crescences.
When classical authors counsel us to set eggs under the hen at new
moon, and to root up trees only when the moon is waning and after
mid-day; and when "the wisest, brightest," if not the "meanest of
mankind" seriously attributes to the moon the extraction of heat, the
furtherance of putrification, the increase of moisture, and the
excitement of animal spirits, with the increase of hedges and herbs
if cut or set during certain phases of that body, we can but repeat to
ourselves the saying, "The best of men are but men at the best." The
half, however, has not been told; and we must now pass on to speak
of lunar influences upon the birth, health, intellect, and fortune of
microcosmical man.

In the system of astrology, which professed to interpret the events of
human existence by the movements of the stars, the moon was one
of the primary planets. As man was looked upon in the light of a
microcosm, or world in miniature, so the several parts of his
constitution were viewed as but a reproduction in brief of the great
parts of the vast organism. Creation was a living, intelligent being,
whose two eyes were the sun and the moon, whose body was the
earth, whose intellect was the ether, whose wings were the heavens.
Man was an epitome of all this; and as the functions of the less were
held to correspond with the functions of the greater, the microcosm
with the macrocosm, man's movements could be inferred by first
ascertaining the motions of the universe. The moon, having
dominion in the twelve "houses" of heaven, through which she
passed in the course of the year, her _aspects_ to the other bodies
were considered as of prime significance, in indicating benignant or
malignant influences upon human life. This system, which was
based upon ignorance and superstition, and upheld by arbitrary rules
and unreasoning credulity, is so repugnant to all principles of
science and common sense, that it would be unworthy of notice, if
we did not know that to this day there are educated persons still to
be seen poring over old almanacs and peering into the darkness of
divination, to read their own fortune or that of their children by the
dim light of some lucky or unlucky configuration of the planets with
the moon. The wheel of fortune yet revolves, and the despotism of
astrology is not dead. The lunar influence is considered supreme in
the hour of birth. Nay, with some the moon is potential even before
birth. In Iceland it is sa