This life became more and more evident after the Reformation period, even though theologians in every Church did their best to destroy it.

The first series of attacks on the old theological doctrine were mainly founded in philosophic reasoning.

As early as the first half of the sixteenth century we hear Julius Caesar Scaliger protesting against the cometary superstition as "ridiculous folly."(115) Of more real importance was the treatise of Blaise de Vigenere, published at Paris in 1578.

In this little book various statements regarding comets as signs of wrath or causes of evils are given, and then followed by a very gentle and quiet discussion, usually tending to develop that healthful scepticism which is the parent of investigation.

A fair example of his mode of treating the subject is seen in his dealing with a bit of "sacred science." This was simply that "comets menace princes and kings with death because they live more delicately than other people; and, therefore, the air thickened and corrupted by a comet would be naturally more injurious to them than to common folk who live on coarser food." To this De Vigenere answers that there are very many persons who live on food as delicate as that enjoyed by princes and kings, and yet receive no harm from comets.