36 Who’s Superstitious?

Many people who achieved great things were superstitious. For example, did you know that Napoleon, the great French general who won countless battles, was afraid of cats?

Many people have been superstitious. Rousseau, a famous French philosopher and painter, believed he had a ghost for a companion. William Blake, an English writer and Sir. Walter, Scott would never go to Melrose Abbey when the full moon B.C.: 139) was high.

Superstitions usually arise when people try to find reasons for things that are beyond their understanding. Primitive societies created all kinds of fantastic explanations for illness, death, and natural events. People looked and wondered at the sky, then developed wonderful stories to account for the various clusters of stars.

Even the age of science has not destroyed people's beliefs in irrational things. The following story is a good example. A panic shook Europe when Halley's comet was expected to appear in 1910. It seemed that wherever this comet had appeared in the past, devastating events had taken place. In A.D. 66, for example, its appearance coincided with the fall of Jerusalem. So the people of the twentieth century feared another catastrophe. They were so frightened that they even bought anti-comet pills and masks to protect themselves from deadly fumes.

36 谁迷信？

许多成就伟业的人都迷信。例如，你知道赢得无数战役的法国伟大将军拿破仑害怕猫吗？

很多人都迷信过：著名的法国哲学家兼画家卢梭认为自己有个鬼魂同伴；英国作家威廉·布莱克和沃尔特·司各特爵士在满月高悬时从不去梅尔罗斯修道院。

当人们试图为超出自己理解的事物寻找原因时，迷信就产生了。原始社会为疾病、死亡和自然事件创造了各种奇妙的解释：人们仰望天空并感到好奇，然后编出精彩的故事来解释各种星团。

即使在科学时代，人们对非理性事物的信仰也没有消失。下面的故事就是一个很好的例子：1910年哈雷彗星预计出现时，欧洲陷入恐慌。似乎过去这颗彗星出现的地方，都发生了毁灭性事件——例如公元66年，它的出现恰逢耶路撒冷陷落。因此20世纪的人们害怕再一次的灾难，他们如此恐惧，甚至购买了“防彗星药丸”和面具，以保护自己免受致命烟雾的伤害。