il spirits, alike in the Jewish, Grecian,
and Roman philosophy." [376] The terrible disorder was a fact; and
evil spirits or the moon had to bear the blame.

In modern times the moon is no less the deity of insalutary disaster.
Of Mexico, Brinton says: "Very different is another aspect of the
moon-goddess, and well might the Mexicans paint her with two
colours. The beneficent dispenser of harvests and offspring, she
nevertheless has a portentous and terrific phase. She is also the
goddess of the night, the dampness, and the cold; she engenders the
miasmatic poisons that rack our bones; she conceals in her mantle
the foe who takes us unawares; she rules those vague shapes which
fright us in the dim light; the causeless sounds of night or its more
oppressive silence are familiar to her; she it is who sends dreams
wherein gods and devils have their sport with man, and slumber, the
twin brother of the grave." [377] So farther south, "the Brazilian
mother carefully shielded her infant from the lunar rays, believing
that they would produce sickness; the hunting tribes of our own
country will not sleep in its light, nor leave their game exposed to
its action. We ourselves have not outgrown such words as lunatic,
moon-struck, and the like. Where did we get these ideas? The
philosophical historian of medicine, Kurt Sprengel, traces them to
the primitive and popular medical theories of ancient Egypt, in
accordance with which all maladies were the effects of the anger of
the goddess Isis, the moisture, the moon." [378] Perhaps Dr.
Brinton's own Mexican myth is a better elucidation of this origin of
nocturnal evil than that which traces it to Egypt. According to an
ancient tradition in Mexico, "it is said that in the absence of the sun
all mankind lingered in darkness. Nothing but a human sacrifice
could hasten his arrival. Then Metzli, the moon, led forth one
Nanahuatl, the leprous, and building a pyre, the victim threw
himself in its midst. Straightway Metzli followed his example, and
as she disappeared in the bright flames, the sun rose over the
horizon. Is not this a reference to the kindling rays of the aurora, in
which the dark and baleful night is sacrificed, and in whose light the
moon presently fades away, and the sun comes forth?" [379] We
venture to think that it is, and that it is nearest to a natural
explanation of purely natural effects.

Coming next to Britain, we find that "no prejudice has been more
firmly rivet