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FROM "THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR" TO METEOROLOGY.
I.GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY.
The popular beliefs of classic antiquity regarding storms, thunder, and lightning, took shape in myths representing Vulcan as forging thunderbolts, Jupiter as flinging them at his enemies, Aeolus intrusting the winds in a bag to Aeneas, and the like.

An attempt at their further theological development is seen in the Pythagorean statement that lightnings are intended to terrify the damned in Tartarus.
But at a very early period we see the beginning of a scientific view.

In Greece, the Ionic philosophers held that such phenomena are obedient to law.

Plato, Aristotle, and many lesser lights, attempted to account for them on natural grounds; and their explanations, though crude, were based upon observation and thought.