spirit of incredulity which
rejects facts, without attempting to investigate them, is, in some
cases, more injurious than an unquestioning credulity."[22] If a popular
belief or prejudice be absurd, its traditional preservation for a
thousand years or more may very well account for the absurdity.

The present system of astronomy still retains the motley garniture of
the celestial sphere, as handed down from the most remote antiquity; and
granting that ages of ignorance and superstition have involved the
history of the different constellations in a chaos of contradictory
traditions, there is no doubt at the foundation some seeds of truth
which may even yet emerge from the rubbish of fable, and bear fruit most
precious. That the zodial[23] signs are significant records of something
worthy of being preserved, is prejudice to deny; and we must be allowed
to regard the Gorgons and Hydras of the skies as interesting problems
yet unsolved, as well as to consider that the belief in lunar influence
is a fragment of a true system of natural philosophy which has become
more and more debased in postdiluvian times. Amongst those who have not
summarily ignored the influence of the moon, is Toaldo, a Spanish
physicist, who endeavored to show the connection between the recurrence
of warm and cold seasons, and the semi-revolution of the lunar nodes and
apogee, and proposed six of those periods, or about fifty-four years, as
the cycle in which the changes of the weather would run through their
course. According to the present theory, it is not likely such a cycle
will ever be discovered. There are too many secular, as well as periodic
influences combining, to produce the effect; and the times are too
incommensurable. Lately, Mr. Glaisher has presented a paper to the Royal
Society, giving about fourteen years from observation. Others have
lately attempted to connect the changes of the seasons with the solar
spots, as well as with the variations of the magnetism of the earth, but
without any marked result.

It may, however, be urged, that if the sidereal period of the moon be
approximately a cycle of change, it would have been detected long ago.
One reason why this has been so long concealed, is the high latitude of
the observers. Spain, Italy, and Turkey, are better situated than other
European countries; but the scientific nations lie further north; and
from these the law has gone forth to regulate more southern lands. In
the United St