Note 189 — PART THE SECOND. (continued 2)
Reading edition
"It is known to you that for some days past people have been incessantly inquiring what is the occasion of the thick dry fog which almost constantly covers the heavens? And, as this question is particularly put to astronomers, I think myself obliged to say a few words on the subject, more especially since a kind of terror begins to spread in society. It is said by some, that the disasters in Calabria were preceded by similar weather; and by others, that a dangerous comet reigns at present. In 1773 I experienced how fast conjectures of this kind, which begin amongst the ignorant, even in the most enlightened ages, proceed from mouth to mouth, till they reach the best societies, and find their way even to the public prints. The multitude, therefore, may easily be supposed to draw strange conclusions, when they see the sun of a blood colour, shed a melancholy light, and cause a most sultry heat.
"This, however, is nothing more than a very natural effect from a hot sun, after a long succession of heavy rain. The first impression of heat has necessarily and suddenly rarefied a superabundance of watery particles with which the earth was deeply impregnated, and given them, as they rose, a dimness and rarefaction not usual to common fogs,
"De La Lande."
The danger to which men of philosophical minds seem to be peculiarly exposed is the habit of accounting for the phenomena of nature too exclusively by the operation of mere secondary causes; while the supreme agency of a first Great Cause is too much overlooked. The universality of these appearances occurring at the same time in England, France, Italy, and so many other countries, awakens reflections of a more solemn cast, in a mind imbued with Christian principles. He who reads Professor Barruel's work, and the concurring testimony adduced by Robinson, as to the extent of infidelity and even atheism, gathering at that time in the different states of Europe, might, we think, see in these signs in the moon, and in the stars, and in the heavens, some intimations of impending judgments, which followed so shortly after; and evidences of the power and existence of that God, which many so impiously questioned and defied.