Moon Lore

This work is a contribution to light literature, and to the literature of light. Though a monograph, it is also a medley. The first part is mythological. It is the original nucleus around which the other parts have gathered. Some years since, the writer was led to investigate the world-wide myth of the Man in the Moon, in its legendary and ludicrous aspects; and one study being a stepping-stone to another, the ball was enlarged as it rolled. The second part, dealing with moon-worship, is designed to show that anthropomorphism and sexuality have been the principal factors in that idolatry which in all ages has paid homage to the hosts of heaven, as heaved above the aspiring worshipper. Man adores what he regards as higher than he. And if the moon is supposed to affect his tides, that body becomes his water-god. The third part treats of lunar superstitions. The fourth and final part is a literary essay on lunar inhabitation, presenting in nuce the present vstate of the enigma of "the plurality of worlds."