COMETS.—No. 2.

Well then—we give up the question as to the danger of our earth jostling this comet of Biela, at least for the next century; but every one will admit that comets have a great influence on the temperature, and often cause dreadful epidemics. Thus say those who love to prophesy of evil; but we hope the present change of weather (October 5,) when the comet is many thousand miles nearer than he was during the warm weather of a few weeks back, will make people doubt a little before they attribute warm summers and autumns and good vintages, or bad summers and bad vintages (for comets are messengers both of good and evil,) to these much-abused and ill-understood wanderers.

We proceed to give a few more remarks, the substance of which may be found in Littrow:—

It is said that comets raise the temperature at the earth’s surface. In reply to this assertion, we give a list of those years from 1632 to 1785, which were remarkable for the unusual temperature either of their winter or their summer, and were likewise distinguished by the appearance of comets.

Comet years. Temperature. Comet years. Temperature.

1632† Hot summer. 1718 Severe winter.

1665 Severe winter. 1723† Hot summer.

1680 Ditto. 1729 Severe winter.

1682† Warm winter. 1737 Hot summer.

1683 Cold summer. 1744 Severe winter.

1683 Severe winter. 1748† Hot summer.

1684 Cold summer. 1764† Warm winter.

1689 Warm winter. 1766 Severe winter.

1695 Cold summer. 1769† Warm winter.

1699 Severe winter. 1771 Severe winter.

1701† Hot summer. 1774† Hot summer.

1702 Ditto. 1781† Ditto.

1702 Warm winter. 1783† Warm winter.

1706 Severe winter. 1784 Severe winter.

1718† Hot summer. 1785 Ditto.

Here in one hundred and fifty-three years we have fifteen marked (†), in which the comet may be supposed to have produced a greater degree of warmth; while it happens that there are just as many in which it may be said to have increased the cold. What, then, is the conclusion? Why, that the comet brings neither heat nor cold, at least none that we can discover. But there is another way of showing that comets do not bring warmth, and that if they cause any change at all in the temperature (which we do not affirm) we have as much right to say they bring cold.

From the register of the temperature kept at the Vienna Observatory, from the year 1800 to 1828 inclusive, it appears that in seven years, the average temperature of which exceeded the general average temperature at Vienna, there were ten comets; in five years, which fell below the average temperature, there were eight comets; and in six years, some of which were a little above and others a little below the average temperature, there were twelve comets. Or this result may be expressed in the following way:—

Comets.

For every 10 hot years 14

„ 10 cold ditto 16

„ 10, neither hot nor cold, ditto 20

But, after all, it may be said that though comets produce no change in the temperature that we can estimate, they may cause diseases and other calamities by acting in some way to us invisible and unknown. Forster, in his ‘Illustrations of the atmospherical origin of Epidemic Diseases,’ asserts that since the Christian era the most unhealthy years, and those most fruitful in all kinds of human calamities, have been marked by the appearance of great comets, and that on the contrary no great comet has ever appeared in a healthy year.

If any of our readers feel disposed to believe so bold an assertion, we beg they will read Littrow’s chapter on this subject, or get some good friend to read it to them, and we venture to say they will be for ever cured of all propensity to believe in the marvellous, unless the proofs are rather stronger than those which Forster produces. Littrow denies altogether the accuracy of Forster’s tables of the concurrence of diseases, &c. and comets; but, independent of this, why should a comet cause a particular disease in one part of the globe and not in another? or why, when the comet of 1668 appeared, should there be “a great mortality among the cats” in Westphalia only? and how did it happen that the Dutch and Flemish cats escaped? But to set the matter at rest, Littrow takes Forster’s table of diseases just as it is given, and compares it with Olber’s ‘Catalogue of all the known tracks of Comets,’ and to this he adds the catalogue of comets which Riccioli has collected out of the older writers. This comparison gives the following among many other results:—“A. D. 717. There was a three years’ plague in the East, and 300,000 men died at Constantinople alone.” But unfortunately there was no comet in this year, nor in any years nearer to this date than 684 and 729. As there was no comet in 717, we ought, according to Mr. Forster’s reasoning, not to believe that 300,000 men died at Constantinople; which, for our part, we are as little inclined to give credit to as to many other marvellous facts of the same kind which the chronicles register.

To take an example in favour of Mr. Forster;—“A.D. 1200. Plague in Egypt, in which about 10,000,000 of men died.” The Arabic writer, Ali ben Rodoan, mentions a comet in this year, the body of which was said to be three times as large as Venus; we can believe all this but not “the 10,000,000 men.”

We will add another instance, not in favour of Mr. Forster.

“1624. Destructive epidemic for five years through nearly all Europe. In London 35,000 men died; in 292Venice 90,000, and Italy lost the fourth part of its inhabitants,” &c. This may be true, but we believe not that Italy lost the fourth part of its population; nor, if this calamitous event did take place, do we believe there were then or are now any means of ascertaining the loss with such accuracy. But how stand the comets for this year? Alas! for theories without facts. Between 1618 and 1652 no comets are recorded.

We have spoken of the false fears which the presence of comets sometimes engender, in a tone which some persons may call by the name of levity. We have done so, because we believe that such fears, tending to make people unhappy, are best got rid of by a little good-natured ridicule. One of the best foundations of happiness is a confidence that the laws by which the universe is governed, however mysterious and inexplicable, are intended to sustain and preserve that wondrous mechanism which we so imperfectly understand, but which we know must proceed from the most perfect goodness as well as wisdom and power.

The errors which we have noticed regarding comets have in some cases been the errors of men whose judgments have been led astray by false assumptions. But there have not been wanting self-constituted interpreters of the designs of Providence, who have misled the ignorant by pronouncing comets to be the forerunners, sometimes of pestilence, at others of war, and at others of political or local occurrences, such as the Fire of London. Such predictions, like those connected with eclipses of the sun and moon, cannot be too strongly stigmatized, as proceeding either from the most presumptuous ignorance, or the most wicked imposture. It is quite enough for men to aim at an approximation to a knowledge of the system of the world, without taking upon themselves to assign supposed causes for the existence of this or that phenomenon—and those causes often the most frivolous and absurd. True knowledge leads not to presumption but to humility: and it would be well for those who take upon themselves to expound, with reference to passing events, the eternal ways of Providence, as if they were gods, knowing good and evil, to take example from the modesty of such immortal philosophers as Newton and Bacon; and, whilst confessing that the little that is known to men only serves to show the more clearly how much is unknown, to humble themselves before that great First Cause who made “the sun to rule the day, the moon and the stars to govern the night,—for his mercy endureth for ever!”