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Now, will any one bring forward this, that in choosing certain
particular days for particular actions, men bring about certain new
destinies for their actions? That man, for instance, according to
this doctrine, was not born to have an illustrious son, but rather a
contemptible one, and therefore, being a man of learning, he choose
an hour in which to lie with his wife. He made, therefore, a destiny
which he did not have before, and from that destiny of his own making
something began to be fatal which was not contained in the destiny of
his natal hour. Oh, singular stupidity! A day is chosen on which to
marry; and for this reason, I believe, that unless a day be chosen,
the marriage may fall on an unlucky day, and turn out an unhappy one.
What then becomes of what the stars have already decreed at the hour of
birth? Can a man be said to change by an act of choice that which has
already been determined for him, whilst that which he himself has
determined in the choosing of a day cannot be changed by another power?
Thus, if men alone, and not all things under heaven, are subject to
the influence of the stars, why do they choose some days as suitable
for planting vines or trees, or for sowing grain, other days as
suitable for taming beasts on, or for putting the males to the
females, that the cows and mares may be impregnated, and for
such-like things? If it be said that certain chosen days have an
influence on these things, because the constellations rule over all
terrestrial bodies, animate and inanimate, according to differences in
moments of time, let it be considered what innumerable multitudes of
beings are born or arise, or take their origin at the very same instant
of time, which come to ends so different, that they may persuade any
little boy that these observations about days are ridiculous. For who
is so mad as to dare affirm that all trees, all herbs, all beasts,
serpents, birds, fishes, worms, have each separately their own
moments of birth or commencement? Nevertheless, men are wont, in
order to try the skill of the mathematicians, to bring before them the
constellations of dumb animals, the constellations of whose birth they
diligently observe at home with a view to this discovery; and they
prefer those mathematicians to all others, who say from the inspection
of the constellations that they indicate the birth of a beast and not of
a man. They also dare tell what kind of beast it is, whether it is a
wool-bearing beast, or a beast suited for carrying burthens, or one
fit for the plough, or for watching a house; for the astrologers are
also tried with respect to the fates of dogs, and their answers
concerning these are followed by shouts of admiration on the part of
those who consult them. They so deceive men as to make them think that
during the birth of a man the births of all other beings are suspended,
so that not even a fly comes to life at the same time that he is being
born, under the same region of the heavens. And if this be admitted
with respect to the fly, the reasoning cannot stop there, but must
ascend from flies till it lead them up to camels and elephants. Nor
are they willing to attend to this, that when a day has been chosen
whereon to sow a field, so many grains fall into the ground
simultaneously, germinate simultaneously, spring up, come to
perfection, and ripen simultaneously; and yet, of all the ears which
are coeval, and, so to speak, congerminal, some are destroyed by
mildew, some are devoured by the birds, and some are pulled by men.
How can they say that all these had their different constellations,
which they see coming to so different ends? Will they confess that it
is folly to choose days for such things, and to affirm that they do not
come within the sphere of the celestial decree, whilst they subject men
alone to the stars, on whom alone in the world God has bestowed free
wills? All these things being considered, we have good reason to
believe that, when the astrologers give very many wonderful answers,
it is to be attributed to the occult inspiration of spirits not of the
best kind, whose care it is to insinuate into the minds of men, and to
confirm in them, those false and noxious opinions concerning the fatal
influence of the stars, and not to their marking and inspecting of
horoscopes, according to some kind of art which in reality has no
existence.
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