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Excerpt from The World of Comets
In ancient Greece, in heroic times, comets, as indeed all cc lestial phenomena, excited only graceful ideas. Take, for ex ample Homer: it is Minerva and Apollo, the two brilliant deities of Olympus, who thus manifest themselves to mortals. Later on, they became fatal presages. The Romans, more austere, had already interpreted them as signs of fatal augury, forerun ners of calamity. In the Middle Ages the ideas connected with the m continued to increase in gloom: comets were then stars only of misfortune, ruin, and death. The terrible and grandiose idea of the end of the world, so universal at that period of darkness, predominated over all and set its seal on all. At last, with the revival of learning, scientific observation slowly dissipated these prejudices. In the eighteenth century the light of a free interpretation of nature resumed its empire comets were spoken of without awe, and these stars, but lately so formidable, became even a theme for satire.
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