But, while proposing this compromise between science and theology
as to the origin and movement of comets, he will hear to none as
regards their mission as "signs and wonders" and presages of
evil. He draws up a careful table of these evils, arranging them in
the following order. Drought, wind, earthquake, tempest, famine,
pestilence, war, and, to clinch the matter, declares that the comet
observed by him in 1618 brought not only war, famine, pestilence,
and earthquake, but also a general volcanic eruption, "which would
have destroyed Naples, had not the blood of the invincible martyr
Januarius withstood it."
It will be observed, even from this sketch, that, while the learned
Father Augustin thus comes infallibly to the mediaeval conclusion,
he does so very largely by scientific and essentially modern
processes, giving unwonted prominence to observation, and at times
twisting scientific observation into the strand with his
metaphysics. The observations and methods of his science are
sometimes shrewd, sometimes comical.
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