Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1873 — Tenacity of Popular Beliefs. [ARTICLE]

Tenacity of Popular Beliefs.

The tenacity of popular belief, in the absence of any established facts on which it can be based, and in opposition to all the teachings of learning, science, and individual experience, has long been the wonder of philosophers. The explanatlon perhaps, is, that it is an inherited habit, or instinct, and perpetuates itself through successive generations as other habits do. Thus we see the dog on his master’s carpet before the fire, turn around before lying down, in obedience to an inherited habit acquired ages ago by hjs progenitors when obliged to make their own beds in their native wilds. And so of many habits in man and the domestic anynals.-whidh are still conthough the occasion for them ceased to exist countless generations agoThe belief which seems to have the firmest hold on the popular mind, and to be the most widely disseminated, is in the influence of the moon on vegetation and the weather. This has long resisted the accumulated contradictions of experience as to the facts, and the teachings of science as to the theory. But it shows the marvelous power of the human mind in thrusting aside phenomena which Interfere with cherished convictions and established habits of thought. No individual of mature age who holds this belief but has seen it fail in his own experience a thousand times. But all observation shows that the result of such failure is only to fix the delusion still more deeply. Soch belief does not depend on the efficacy of trial, but on the strength of faith. A believer in these delusions will believe anything rather than that his faith is in the wrong. As to the weather, the experience of every adult will require him to admit that there can be nothing more variable and uncertain than the condition of the weather at any given time and place—or more certain than that there will be a constant variation in the weather at such place as compared with any other point either on the same latitude, longitude, or in the same hemisphere. And while the weather is the most uncertain and variable of all natural events or conditions, themoon in its movements and relations to the earth is the emblem of precision and punctuality ; yet a large part of mankind persist in believing there is a connection between the most unvarying of possible causes and the most variable of (supposed) results! As to vegetation, there is the same incongruity between cause and effect—the extremes of certainty and uncertainty; the same teachings of individual experience and the same perennial faith, which in its details tends more to the absurd.— — There is another popular belief, very much in conflict with the teachings of science, which still retains—though seemingly with failing strength—a hold on the rural mind; it is that of the transmutation of plants—now, in this country, narrowed down to the change of wheat into cheat or chess. Though unsustained by a single established instance, and in conflict with all the known laws of vegetable life; jt is not logically so preposterous as the delusions regarding themoon—it fails for want of affirmative proof; but as it lacks the absurdity, so it wants the vitality of other beliefs, and the moon will hold her stfay over the ignorant mind long after transmutation has gone into oblivion. A certain mystery surrounding the moon, with the uneducated, will aid greatly in perpetnating the siipersti tious beliefs in regard to its influence. There is, or was, rather, one popular belief prevalent at the opening of the present century, which is now dead ; it was in the hibernation of swallows in the mud of swamps like snakes. This was too tangible a matter, however, to long stand the test of observation, and ithaa no element of superstition or mystery to ! give it vitality. Hence its early disappearance into limbo ! The study of the natural sciences is the best antidote to superstition, and will better aid in protecting the mind from an inherited tendency to delusive beliefs than any qther'b'ranch of education. It inculcates and requires habits of close observation, careful comparison and cautious deduction. There is no better way. of strengthening and developing the reasoning and perceptive faculties than by pursuing these studies, which are closely connected with, and in fact form a part of, the wide scope of agricultural ! science. —Country Henamum.

A monomaniac by the name of William Rysam Grade died in New York City, recently, 1 who, for over fifty years, has believed that he was the grandson of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who died at Rome, January 30,1788. He claimed the title of William the Fifth, Eng of England. His strange hallucination alienated his family from him, so that, for many years, he has lived alone. He I always had a pistol and clasp-knife under his pillow, as he Was continually haunted with the idea that the present dynasty of i Great Britain was in. active conspiracy j to take his life.. The United States Supreme Court has decided that a deserter from the army, -who has been caught and made to serve out the entiro term of his service, and obtained a regular discharge from the army, is, in effect” just as good as if he had been faithful from the first, and is Jegu**y titled to his bounty. This will be good news to those who have suffered by the decUion.of-tbe-Paymaater General, which was exactly opponte. t r