Page:The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe.djvu/60

52 putrefaction and corruption in matter. By the nature of Venus every thing on earth is generated.

To what extent the planets rule man's life Pliny does not specify—an instance of prudent reticence on his part, if he really consciously avoided the question. He disclaims any belief in the vulgar notion that a star, varying in brightness according to our wealth, is assigned to each of us, and that the eternal stars rise and fade at the birth or death of insignificant mortals. "Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est ut nostro fato mortalis sit ibi quoque siderum fulgor." But thus to deny that the stars are ruled by man's destiny or doings is far from refusing to believe that men's lives are ordered by the stars. Pliny, as we have seen, holds that Venus has a considerable influence over the process of birth in all animals. Also he certainly accepts the portentous character of various particular celestial phenomena. "From the stars celestial fire is vomited forth bearing omens of the future." He gives instances from Roman history of comets which signalled disaster, expounds the theory that their significance is to be determined from the direction in which they move and the heavenly body whose powers they receive, and states that the particular phase of life to which they apply may be deduced from the shape which they assume or from their position in relation to the signs of the zodiac.