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568 TJN DEBAT : ZifS MENTAUTES COLU5CTTVX3 12

in Transylyania, the maize was selling at three zlots thirteen or four zlots and so was the rye and the only chance was the crop in Banat which. supported us. JHundreds of hungry people left for Jara Eom&neasc& <Wallachia > and Banat”.

The unexpected blows of the unforeseeable weather went along with the abuses of the ruling class who in Transylyania tried to take upali the ploughman’fi time; in the Danubian Principalities it threw the effects of the disastrous Ottoman administration on the producers. Under these circumstances the ploughman’s work did not observe six working days and a rest day but longer and tiresome intervals ; work and festiyals-were linked to the field labours. Thus, autumn was a better opportunity for leisure and weddings, yhile winter was for rest. The overall prepon-derance of yillages imposed the natural rhytiun on the whole of the society,. even to the eourt and the boyars ; but the merchants payed attention to the markets announced in the calendars, to the manufacturer8^, activity_r to the money fluctuation which were all vital parts of their activity. The merchants’ timetable, as with other countries of Europę, depended on the clock and not only on the sun’s course; a different labour rhythm imposed shorter divisions of time.

Along with the weather instability it was the dark which played an important part in men’s existence. It was hard to overcome night,. whereas solar eclipses brought about panie. When winter drew noar the administration program had to be changed. Constantin Ipsilante ordered in 1803 : “because the day ran. shorter, there is need that all the officials. and the court employees should start working earlier in the morning”. Work at night was not of good ąuality, or so at least wrote in 1737, in the Anthologion of Eimnic, a printer. He apologized for the eventual mis-prints “for they are due to the night” for “we had to transform the night into day”.

Astrological events were followed closely with a keen curiosity as we gather from a notę : “24th of May 1788 at five <J’clock the sun was seriously diminished. Although. it gave insufficient light I looked straight into the sun and it appeared to me as a five- or six-day moon_r much less than & half-moon, but very green. The diminishment started eyeraince noon”. But the lack of instruments and obseryatories accounted for the inexistence of investigations which could eventually become syste-matic scientific researches. That is why Grigore Logofatul wrote in a-serene way “in 1797 on the 23rd of SToyember, Sunday to Monday, a miracle took place and a spot was seen on the moon, the werewolf must have bitten it’^r. Such superstitions, morę powerful in the yillages,. madę Iacob Putneanul publish the 1757 Synopsis and $ineai adapt Hel-muth’s work against superstitions, while Tichindeal and some other professors attacked the customs taken out from old traditions and turned into mere magical practices, into “destructive” Buperstitions. These strains between the natural cycle still almightyand the rational order reveal-ed by the progress in the natural Sciences madę in countries where research was possible favoured the reconsideration of the traditional view of the world. As lqng ąs the relationghip between macrocosm and microcosm has not been subjected to examination, the link between prin-ciples and manifestations or between “mind” and “action” has been seen