful in noting every instance where a plant, put into the ground at the wrong time of the moon, did not thrive as a new confirmation of their rule; the instances, however, where a plant, planted at the right time, did not thrive, are attributed to the weather!

And the weather! Does not experience teach us that the moon surely has an important influence upon it? My answer is: no! the moon has not only no important. influence on the weather, but not even any which is in the least demonstrable; and if experience be appealed to, I reply that it is that

surface, as, owing to the distance of fiftytwo thousand miles, it is greatly preponderated by the earth's attraction; so that its action may indeed be calculated, but on account of its extreme smallness, can not be an object of perception. If when the moon is overhead, we send a soap-bubble or feather into the air, we shall not be able to perceive the moon exerting the least attraction. But how is it with the phenomena of the tides? They depend, as is known, on the sun's and moon's attraction, the moon, much smaller but much nearer, attracting by a third more strongly than the sun. The elevation caused by this combined attraction contains about one hundred cubic miles of water,- a mass which, in round numbers, weighs the trifle of one thousand billion hundred-weights. But it would be a grievous error to suppose that this enormous weight is raised by the moon in the same manner that a man lifts a hundred weight, or a magnet attracts a nail. Looking at the glassy surface of an inland lake, and though it be never so large, when the moon is in the zenith, not the slightest rise of the tide will be marked. The conditions upon which high-water is dependent are furnished by the extraordinary facility with which small particles of water are dis