But these utterances were for the time brushed aside by the theological leaders of thought as shallow or impious.
In the seventeenth century able arguments against the superstition, on general grounds, began to be multiplied.

In Holland, Balthasar Bekker opposed this, as he opposed the witchcraft delusion, on general philosophic grounds; and Lubienitzky wrote in a compromising spirit to prove that comets were as often followed by good as by evil events.

In France, Pierre Petit, formerly geographer of Louis XIII, and an intimate friend of Descartes, addressed to the young Louis XIV a vehement protest against the superstition, basing his arguments not on astronomy, but on common sense.

A very effective part of the little treatise was devoted to answering the authority of the fathers of the early Church.

To do this, he simply reminded his readers that St.Augustine and St.John Damascenus had also opposed the doctrine of the antipodes.