Chapter IV

FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW IN THE HEAVENS.

I. The Theological View.
Early beliefs as to comets, meteors, and eclipses
Their inheritance by Jews and Christians
The belief regarding comets especially harmful as a source of
superstitious terror
Its transmission through the Middle Ages
Its culmination under Pope Calixtus III
Beginnings of scepticism--Copernicus, Paracelsus, Scaliger
Firmness of theologians, Catholic and Protestant, in its support

II. Theological Efforts to crush the Scientific View.
The effort through the universities.--The effort through the
pulpits
Heerbrand at Tubingen and Dieterich at Marburg
Maestlin at Heidelberg
Buttner, Vossius, Torreblanca, Fromundus
Father Augustin de Angelis at Rome
Reinzer at Linz
Celichius at Magdeburg
Conrad Dieterich's sermon at Ulm
Erni and others in Switzerland
Comet doggerel
Echoes from New England--Danforth, Morton, Increase Mather

III. The Invasion of Scepticism.
Rationalism of Cotton Mather, and its cause
Blaise de Vigenere
Erastus
Bekker, Lubienitzky, Pierre Petit
Bayle
Fontenelle
The scientific movement beneath all this

IV. Theological Efforts at Compromise.--The Final Victory of
Science.
The admission that some comets are supralunar
Difference between scientific and theological reasoning
Development of the reasoning of Tycho and Kepler--Cassini, Hevel,
Doerfel, Bernouilli, Newton
Completion of the victory by Halley and Clairaut
Survivals of the superstition--Joseph de Maistre, Forster Arago's
statistics
The theories of Whiston and Burnet, and their influence in
Germany
The superstition ended in America by the lectures of Winthrop
Helpful influence of John Wesley
Effects of the victory