The State of Mind of Man in Olden Days

We find it hard to picture to ourselves the state of mind of a man of older days who firmly believed that the Earth was the centre of the Universe, and that all the heavenly bodies revolved around it. He could feel beneath his feet the writhings of the damned amid the flames; very likely he had seen with his own eyes and smelt with his own nostrils the sulphurous fumes of Hell escaping from some fissure in the rocks. Looking upwards, he beheld ... the incorruptible firmament, wherein the stars hung like so many lamps.

Notes:

Where he could detect the fires of hell beneath his feet and see the splendor of heaven in the night sky above.

Folksonomies: science religion superstition

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 The garden of Epicurus
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  France , Anatole (1920), The garden of Epicurus, Retrieved on 2012-05-16
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