The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1897-03-20
THE WEATHER AND MORALS.

To the ordinary layman it would seem
very nice metaphysical question to deter
mine just what, if any influence, the
weather has upon the morals of COM
munity.
Yet Chief Moore, of the United States
Werther Bureau, in recent lecture before
the Peabody Institute at Baltimore, did
not hesitate to state, that it eXerted very
great influence upon the morals of the
people.
The Chief substantiated his assertion, by
the statistics of comparative periods of
severely cold and intensely warm weather,
by which he showed that the number of
suicides reached 1900 in three months of
summer, while in the same population the
number fell to 1900 in winter.
While these statistics may in general
way indicate that the depressing effect Of
intense heat upon the human system, is
more potent influence in bunting the mora
sensibilities Of men than excessive cold,
yet the principle underlying the fact is by
no means so apparent.
1t is undoubtedly true, that the elements
have played an important part in shaping
the moral history of the human race.
AS a contemporary well states, cit was
flood that was used as great moral agent
to effect an entire organization in the
depraved humanity of a very ancient period,
and it was forty days of rain predicted 100
years ahead that produced the flood.
A cloud led the children of Israel in their
Wilderness wanderings, and it was the
same cloud that placed itself behind them
as "A confusion to their pursuing enemies,
while a strong east wind divided the sea
and made path for their escape. 1t was
a wind from the sea also that brought them
myriads of quails to eat ina time of famine.
1t was an unprotected storm that threat
ened destruction to a ship which had left
the port of Joppa, with the Inflated Jonah
aboard If that storm had been predicted
the mariners would not have left port,
Jonah might not have been caught so
unawal 5, the whale episode might never
.have occurred, and the higher critics would
have been right 1t was an earthquake
that made the Phillipian jailor tremble and
ask penitently the question, What must
| do to be saved"
1t is thus that the weather figures in all
history, literature and religion. There
have been awful signs and portents: mys-
ferrous disturbances of the natural order of
things; unexplainabe occurrences in the
heavens and a supernatural adaptation of
the elements to enforce or teach moral
lessons.
All of which is quite true, in the history
of primitive man.
And the superstitious fears of men, are
still to some extent excited by portentous
signs and sounds in the heavens, that I'M
string the nerves Of the weak and timed.
Comets and meteoric showers, spots on
the sun, conjunctions of the planets, eclipses
Of the sun and moon, and many atmospheric
disturbances, have in the recent history of
the world in certain sense acted as moral
agents by frightening people right badly.
But the Investigations and discoveries of
astronomers and scientists, have robbed
heavenly signs and portents OF all their past
terrors and the age of miracles is past.
God has set the machinery of nature to
work by certain fixed laws
| Some of these hidden laws of the physi-
cal universe, the wisdom of man has faith
omed, and some it has not.
But while mans wonderful intellect has
made plain many of the occult mysteries
of Gods material and moral universe, his
finite wisdom has not measured the hidden
connection between morals and meteor
ology.
Now if the weather be moral agent,
instead of a mans moral perceptions being
more blunted in the summer than in the
winter as Chief Moore's statistics prove,
his moral sensibilities should be keener in
the summer than in the winter season,
simply because the contingencies of life
and death are increased in the former
season.
If mans liability to sudden death be
greater in warm than in cold weather as we
know it is, his moral sensibilities should he
keener in summer than in winter
If death dealing lightning hovers over
his head, in this latitude during July,
August and September, he should be a
better man, subject to such atmospheric
contingencies, than in December, January
and February, when he is not subject to
such electrical risks.
Thus the reverse ought to be true,
and there should be on this theory, fewer
suicides in the summer than in the winter.
If statistics prove the contrary, the con-
clusion is inevitable, that some other reason
is to be found for explaining why mans
morals perceptions are keener in the winter
than in the summer.