Page:The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe.djvu/99

91] against the methods of interpreting the decrees of the stars which they give us to understand that the astrologers employ. Such objections might suffice to pierce the presumption of the ordinary popular astrologer but they fall back blunted from the system of Ptolemy. If our sceptics thought that they were overthrowing the astrology of the man of learning by such arguments, they labored under a misapprehension, and in the eyes of one who really understood the art must have cut the figure of ignoramuses making false charges against a science of which they knew next to nothing.

As some of the arguments of our sceptics apply solely to defects in method of which the best astrologers were not guilty, so others do not deny the existence of sidereal influence over the life of man, but contend that it is impossible to determine with essential accuracy what will be the effects of that influence. Sextus, for example, seems to lay most stress upon such points as the difficulty of exactly determining the date of birth or of conception, or the precise moment when a star passes into a new sign of the zodiac. He calls attention to the fact that observers at varying altitudes, as well as in different localities, would arrive at different conclusions, that differences in eyesight would also affect results, and that it is hard to tell just when the sun sets owing