Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/809

Rh could foresee the advent of some great northern hero. Moreover, he was doubtless well acquainted with a very ancient tradition, that heroes generally came from the northern frontiers of their native land, where they are hardened and tempered by the threefold struggle they wage with soil, climate, and barbarian neighbours. Kepler explained the double movement of the earth by the rotation of the sun. At one time the sun presented its friendly side, which attracted one planet, sometimes its adverse side, which repelled it. He also peopled the planets with souls and genii. He was led to his three great laws by musical analogies, just as later on an organist of Hanover, William Herschel, passed from music to as tronomy. Kepler, who in his youth made almanacs, and once prophesied a hard winter, which came to pass, could not help putting an astrological interpretation on the dis appearance of the brilliant star of 1572, which Tycho had observed. Theodore Beza thought that this star, which in December 1573 equalled Jupiter in brilliancy, predicted the second coming of Christ. Astronomers were only then beginning to study variable and periodic stars, and disturb ances in that part of the heavens, which had till then, on the authority of Aristotle, been regarded as incorruptible, combined with the troubles of the times, must have given a new stimulus to belief in the signs in heaven. Mon taigne (Essais, lib. i. chap. 10) relates a singular episode in the history of astrology Charles V. and Francis I., who both bid for the friendship of the infamous Aretin, fuirnamed the divine, both likewise engaged astrologers to iight their battles. In Italy those who prophesied the ruin of France were sure to be listened to. These prophecies affected the public funds much as telegrams do nowadays. &quot;At Home,&quot; Montaigne tells us, &quot;a large sum of money was lost on the Change by this prognostication of our ruin.&quot; The marquis of Saluces, notwithstanding his gratitude to Francis I. for the many favours he had re ceived, including his marquisate, of which the brother was despoiled for his benefit, was led in 1536 to betray his country, being scared by the glorious prophecies of the ultimate success of Charles V. which were then rife. The influence of the Medici made astrologers popular in France. Richelieu, on whose council was Gaffarel, the last of the c-abalists, did not despise astrology as an engine of govern ment. At the birth of Louis XIV. a, certain Morin de Villef ranch e was placed behind a curtain to cast the nativity of the future autocrat. A generation back the astrologer would not have been hidden behind a curtain, but have taken precedence of the doctor. La Bruyere dares not pronounce against such beliefs, &quot;for there are perplexing facts affirmed by grave men who were eye-witnesses.&quot; In England William Lilly and Robert Fludd were both dressed in a little brief authority. The latter gives iis elaborate rules for the detection of a thief, and tells us that he has had personal experience of their efficacy. &quot; If the lord of the sixth house is found in the second house, or in company with the lord of the second house, the thief is one of the family. If Mercury is in the sign of the Scorpion he will be bald, etc.&quot; Francis Bacoti abuses the astrologers of his day no less than the alchemists, but he does so because he has visions of a reformed astrology and a reformed alchemy. Sir Thomas Browne, too, while he denies the capacity of the astrologers of his day, does not venture to dispute the reality of the science. The idea of the souls of men passing at death to the stars, the blessedness of their particular sphere being assigned them according to their deserts (the metempsychosis of J. Reynaud), may be re garded as a survival of religious astrology, which, even as late as Descartes s day, assigned to the angels the role of moving the planets and the stars. Joseph de Maistre, the last and ablest champion of old-fashioned orthodoxy, believed in comets as messengers of divine justice, and in animated planets, and declared that divination by astrology is not an absolutely chimerical science. Lastly, we may mention a few distinguished men who ran counter to their age in denying stellar influences. Aristarchus of Samos, Martianus Capella (the precursor of Copernicus), Cicero, Favorinus, Sextus Empiricus, Juvenal, and in a later age La Fontaine, a contemporary of the neutral La Bruyere, were all pronounced opponents of astrology. In England Swift may fairly claim the credit of having given the death-blow to astrology by his famous squib, entitled Prediction for the Year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. He begins by professing profound belief in the art, and next points out the vagueness and the absurdities of the philo maths. He then, in the happiest vein of parody, proceeds to show them a more excellent way : &quot; My first prediction is but a trifle, yet I mention it to show how ignorant these sottish pretenders to astrology are in their own concerns : it refers to Partridge tho almanac-maker. I have con sulted the star of his nativity by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th of March next about eleven at night of a raging fever. Therefore I advise him to consider of it and settle his affairs in time.&quot; Then fol lowed a letter to a person of quality giving a full and par ticular account of the death of Partridge on the very day and nearly at the hour mentioned. In vain the wretched astrologer protested that he was alive, got a literary friend to write a pamphlet to prove it, and published his almanac for 1709. Swift, in his reply, abused him for his want of manners in giving a gentleman the lie, answered his argu ments seriatim, and declared that the evidence of the publi cation of another almanac was wholly irrelevant, &quot; for Gadbury, Poor Robin, Dove, and Way do yearly publish their almanacs, though several of them have been dead since before the Revolution.&quot; Seeing that astrology once permeated all sciences, all religion, and all politics, it is not strange if traces of it crop up when we should least expect them. To astrolo gical politics we owe the theory of heaven-sent rulers, instruments in the hands of Providence, and saviours of society. Napoleon as well as Wallenstein believed in his star. Even now that the science is dead it lives on in our language. Many passages in our older poets are unintel ligible without some knowledge of astrology. Chaucer wrote a treatise on the astrolabe ; Milton constantly refers to planetary influences ; in Shakspeare s King Lear, Glou cester and Edmund represent respectively the old and the new faith. We still contemplate and consider; we still speak of men as jovial, saturnine, or mercurial ; we still talk of the ascendency of genius, or a disastrous defeat.

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