Many people, and in some instances whole communities, always commence plowing, sowing, and reaping on Tuesday, though by this rule the most favorable weather for these purposes is frequently lost. Others, again, will not, on any account, perform certain kinds of labor on Friday. The age of the moon is also much attended to in many parts of the world. Among the vulgar Highlanders, an opinion prevails, that if a house takes fire while the moon is in the decrease, the family will from that time decline in its circumstances and sink into poverty. In this country, equally unfounded and ridiculous opinions are entertained. Passing by the more commonly received opinions that if swine are killed in the old of the moon, the pork will shrink in the pot; that seed sown at this time will be less likely to do well, etc., etc., I will mention one or two instances of opinions which, although equally well founded, are less commonly received, and which may therefore more forcibly impress the popular mind. A few years ago, I spent some months in a neighboring state, in a community where the belief was commonly entertained that shingles should not be laid nor stakes driven in the old of the moon, because the former would be more likely to warp, and the latter to be thrown by the frost. The same and kindred opinions are extensively held in various portions of the United States.
These are a few, and but a very few, of the superstitious notions and vain fears by which the great majority of the human race, in every age and country, have been enslaved, as he who will take the pains to peruse Dr. Dick's admirable treatise on the improvement of society by the diffusion of knowledge can not fail to be convinced. That such absurd notions should ever have prevailed is a most grating and humiliating thought, when we consider the noble faculties with which man is endowed. That they still prevail to a great extent, even in our own country, is a striking proof that as yet we are, as a people, but just emerging from the gloom of intellectual darkness. The prevalence of such opinions is to be regretted, not only on account of the groundless alarms they create, but chiefly on account of the false ideas they inspire with regard to the nature of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and of his arrangements in the government of the world. He whose mind is enlightened with true science perceives throughout all nature the most striking evidences of benevolent design, and rejoices in the benignity of the Great Parent of the universe, discovering nothing in the arrangements of the Creator, in any department of his works, which has a direct tendency to produce pain to any intelligent or sensitive being. The superstitious man, on the contrary, contemplates the sky, the air, the waters, and the earth as filled with malicious beings, ever ready to haunt him with terror or to plot his destruction. The former contemplates the Deity directing the movements of the material world by fixed and invariable laws, which none but himself can counteract or suspend. The latter views these movements as continually liable to be controlled by capricious and malignant beings to gratify the most trivial passions. How very different, of course, must be their conceptions and feelings respecting the attributes and government of the Supreme Being! While the one views him as the infinitely wise and benevolent Father, whose paternal care and goodness inspire confidence and affection, the other must regard him, in a certain degree, as a capricious being, and offer up his adorations under the influence of fear.
These and like notions have also an evident tendency to habituate the mind to false principles and processes of reasoning which unfit it for legitimate conclusions in its researches after truth. They manifestly chain down the understanding, and unfit it for the appreciation of those noble and enlarged views which revelation and modern science exhibit of the order, extent, and economy of the universe. It is lamentable to reflect that so many thousands of beings endowed with the faculty of reason, who can not by any means be persuaded of the motion of the earth, and the distances and magnitudes of the heavenly bodies, should swallow, without the least hesitation, opinions ten thousand times more improbable. Notwithstanding the mathematical certainty of the truth of the Copernican system of astronomy, I have never yet become extensively acquainted with any community in which I have not found many persons professing a respectable degree of intelligence, and even official members of orthodox churches, who entirely discredit its sublime teachings; and yet some of these very persons find little difficulty in believing that an old woman can transform herself into a hare, and wing her way through the air on a broomstick. What contracted notions such persons must have of the almightiness of the Deity, and of the infinite depth of meaning of the following and like passages of Scripture: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.—Ps. xix., 1-2.
It has been already remarked, that the whole history of the world justifies the statement that ignorant and uncultivated mind is prone to sensuality and cruelty. Spain and Hungary were referred to in illustration. We are now prepared to remark, what is worse still, that where such superstitious notions as we have been considering are held, even by persons who are somewhat educated, they almost invariably lead to the perpetration of deeds of cruelty and injustice. Many of the barbarities committed in pagan countries, both in their religious worship and their civil polity, and most of the cruelties inflicted on the victims of the Romish Inquisition, have flowed from this source.[33] Nor are the annals of Great Britain and the United States deficient in examples of this kind. About the commencement of the last century, the belief in witchcraft, which was almost universal throughout Christendom, was held in both of these countries. The laws of England, which admitted its existence and punished it with death, were adopted by the Puritans of New England, and in less than twenty years from the founding of the colony, one individual was tried and executed for the supposed crime. Half a century later the delusion broke out in Salem. A minister, whose daughter and niece were subject to convulsions accompanied by extraordinary symptoms, supposing they were bewitched, cast his suspicions on an Indian woman who lived in the house, and who was whipped until she confessed herself a witch; and the truth of the confession, although obtained in this way, was not doubted. During the same year more than fifty persons were terrified into the confession of witchcraft, twenty of whom were put to death. Neither age, sex, nor station afforded any safeguard against a charge for this supposed crime. Women and children not only were its victims, but magistrates were condemned, and a clergyman of the highest respectability was among the executed. So late as 1722 a woman was burned for witchcraft in Scotland, which was among the last executions in that country.
It appears that these superstitious notions, so far from being innocent and harmless speculations, lead to the most deplorable results; they ought, therefore, to be undermined and thoroughly eradicated by all persons who wish to promote the happiness and well-being of general society. This duty is especially incumbent upon parents and teachers, and can be effected only by rendering correct early education universal. Ignorance of the laws and economy of nature is the one great source of these absurd opinions. They have not only no foundation in nature or experience, but are directly opposed to both. In proportion, then, as we advance in our researches into Nature's economy and laws, shall we perceive their futility and absurdity. As in other cases, take away the cause, and the effect will be removed.
Education will dissipate all these evils. It is true that an acquaintance with a number of dead languages, with Roman and Grecian antiquities, with the subtleties of metaphysics, with pagan mythology, and with politics and poetry, may coexist with these superstitions, as was true in the case of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, who believed in ghosts and in the second sight. However important in other respects these departments of an extensive and varied education may be, they do not form an effectual barrier against the admission of superstitious opinions. In order to do this, the mind must be directed to the study of the material universe, to contemplate the various appearances it presents, and to mark well the uniform results of those invariable laws by which it is governed. In particular, the attention should be directed to those discoveries which have been made by philosophers in the different departments of nature and art during the last two centuries. For this purpose, the study of natural history, as recording the various facts respecting the atmosphere, the waters, the earth, and animated beings, combined with the study of natural philosophy and astronomy, as explaining the causes of the phenomena of nature, will have a happy tendency to eradicate from the mind superstitious and false notions, and at the same time will present to view objects of delightful contemplation. Let a person be once thoroughly convinced that nature is uniform in her operations, and governed by regular laws impressed by an all-wise and benevolent Being, and he will soon be inspired with confidence, and will not easily be alarmed at any occasional phenomena which at first sight might appear as exceptions to the general rule.
Let persons be taught, for example, that eclipses are occasioned merely by the shadow of one opaque body falling upon another; that they are the necessary result of the inclination of the moon's orbit to that of the earth; that, if these orbits were in the same plane, there would be an eclipse of the sun and of the moon every month, the former occurring at the change, and the latter at the full of the moon; that the times when they do actually take place depend on the new or full moon happening at or near the points of intersection of the orbits of the earth and moon, and that other planets which have moons experience eclipses of a similar nature. Let them also be taught that the comets are regular bodies belonging to our system, which finish their revolutions and appear and disappear in stated periods of time; that the northern lights, though seldom seen in southern climes, are frequent in the regions of the North, and supply the inhabitants with light in the absence of the sun, and have probably a relation to the magnetic and electric fluids; that the ignes fatui are harmless lights, formed by the ignition of a certain species of gas produced in the soils above which they hover; and that the notes of the death-watch, so far from being presages of death, are ascertained to be the notes of love and presages of hymeneal intercourse among these little insects.
Let rational information of this kind be imparted to people generally, and they will learn to contemplate nature with tranquillity and composure. A more beneficial effect than this will at the same time be produced, for those very objects which were formerly beheld with alarm will now be converted into sources of enjoyment, and be contemplated with emotions of delight.
To remove the groundless apprehensions which arise from the fear of invisible and incorporeal beings, let persons be instructed in the various optical illusions to which we are subject, arising from the intervention of fogs, and the indistinctness of vision in the night-time, which makes us frequently mistake a bush that is near us for a large tree at a distance, and let them be taught that under the influence of these illusions a timid imagination will transform the indistinct image of a cow or a horse into a terrific phantom of a monstrous size. Let them also be taught, by a selection of well-authenticated facts, the powerful influence of the imagination in creating ideal forms, especially when under the dominion of fear; the effects produced by the workings of conscience when harassed by guilt; let them be taught the effects produced by lively dreams, by strong doses of opium, by drunkenness, hysteric passions, madness, and other disorders that affect the mind. Let the experiments of optics, and the striking phenomena produced by electricity, galvanism, magnetism, and the different gases, be exhibited to their view, together with details of the results which have been produced by various mechanical contrivances. In fine, let their attention be directed to the foolish, whimsical, and extravagant notions attributed to apparitions, and to their inconsistency with the wise and benevolent arrangements of the Governor of the universe.
There is no rational foundation for entertaining any doubts but that, could such instructions as I have suggested be universally given, the effect would be the banishment of superstitions of the nature contemplated from among mankind; for they have uniformly produced this effect on every mind which has been thus enlightened. Where is the man to be found whose mind is enlightened by the doctrines and discoveries of modern science, and who yet remains the slave of superstitious notions and vain fears? Of all the philosophers of America and Europe, is there one who is alarmed at an eclipse, at a comet, at an ignis fatuus, or at the notes of a death-watch? or who postpones his experiments on account of what is called an unlucky day? Who ever heard of a specter appearing to such a person, dragging him from bed at the dead hour of midnight, to wander through the forest, trembling with fear? Such beings appear only to the ignorant and illiterate, at least to those who are unacquainted with natural science, and we never hear of their appearing to any who did not previously believe in their existence. But should philosophers be freed from such terrific visions, if substantial knowledge has not the power of banishing them from the mind? Why should supernatural beings feel so shy in conversing with men of science? These would, indeed, be the fittest persons to whom they might impart their secrets, and communicate information respecting the invisible world; but it never falls to their lot to be favored with such visits. It may therefore be concluded that the diffusion of useful knowledge among mankind would infallibly dissipate those groundless fears which have banished much of happiness from the human family, and particularly among the lower orders of society.[34]