n her light, to find her suddenly
waning, changing her form, withdrawing her bright beams, and looking
down upon them with a lurid and murky light, it was not surprising
that they felt an emotion of terror. In fact, there is always an
element of terror in the emotion excited by looking upon an eclipse,
which an instinctive feeling of the heart inspires. It invests the
spectacle with a solemn grandeur. It holds the spectator, however
cultivated and refined, in silence while he gazes at it. It mingles
with a scientific appreciation of the vastness of the movements and
magnitudes by which the effect is produced, and while the one occupies
the intellect, the other impresses the soul. The mind that has lost,
through its philosophy, the power of feeling this emotion of awe in
such scenes, has sunk, not risen. Its possessor has made himself
inferior, not superior, to the rest of his species, by having
paralyzed one of his susceptibilities of pleasure. To him an eclipse
is only curious and wonderful; to others it is sublime.

The soldiers of Alexander were extremely terrified. A great panic
spread throughout the encampment. Alexander himself, instead of
attempting to allay their fears by reasoning, or treating them as of
no importance, immediately gave the subject his most serious
attention. He called together the soothsayers, and directed them to
consult together, and let him know what this great phenomenon
portended. This mere committing of the subject to the attention of the
soothsayers had a great effect among all the soldiers of the army. It
calmed them. It changed their agitation and terror into a feeling of
suspense, in awaiting the answer of the soothsayers, which was far
less painful and dangerous; and at length, when the answer came, it
allayed their anxiety and fear altogether. The soothsayers said that
the sun was on Alexander's side, and the moon on that of the Persians,
and that this sudden waning of her light foreshadowed the defeat and
destruction which the Persians were about to undergo. The army were
satisfied with this decision, and were inspired with new confidence
and ardor. It is often idle to attempt to oppose ignorance and
absurdity by such feeble instruments as truth and reason, and the
wisest managers of mankind have generally been most successful when
their plan has been to counteract one folly by means of the influence
of another.

Alexander's army consisted of about fifty thousand men, with the
p