put themselves to fresh expense. In order to light his
funeral pomp. Foolish and ridiculous vanity! If we had a just idea of
the universe, we should soon comprehend that the death or birth of a
prince is too insignificant a matter to stir the heavens."(117)

(117) Regarding Bayle, see Madler, Himmelskunde, vol. i, p. 327.
For special points of interest in Bayle's arguments, see his Pensees
Diverses sur les Cometes, Amsterdam, 1749, pp. 79, 102, 134, 206. For
the response to Jurieu, see the continuation des Pensees, Rotterdam,
1705; also Champion, p. 164, Lecky, ubi supra, and Guillemin, pp. 29,
30.

This great philosophic champion of right reason was followed by a
literary champion hardly less famous; for Fontenelle now gave to the
French theatre his play of The Comet, and a point of capital importance
in France was made by rendering the army of ignorance ridiculous.(118)

(118) See Fontenelle, cited by Champion, p. 167.

Such was the line of philosophic and literary attack, as developed from
Scaliger to Fontenelle. But beneath and in the midst of all of it, from
first to last, giving firmness, strength, and new sources of vitality to
it, was the steady development of scientific effort; and to the
series of great men who patiently wrought and thought out the truth by
scientific methods through all these centuries belong the honours of the
victory.

For generations men in various parts of the world had been making
careful observations on these strange bodies. As far back as the time
when Luther and Melanchthon and Zwingli were plunged into alarm by
various comets from 1531 to 1539, Peter Apian kept his head sufficiently
cool to make scientific notes of their paths through the heavens. A
little later, when the great comet of 1556 scared popes, emperors, and
reformers alike, such men as Fabricius at Vienna and Heller at Nuremberg
quietly observed its path. In vain did men like Dieterich and Heerbrand
and Celich from various parts of Germany denounce such observations and
investigations as impious; they were steadily continued, and in 1577
came the first which led to the distinct foundation of the modern
doctrine. In that year appeared a comet which again plunged Europe into
alarm. In every European country this alarm was strong, but in Germany
strongest of all. The churches were filled with terror-stricken
multitudes. Celich preaching at Magdeburg was echoed by Heerbrand
preaching at Tubingen, and b