Marriage and Divorce of Astronomy and Astrology

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE OF ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY HISTORY 1
OF ASTRAL PREDICTION FOR ANTIQUITYOF NEWTON
Marriage and Divorce of Astronomy and

Astrology
History of Astral Prediction from
Antiquity to Newton
by
Gordon Fisher
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Contents
Chapter 1. Some Sources of Astral Beliefs
Chapter 2. From Astral Beliefs to Kepler, Fludd and

Newton
Appendix: Newton’s Laws
Chapter 3. Some Astrological Techniques
Chapter 4. From Babylon to Copernicus
Chapter 5. Stoics, Kepler and Evaluations
Chapter 6. Earlier Christians and Astrology
Chapter 7. From Ptolemy to Newton
Chapter 8. Updates and Addenda
Chapter 9. Pierre d'Ailly and Newton again
Chapter 10. John Dee and Astrological Physics

Chapter 1. Some Sources of Astral Beliefs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Even a god cannot change the past.”
--- Agathon, born c. 445 BC
"It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians
can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He
tolerates their existence.”
--- Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited, 1901
1. The heavens—the physical ones—were for a long time

regarded as the locus of divinity by many people, and a source of what
takes place on earth. In his On the Heavens, Aristotle says there is
something beyond the bodies which are on earth, different and separate
from them, and the glory of this something grows greater as its distance
from this world of ours increases. The primary body, at the greatest
distance from earth, is eternal and unchanging. For, Aristotle says, surely
there are gods, and they are immortal, and everyone agrees they are
located in the highest place in the universe. The evidence of our senses
tells us, at least with the certainty attainable by humans, that in the past, as
far as our records reach, no change has taken place in the outermost
heavens. So the primary body is something beyond earth, air, fire and
water. We call it the aether, Aristotle says, because it runs forever.
(Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), De caelo (On the Heavens), 269b12-16, 270b1-
23, translated by J. L. Stocks.)
2. Aristotle based his theory on the evidence of our senses. He

says phenomena confirm his theory. He also says his theory confirms the

phenomena. That is, predictions made with his theory were verified by
observation. He had an empirically based procedure, contrary to what
some have said. His failures are often due to lack of information, or
incorrect interpretation of it; to phenomena unnoticed, or not examined
closely enough; to new stars (if any were known to him) and comets
interpreted as being relatively near, perhaps because they showed change;
to insufficient knowledge of the chemical constitution of matter; and so
on. That celestial objects are alive wasn't a bad conjecture in the context
of what was known, since they appear to be self-moving. This seems
obviously to be a characteristic of living entities. That the celestial objects
are divine wasn't too bad a conjecture, either, given their overall regularity
and permanence, over periods of time which are very long relative to
human lives.
3. When Aristotle associates the divine with the outer heavens, he

doesn't actually say the outer heavens or the stars are gods. He says they
are like gods by virtue of their unchanging nature. On earth, change is
everywhere. The living are born or sprout, are transformed or transform
themselves, and die. Ores in the earth can be changed to metals, metals
rust. Mountains explode or wear down. Waters flood or dry up, spring
from the earth or fall from above; when boiled they shrink and turn into a
small residue of minerals; when frozen they turn to transparent "earth"
(that is, to one of the four basic elements in the theory of Empedocles and
Aristotle). And so on. Only the stars appear permanent and unchanging.
But are there any bodies which last forever in one form? Those who
believe there are immortal gods, says Aristotle, may be prepared to believe
this too, and that the planets and stars are such bodies.
4. The divinity and regularity of the movements of the sun, moon,

planets and stars were taken as evidence that these celestial objects
regulated or at least influenced various kinds of changes on earth. The
objects were considered by some to be quite tyrannical, and to dictate
events on earth. But this autocracy let one make predictions about events
on earth. If everything is dictated in advance, then it is reasonable to try to
find out in advance what will happen. Success of prediction depends on
events being completely or partly determined in advance of their
happening. There grew up an association of the divinity and the regularity
of celestial objects with astral determinism, the doctrine that some, at
least, of the myriad changes on earth are dictated by the stars and planets.
This, in turn, is associated with the problem of determinism in general.
Crudely, the problem is to decide whether or not everything that happens
is in some way determined in advance. This seems to be true of the
movements of the celestial objects themselves. The question is, how much
of the change on earth and in the heavens is determined in advance, and
what kind of changes are involved?

5. Connections between religion, astronomy, astrology and
prediction are very ancient, probably prehistoric. In The Etruscans Begin
to Speak, Zaharie Mayani describes a relatively late ceremony which
unites the three. His description is based on a fresco on the wall of a
tomb, known as the Tomb of the Augurs, which dates from 530 B.C. Two
priests are seen marking out the bounds of a holy area consisting of a
square in which two medians were marked, one running from north to
south and the other from east to west. The quarters of the square are also
subdivided, and each resulting section is assigned to a particular deity.
The square is a kind of mirror of the heavens, since the divisions of the
square correspond to a conceptual division of the sky. A priest could
stand in the center of the square and with the help of a special staff
determine in which zone of the square the direction of a celestial omen
fell, hence which deity was sending the omen. Thus the holy area or
templum constituted an observatory for determining positions of omens
which could be used for predicting future events. The observations were a
means of learning the will of the gods. (Zaharie Mayani, The Etruscans
Begin to Speak, translation by Patrick Evans, 1962, of Les Étrusques
commençent parler, 1961, p. 222-224.)
6. Another example, from David Chandler, A History of

Cambodia, Westview Press (HarperCollins), 2nd edn updated, 1996, p. 51-
52: "In the mid-1970s …. Eleanor Moron began studying the dimensions
of the temple [at Angkor Wat] in detail, convinced that these might
contain the key to the way the temple had been encoded by the savants
who designed it. After determining that the Cambodian measurement
used at Angkor, the hat, was equivalent to approximately 0.4 meters (1.3
feet), Moron went on to ask how many hat were involved in significant
dimenstions of the temple, such as the distance between the western
entrance (the only one equipped with its own causeway) and the central
tower. The distance came to 1,728 hat, and three other components of this
axis measured, respectively, 1,296, 867, and 439 hat. oron then argued
that these figures correlated to the four “ages,” or yugaa, of Indian
thought. The first of these, the Krita Yuga, was a supposedly golden age,
lasting 1,728,000 years. The next three ages lasted for 1,296,000,
864,000, and 432,000 years, respectively. The earliest age, therefore, was
four times longer than the latest, the second earliest, twice as long. The
last age is the Kali Yuga, in which we are living today. At the end of this
era, it is believed, the universe will be destroyed, to be rebuilt by Brahman
along similar lines, beginning with another golden age. "The fact that the
length of these four eras correlates exactly with particular distances along
the east-west axis of Angkor Wat suggests that the “code” for the temple
is in fact a kind of pun that can be read in terms of time and space. The
distances that a person entering the temple will traverse coincide with the
eras that the visitor is metaphorically living through en route to the statue
of Vishnu in the central tower. Waling forward and away from the west,

which is the direction of death, the visitor moves backward into time,
approaching the moment when the Indians proposed that time began. "In
her research, Moron also discovered astronomical correlations for ten of
the most frequently occurring distances at Angkor Wat. Astronomers
working with her found that the siting of the temple was related to the fact
that its western gate aligned at sunrise with aa small hill to the northeast,
Phnom Bok. Moreover, at the summer solstice “an observer …. standing
just in front of the western entrance can see the sunrise directly over the
central tower of Angkor Wat.” This day, June 21, marked the beginning
of the solar year for Indian astronomers and was sacred to a king whose
name, Suryavarman, means “protected by the sun” and who was a devotee
of Vishnu [this king, who was a devotee of Vishnu, commissioned the
building of Angkor Wat]. "The close fit of these spatial relationships to
notions of cosmic time, and the extraordinary accuracy and symmetry of
all the measurements at Angkor, combine to confirm the notion that the
temple was in fact a coded religious text that could be read by experts
moving along the walkways from one dimension to the next. The learned
pandits who determined the dimensions of Angkor Wat would have been
aware of and would have reveled in its multiplicity of meanings. To those
lower down in the society, perhaps, fewer and fewer meanings would be
clear. We can assume, however, that even the poorest slaves were
astonished to see this enormous temple, probably with gilded towers rising
60 meters (200 feet) above the ground and above the thatched huts of the
people who had built it.”<![endif]>
7. This lining up of temples could serve utilitarian purposes. Ernst

Zinner reports that temples were aligned by the ancient Egyptians so they
could be used as star clocks. Sun clocks were used for daytime
measurement, and the Egyptians had water clocks which could be used
day or night. However, they also determined the hours of the night by
noting when certain constellations reached their highest point in the sky.
In order to determine these zeniths, it was necessary to known where the
meridian was. "This presented no difficulty for the Egyptians," says
Zinner, "since the determination of the north-south and east-west
directions at the laying of the foundation-stone of a temple was among the
most important functions of the king. The process of determining these
directions was depicted in exactly the same way on reliefs from the 4th
millenium up to the birth of Christ." (Ernst Zimmer, Die Geschichte der
Sternkunde, von den ersten Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 1931, p. 12.)
The measuring apparatus used by the king consisted of a straight edge (an
alignment stick) bent upward at one end and with a plumb line attached,
together with the split rib of a palm leaf. There are tables found in the
burial chambers of the pharaohs Ramses VI and IX dating from between
about 1160 and 1120 B.C. which list what constellations correspond to
what hour of the night, and show a picture of a sitting man. The process

of observing the passage of the hours of the night required two such
observers, aligned along the meridian.
8. These examples show ways stars were connected to prediction

and time-keeping. People have tried to predict the future in many ways
besides observing stars. To take an exotic case, Seneca says of the
Etruscans that they were consummately skilled in foretelling future events
by interpreting lightning. We (the Romans), Seneca says, think that
because clouds collide, lightning is emitted; they (the Etruscans) think the
clouds collide so lightning will be emitted. Thus the gods can send
messages to humans about what is destined to happen. (Seneca,
Questiones naturales (about 62 A.D.), II.32, translated by Thomas
Corcoran, 1971, v. 1, p. 150-151.)
9. Sometimes visions of the future were read in bowls of water. E.

R. Dodds speaks of this use of scrying, as it is sometimes called, for
precognition. This is future-telling carried out by staring into a translucent
or shining object, called a speculum, until a moving vision or hallucination
is produced which seems to come from within the object. It is dsaid that
only a small proportion of people will be able to see such pictures. In
modern times, the process is best known as crystal-gazing, but it can be
carried out with other objects besides crystals. Crystals don't seem to have
been used as specula before Byzantine times, but the practice of scrying is
much older. In one ancient method, a mirror was used as a speculum;
catoptromancy is divination using a mirror or other reflecting object. (A.
Delatte, La catoptromancie grecque et ses derivés, 1932.)
10. In another ancient method, used more frequently as time went

on, the speculum was simply a bowl of water. Sometimes a film of oil
(occasionally, flour) was spread on the surface of the water. This method
was known as lecanomancy, literally "divination by bowl". The Greeks
and Romans got this method from the Middle East, where it had a long
history. It appears to have developed from a method in which events were
foretold by spreading oil on water, and interpreting the moving shapes
formed by the oil. Evidently prolonged staring at the shapes led to visions
in some seers, and eventually the visions in the seers became more
important than the shapes in the oil. It was realized that visions could be
induced just by staring into the water, without the oil. However, the oil
was sometimes still used, presumably because it was traditional or because
it increased luminosity. The Greeks and Romans took up the practice in
the 1st century B.C. or earlier, probably importing it from Egypt. By this
time, the use of oil seems to have been abandoned. (E. R. Dodds,
"Supernormal Phenomena in Classical Antiquity", in The Ancient Concept
of Progress, and other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief, 1973, p.
186-188).

11. The most direct way to know the future is by means of
revelation. Among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians (and others),
this was often taken to happen in dreams. A god appeared in a "night
vision" and clearly predicted the future or gave commands. Sometimes,
though, the dream was mysterious, and had to be interpreted. Besides the
interpretation of dreams, therewere methods of divination based on
observations of the births of humans, sheep and other animals, especially
abnormal and monstrous births. There were techniques based on
observations of involuntary facial movements of people, and on
physiognomy, the features of people's faces and skulls. In another popular
method, the diviner read the entrails of animals killed or sacrificed. With
entrails in general, the method was known as extispicy or haruspicy, and
with livers, hepatoscopy. (Édouard Dhorme, Les Religions de Babylonie et
d'Assyrie, 1949, p. 276-281.)
12. Divination no doubt has its sources in basic features of animal

behavior and learning. It is natural for animals to make projections.
Specific expectations are linked to specific observations. Signs are
recognized. Among humans, signs of future events or processes may be
described with language, and transmitted from person to person. The use
of such signs can be very helpful in making decisions, and for overcoming
indecisiveness. In favorable cases, such signs are always or very
frequently followed by the signified, and may indicate caused events.
Occasional failures may be attributed to faulty observation or
interpretation of the sign, to intervention of external powers, to chance,
etc. A preponderance of failures may, or may not, lead to alteration in
interpretation of the signs, or even abandonment of a project to use such
signs for projections and predictions.
13. Certain decisions based on chance are a kind of limiting case

of decisions based on signs. Gamblers, for example, read thrown dice,
flipped coins, dealt cards, etc., and make decisions based on their readings
about who gets to possess certain amounts of money. The signs in this
case—the numbers on the dice, etc.—cause the the money to be
distributed in this or that way in some sense of "cause", but not, it seems,
in the sense we use when we say the earth causes an eclipse of the moon
when it gets between the moon and the earth. A person who makes
investments on the stock market according to hunches (which, I'm taking
it, are kinds of signs) may be gambling in the same way as people who
play roulette, depending on the source of the hunches. If the hunches are
based in some way, perhaps unconsciously, on actual economic trends, the
investor's chances of profiting are better than if they are not. Inside
traders (those who use information about future financial transactions
illegally) read signs of a kind which reduces their chances of loss
considerably—unless they're caught at it. We can only conjecture about
how many important political, military and business decisions have been

made by flipping a coin, or—sometimes reducing the chances of failure to
some degree—on the basis of probabilities drawn up by statisticians,
engineers or managers.
14. One motive for wanting to predict the future is the removal of
anxiety, temporary though it may be. It can be very consoling to decide
one knows in advance what an outcome will be. Even if the decision
proves to have been wrong, the previous peace of mind will not be taken
away. Nancy Reagan, wife of the former U.S. president Ronald Reagan,
says in her memoirs, regarding her use of astrology to make schedules for
the president: "Astrology was simply one of the ways I coped with the
fear I felt after my husband almost died" (referring to the assassination
attempt of March 30, 1981). Speaking of an astrologer she consulted,
Joan Quigley, Nancy says: "Joan's recommendations had nothing to do
with policy or politics—ever. Her advice was confined to timing -- to
Ronnie's schedule, and to what days were good or bad, especially with
regard to his out-of-town trips." (Of course, timing is a part of politics.)
"While I was never certain," says Nancy, "that Joan's astrological advice
was helping to protect Ronnie, the fact is that nothing like March 30 ever
happened again. Was astrology one of the reasons? I don't really believe
it was, but I don't really believe it wasn't. But I do know this: it didn't
hurt, and I'm not sorry I did it." (Nancy Reagan, with William Novak, My
Turn, The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan, 1989, p. 44, 47, 49.)
15. One can, of course, have faith in signs of this sort without
attributing religious significance to them. But, as Walter Burkert tells us,
in ancient cultures signs about the future—omens—were often considered
to come from gods. The gods use signs, clear or cryptic, to give orders
and guidance to men. Among the classical Greeks and Romans, who had
no written scriptures, signs were a principal way for gods to communicate
with men. Thus among the Greeks, someone who doubted theefficacy of
divination was liable to be suspected of impiety or godlessness. All of the
Greek gods dispense signs, and especially the king of them all, Zeus. The
ability to interpret divine signs requires special inspiration, and this ability
is dispensed by Apollo, the son of Zeus.
16. Among the classical Greeks, a specialist in interpreting signs

was a seer, a mantis, someone who makes contact with the gods. The
word for god, theos, is closely related to the art of the seer. A seer is a
theopropos, one able to sense—see or hear—the gods. An uninterpreted
sign is a thesphaton, a saying or command of the gods. What a seer
performs is a theiazein or entheazein, an act inspired by the gods. In the
Iliad, the seer Kalchas is the son of Thestor. In the Odyssey, the seer with
second sight is Theoklymenos, and the tribe which guards the Oracle of
the Dead in Epirus is called the Thesprotoi, the see-ers of the gods. A seer
may speak in an abnormal state—the word mantis for seer is related to

mania, madness—so an interpreter of the words of a seer, a prophetes,
may be required. Thus the art of interpretation becomes a more or less
rational technique, even when the words of the seer—hence of the gods—
are cryptic. (Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, translation of Griechische
Religion der archaischen und klasischen Epoche, 1977, by John Raffan,
1985, p. 111-114.)
17. Any abnormal occurrence which can't be manipulated could

become a sign for the ancient seers: a dream, a sudden sneeze, a stumble,
a twitch, a chance encounter, the sound of a name caught in passing,
celestial phenomena such as lightning, comets, shooting stars, eclipses of
sun or moon, even a drop of rain. We see here a kind of border zone
between divination, and scientific psychology, meteorology and
astronomy. The observation of the flight of birds played a special role in
Greek prediction, perhaps from a prehistoric Indo-European tradition. In
sacrifices, everything is a sign: whether the animal goes willingly to the
altar and bleeds to death quickly, whether or not the fire flares swiftly,
what happens when parts of the animal are burned in the fire, how the tail
curls and the bladder bursts. The inspection of the livers of the victims
developed into a special art: how the various lobes are formed and
colored was evaluated at every stage of slaughter. This technique appears
to have been transmitted from Mesopotamia, probably in the 8th or 7th
century B.C. There is an allusion to the practice by Homer. The
Etruscans obtained their much more detailed haruspicina (as these gut
omens were called) from the same source, not via the Greeks. The
inspection of entrails was the prime task of the seers who accompanied
armies into battle. Herds of sacrificial victims were driven along with the
armies, although the animals were also used for food. Without favorable
signs no battle was joined. Before the battle of Plataea (479 B.C.), the
Greeks and Persians stayed encamped opposite each other for ten days
because the omens didn't advise either side to attack. (Burkert, ibid.)
18. The philosophical question as to how omens,

predetermination, and freedom of the will can be reconciled began to be
discussed extensively in Hellenistic times. The discover of natural laws in
the sphere of astronomy acted as a catalyst in this discussion, and at the
same time produced a new and enormously influential form of divination
in the shapes and forms of astrology. Earlier, one could always try to
avoid the outcomes predicted by unfavorable signs by waiting and hoping
the outcome would not occur after all, or by acting or not acting in ways
which lead to circumvention, or by performing purification, or by praying,
etc. But according to most astrological beliefs, outcomes necessarily
follow their astrological signs at least to some degree, or at least for events
of some kinds. In other methods of prediction, it was frequently important
that even favorable omens be accepted with an approving word or vow to
the gods in order for them to achieve their fullest efficacy, but it was often

believed that in the case of astrological signs, whether or not they were of
divine origin, appeals were useless. (Burkert, ibid.)
19. In classical Greece, seers or priests or priestesses, called

oracles, were attached to particular localities where they could be asked to
consult with the gods. The localities were also known as oracles, and cults
were attached to them. The gods were especially disposed to give signs in
these places. Success in the interpretation of such signs led, from the 8th
century B.C. onward, to the fame and importance of certain places which
extended beyond the region of the oracle, sometimes becoming
international. The Greeks called a place of this kind a chresterion (place
where chresmos is performed, i.e. where needed answers are provided) or
manteion (place of divination, of contact with gods). The Romans called
such a place an oraculum. It appears that preservation of oracular
utterances was one of the earliest applications of writing in Greece,
starting about 750 B.C. Thus the utterances were freed from the context
of question and answer sessions with the gods, and could become
important at other places at other times. Age inspires respect, sometimes,
so ancient sayings were collected in writing and thus became always at
hand. However, about the same time as actual ones began to be recorded,
forged sayings appeared. (Burkert, ibid., p. 114, 117.)
20. Revelation is the basis of Biblical prophecy, both in the sense

in which the prophets of the Bible predicted the future, and in the sense in
which people up to our own time have interpreted the Bible as providing
knowledge of their own futures. It is always arresting to remember that
the arch-scientist Sir Isaac Newton was a life-long student of Biblical
prophecy, and that his last work, published posthumously, was
Observations on theProphecies in Daniel and Revelation (1732). The
kind of revelation which is at the root of Biblical prophecy is often direct
communication from an omniscient deity. It is only occasionally
communicated in dreams. In general, no inspection and interpretation of
natural events and no inferential reasoning are required. The content,
nature and validity of Biblical prophecy is, of course, a vast subject which
we will not broach here.
21. For some, the age of Biblical prophecy did not end with the
prophets of the Old Testament and apostles of the New Testament. For
example, there was Nostradamus (1503-1566), who has played an
extraordinary role in people's attempts to know the future. Richard Popkin
reports that Nostradamus first asserted that he was a prophet in the
Biblical sense, and that God had revealed future events to him, despite the
fact that the prevailing view of the Church was that prophecy of this kind
terminated with the death of the apostles. Nostradamus told King Henri II
of France that he was a member of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, the
Issachar, which had been given the gift of prophecy. (Richard Popkin,

"Predicting, Prophecying, Divining and Foretelling from Nostradamus to
Hume", History of European Ideas, v. 5, 1984, p. 117-135.) Nostradamus
was the grandson of two prominent rabbis who converted to Christianity
shortly before his birth. He became a court physician, astrologer and
advisor. At some point, says Popkin, he abandoned his stance as a prophet
in the Biblical sense, and told his son that God had revealed future events
to him by means of astronomical cycles, i.e. astrology. However, it seems
that Nostradamus left no indication of the astrological techniques he used.
We have only his completed predictions, in verse form, in his Centuries
(1555).
22. Among all the techniques devised by people to predict the

future, we will concentrate mainly on ones based on observations of
celestial objects. This includes what we now call astronomy and
astrology. For many centuries the terms astronomy and astrology were
widely used as synonyms. It has been suggested that astronomy originally
referred merely to the connection of meteorological phenomena with the
risings and settings of certain stars and constellations. An astronomer, in
this sense, was someone who assigned individual stars or whole
constellations roles in prognosticating or even determining weather,
presumably on the basis of accumulated observations. By the 5th century
B.C., however, a more extended meaning had been given to the term.
Socrates, according to Plato in his dialogue Theaetetus, defined astronomy
as the discipline devoted to investigating the movements of the stars,
including the sun and moon, and the relations of their speeds. This term
did not find favor with the next generation, and Aristotle customarily used
the term astrology (astrologia) where Plato and others had used astronomy
(astronomia). Aristotle's influence lent a long life span to this use of
astrology. The development of astrology as understood in most present-
day senses of the word led to a separate term for astronomy in our sense of
the word: the term was mathematics (mathematike). This term in turn
was in time usurped to apply to mathematics in our sense of the word.
Near the end of antiquity, the circle closed. Once again astronomy
(astronomia) came to denote, as it still does, people's purely scientific
endeavors to find rational explanations for the nature and motions of the
stars. But not until the 17th century of our era did this readopted term
come to definitely exclude astrology. (Frederick Cramer, Astrology in
Roman Law and Politics, 1954, p.3.)
23. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) distinguished in his

Etymologiae between natural and superstitious astrology. The former, he
says, is just another name for astronomy, while the latter "is that science
which is practised by the mathematici, who read prophecies in the
heavens, and who place the twelve constellations as rulers over the
members of man's body and soul, and who predict the nativities and
dispositions of men by the courses of the stars." (Quoted by Theodore

Otto Wedel in The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology, Particularly in
England, 1920, p. 27.) In the Etymologiae, the mathematici and
genethliaci (casters of natal horoscopes) appear in company with many
other representatives of magic. However, Laura Smoller reports in her
History, Prophecy, and the Stars (1995) that Isidore in his Etymologiae
distinguishes between astronomia which deals with the motions of the
heavens and astrologia which deals with their effects. But she goes on to
say: "The neat distinction between the two words did not persist, hoever,
and the terms were blurred, jumbled, and sometimes reversed throughout
the Middle Ages. Pierre d'Ailly, for example, fairly consistently used
astronomia for "astrology" and astrologia for "astronomy." (p. 27).
Presumably the reason she uses the quotation marks in to indicate that
"astrology" and "astronomy" are here used in some present-day senses.
24. Lynn Thorndike reports that John of Salisbury (1120(?)-

1180)uses magica, mathematica and maleficium almost synonymously.
Thorndike doesn't translate, but I suppose these to mean magical art,
mathematical art and sorcery. Furthermore, John explains that the word
mathesis, when it has a short "e", denotes learning in general, but when it
has a long "e", it signifies the "figmentsof divination, whose varieties are
many and diverse". (Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and
Experimental Science, 1923-1958, v. 2, 1923, p. 158.) Wedel remarks:
"Although John of Salisbury was unusually sane and enlightened in the
matter of medieval superstitions, he subscribed fully to the patristic
doctrine of demonology. The Church Fathers, he says, rightly denounced
all forms of magic—species mathematicae—inasmuch as all of these
pestiferous arts spring from an illicit pact with the devil." (Wedel, ibid., p.
37). Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great; 1193-1280) distinguishes two
kinds of mathematics. One is the abstract science in our sense of the
word. The other, more probably called mathesis (with a long "e”, this
time) is divination by the stars, which may be either good or bad,
superstitious or scientific. (Thorndike, ibid., p. 580.)
25. Richard Lemay tells us that John of Salisbury also

distinguished between the mathematicus, concerned with mathesis, and the
physicus, concerned with the philosophy of nature. The former, according
to John, studies abstract figures extracted from nature, while the latter
studies processes concretely embedded in nature. The mathematici are
therefore concerned with stable, unchanging objects, while the physici
depend on evidence of the senses. Both, however, try to discover the
courses of nature, and the extent of their regularity or irregularity. In
John's view, physica had absorbed much of what had long been considered
as the proper object of mathematica. In particular, foreknowledge of the
future, formerly the concern of the mathematicus, he considered to have
become a domain of the physicus. However, in making his distinction
between mathematics and physics, John was embarassed by the ancient

strictures placed on mathesis by the Church Fathers, because much that
had been linked with mathesis had become the proper concern of a
physicus. (Richard Lemay, Abu Ma'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the
Twelfth Century, The Recovery of Aristotle's Natural Philosophy through
Arabic Astrology 1962, p. 300-307.) Thus John indicates not a union of
mathematica and physica, not a mathematical physics, but a movement
from investigations based on mathematical abstractions to investigations
based on the human senses.
26. Michael Scot (early 13th century) often used astronomia to

denote what today would usually be called astrology and "distinguishes
between mathesis, or knowledge, and matesis, or divination, and between
mathematica (with an "h"), which may be taught freely and publicly, and
matematica (without an "h", which is forbidden to Christians". (ibid., p.
319.) Thorndike states that by the time of Peter of Abano (1250-1318(?)),
the words "astronomy" and "astrology" were beginning to be used in
about their present meaning. (ibid., p. 890.) This may be compared with
the claim of Frederick Cramer, referred to above, that it was not until the
17th century that this occurred—more precisely, Cramer places the
distinction in the "Age of Newton". Perhaps it is a matter of who was
using the terms—philosophers (natural or otherwise), poets, educated or
uneducated people, etc. In any case, Peter himself sought to establish,
against various theologians and scholastics who had distinguished between
the two, that they were actually the same. (Graziella Vescovini, "Peter of
Abano and Astrology", in Astrology, Science and Astrology, Historical
Essays, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 23-24.)
27. Astrology, as formerly practiced, was intertwined with other

methods of prediction, with various kinds of magic, and with alchemy.
There were many links between astrology, magic, sorcery and witchcraft.
Astrology sometimes provided a coherent justification for such methods of
prediction as geomancy, palmistry, physiognomy and similar activities.
Cornelius Agrippa, author of a famous work on magic in the early 16th
century, declared that all these skills of divination are rooted and grounded
upon astrology. Palmists and physiognomists, for example, assigned
different parts of the hand or head to different signs of the zodiac
according to correspondences postulated between heavenly bodies and
earthly substances.
28. Geomancy was especially linked to astrology. The word

geomancy is somewhat elastic in meaning, but in a narrow sense it is a
method of divination in which a set of 16 patterns is obtained by getting
someone (a child, perhaps) to draw lines in sand or on a slate or paper, or
obtaining other presumably random outcomes, such as by spinning wheels
in such a way that exactly two outcomes are possible, or flipping a coin, or
grasping a number of beans and seeing whether there are an odd or even

number, etc. Each of the sixteen patterns consists of 4 choices of "even"
and "odd" depending on whether the number of lines or beans drawn is
even or odd, or whether the coin comes up head or tails, etc. Each of the
16 patterns is a house, and the set of patterns are interpreted according to
various rules. Geomancy, as customarily practiced, also employed the
astrological houses, often taken to be 12 in number. Analogies were
drawn between the astrological houses and the geomantic houses.
According to a leading textbook of the time on the subject (1591),
geomancy was "none other than astrology". (See J. D. North, Chaucer's
Universe, 1988, p. 234-243.)
29. Until relatively recently, astronomy/astrology was commonly

compounded with alchemy, magic, medicine, divination and weather
prediction by many people. Some people still do associate some or all of
these.
30. It has often been conjectured that astrology/astronomy

originated in a marriage of religion and science. Apparently it was born
in Babylonia and reached an apex in the Hellenistic era. Here Babylonia
is taken to be synonymous with Chaldea and Mesopotamia, and to include
the lands occupied at various times by Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians
and Iraqis. In Hellenistic times, Egypt, and especially Alexandria, was a
renowned center for astrological and astronomical studies. In a narrow
sense, the Hellenistic period ran roughly from the time of Alexander the
Great (356-323 B.C.) to the 1st century B.C., to the conquest of Egypt by
the Romans under Augustus in 30 B.C. This conquest culminated in the
battle of Actium at which the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra were
defeated by the forces of Octavian. Others make the Hellenistic era run
from the time of Alexander the Great to the end of the ancient world, often
taken to be marked by the victory of Christianity in the 4th century A.D.,
the age of Constantine the Great.
31. The first extant horoscope is said to date from 410 B.C.
However personal and judicial astrology, requiring the casting of
individual horoscopes, developed later than omen astrology, the prediction
of events involving kings and kingdoms on the basis of planetary positions
and appearances, and on various meteorlogical phencomena. Personal
astrology was based on investigation of planetary positions (including the
sun and moon) at the time of birth or conception, and seems to have been
founded on a thoroughly deterministic conception of the cosmos. Side by
side with it flourished catarchic astrology, which only assumed non-
fatalistic influences on mundane enterprises like travel, marriage and
business. Some have suggested that the two kinds of astrology, fatalistic
and non-fatalistic, have conflicting bases. Either stars exert an immutable
or merely an avoidable influence on affairs, although this distinction might
not have been clearly made by individual users of astrology. However, it

is not inconsistent to believe that stars exert an immutable influence on
some affairs and not on others.
32. Although the origin of omen astrology is usually attributed to

the ancient Babylonians, judicial (personal, horoscopic) astrology appears
to have arisen in Egypt, during the Hellenistic era. This is what most
people understand by the unmodified word "astrology" today. The
originators of judicial astrology may actually have been Greeks living in
Egypt, rather than native Egyptians (whoever they might have been). W.
and H. G. Gundel have recorded numerous indications of the Egyptian
origin of judicial astrology in Hellenistic texts: numerous writings in the
collection called the Hermetica; other writings in a handbook attributed to
King Nechepso (reigned 677-672 B.C.) and his high priest Petosiris; and
other sources. (W. and H. G. Gundel, Astrologumena, Die astrologische
Literatur in der Antike und ihre Geschichte, 1966, p. 40.)
33. As to the Mesopotamians, the Gundel's say: "The

investigation of the sources leads to the result that for the Seleucid era in
Mesopotamia [312-65 B.C.] the later much-praised ideological-
philosophical foundations of a 'Babylonian' system cannot be established.
The assertion that the 'Babylonians' had considered the grandiose idea of
cosmic sympathies as the essence of astrology, and expressed this
conception in systematic and technical works and books of oracles, must
be regarded as a fantasy of later authors who do not attain real value as
sources." (Gundel and Gundel, ibid., p. 51.) For example, in their omen
astrology, the Babylonians might base a prediction on whether or not such
and such a planet was visible at some position in the sky, located by
means of a nearby constellation, but there appears to have been nothing
corresponding to a systematic interpretation of the positions of the planets
(including the sun and moon) in a zodiac or system of decans. (Decans
are, roughly speaking, subdivisions of the zodiac, with 3 decans to a
zodiac sign).
34. According to Otto Neugebauer: "Before the fifth century B.C.

celestial omina probably did not include predictions for individuals, based
on planetary positions in the signs of the zodiac and on their mutual
configurations. In this latest and most significant modification astrology
became known to the Greeks in the hellenistic period. But with the
exception of some typical Mesopotamian relics the doctrine was changed
in Greek hands to a universal system in which form alone it could spread
all over the world. Hence astrology in the modern sense of the term, with
its vastly expanded set of "methods" is a truly Greek creation, in many
respects parallel to the development of Christian theology a few centuries
later." (Otto Neugebauer, A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy,
1975, Part Two, p. 613.)

35. What was it that made fatalistic astrology/astronomy survive
in the face of persistent onslaughts from the best minds of the Greek
world? One answer, by Frederick Cramer: a faith which was as deep as
the scepticism of their enemies—a faith in reason. Astrologer /
astronomers and their followers believed that descending through the ages
since the creation of the world, there have been unending chains of cause
and effect relations which have obeyed immutable laws of nature which
not even a deity can contravene. They believed, like later scientists have,
that the cosmos functions like a supremely well-designed machine
constructed on rational principles and governed entirely by rational nature
laws.
36. Certain philosophers of the Hellenistic era found in rational

fatalism the faith in reason which scientists of all ages have hoped for:
assurance that their concepts of the nature of things possess cosmic
validity in space and time. Ancient scientists became supporters of
fatalism, and many of them championed fatalistic astrology/astronomy.
Their logic seemed sound. That stars—for instance, the sun—have some
powerful influence on people is unquestionable. Five other "stars" besides
the sun and moon were known whose orbits wandered among the fixed
stars—the five then-known planets of our solar system. Weren't these also
likely to influence mundane affairs? The zodiac can be used to trace the
wandering of the sun among the other stars. Wasn't the zodiac therefore to
be reckoned with? (Cramer, ibid.)
37. The fallibility of astrologers was in many cases obvious but

instead of probing to see if the axiomatic foundations of astrology were at
fault, many people were inclined to blame failures on human fallibility.
Astrologers were compared to physicians. Who condemns medical
science as a whole because a physician occasionally makes a wrong
diagnosis, and fails to be able to cure all diseases? It may seem
inconceivable to modern minds that highly cultured Greeks and Romans
succumbed to the spell of what to some of us seems a monstrous web of
truth and fiction. Yet unless we try to place ourselves as best we can into
the spirit of a given historical period, we cannot hope to understand it from
a point of view which resembles to some extent how a person who lived
during that period might have understood it. The two premises on which
the fascination of astrology for many of the best minds of the time was
based, according to Cramer, were these: (1) by the use of the proper
techniques the future can be ascertained; (2) astrology alone is a truly
scientific method for doing this. Today many no longer subscribe to these
tenets, but many still believe that anything rationally possible is at least
theoretically attainable by scientific means. When condemning beliefs
and actions of the ancient astrologers, one should in fairness remember
their glowing faith in reason. (Cramer, ibid., p. 281-283.) It can be
sobering to realize that people who lived in past times had as many

varieties and degrees of certainty and uncertainty about their knowledge of
the world as we do today. Furthermore, today we can only work with
what fragments of their writings or other material traces have survived up
to our present times, and each of us must interpret such traces as we come
in contact with according to our own lights, and must likewise interpret
reports and interpretations of others more recent than the people of the
historical period under consideration.
38. The stars move according to patterns, accessible to reason. Do

our lives move according to patterns accessible to reason? Astrologers of
all epochs have believed they do, and that the patterns of our lives and the
patterns of the stars are related in some way. The underlying argument
may be based on analogy. The gods, or God, rules the stars
systematically, likewise he rules us. And—a crucial assumption for
astrologers—our movements and the movements of the stars—by which
astrologers customarily meant the planets, taken to include the sun and
moon—are somehow correlated, since they must obey the same
commands or laws. From this point of view, astrologers may fail because
they postulate over-simple relationships. As Einstein is re[uted to have
once said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no
simpler."
39. The Stoics were prime supporters of astrology. Stoicism was

one of the foremost philosophical doctrines of the Hellenistic era. The
Stoics as a whole tried to base their views on what they took to be the best
physical science of their time, and they did a fair bit of theorizing about
the nature of things. The physics of the Stoics has been viewed as a kind
of deterministic thermodynamics. According to S. Sambursky, the
cornerstone of Stoic physics is the concept of a continuum in all of its
aspects. Among the later Stoics, a revolutionary advance was made when
the dynamic functions of fire and air were extended to cover all natural
phenomena. "From a certain standpoint," he says, "this may be called a
first tentative approach to the conception of thermodynamic processes in
the inorganic world, a conception which began to percolate through into
the scientific view of later generations." In addition to the continuum
itself, the Stoics had the concept of pneuma, that which binds matter
together. The most significant quality of the pneuma is a kind of tension
"by the force of which," Sambursky says, "it becomes an entity not
altogether unlike the concept of a physical field in contemporary science."
(S. Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks, translated from the
Hebrew by Merton Dagut, 1960, p. 132-133, 135).
40. It appears, however, that the Stoics differed among themselves

as to the constitution of nature. According to David Hahm, Zeno, one of
the three heads of the heads of the Stoa in the 3rd century B.C., defined
nature as "a craftsmanlike fire, proceeding methodically [literally, by a

path] to genesis." Hahm emphasizes that Zeno means that nature is fire,
one of the four basic elements in the Aristotelian theory of the constitution
of nature. (David Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology, 1977, p. 200.)
Zeno's dynamic "fire" suggests the concept of energy as used in present-
day science. Here Zeno differs sharply from Aristotle, for whom fire or
heat was the most active and important element in nature, but still only a
tool that nature uses to accomplish its ends, and not nature itself. (Hahm,
l.c., p. 207.)
41. One of the other heads of the Stoa, Cleanthes, held a similar
view, although he seems to have spoken of "vital heat" rather than fire as
the substance that holds together the cosmos. (Hahm, l.c., p. 142). Hahm
comments that "the most striking thing about the three functions of heat in
Cleanthes is that they correspond exactly to the three functions of soul in
Aristotle"—the nutritive, perceptive and rational faculties of the soul.
(Hahm, l.c., p. 146-7.) What for Aristotle is caused by soul, for Cleanthes
is caused by the vital heat. Finally, Chrysippus, the third of the heads of
the Stoa, held the theory of pneuma which Sambursky refers to. The
pneuma according to Chrysippus is a kind of mixture of fire and air, and it
is what the "world-soul" is made out of—for the Stoics believed that the
universe has a soul, albeit a material one. In Chrysippus' view, it is this
pneuma which holds everything together. (Hahm, ibid., p. 158, 165.)
42. Some of the Stoics were as strict, or stricter, determinists than

Laplace. Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827) is a symbol of belief in the
usefulness of Newton's laws of classical mechanics for predicting the
future and retrodicting the past, on the basis that the future and past are
completely determined, and completely describable by means of these
laws. According to Newton's prescription, this is to be done by setting up
differential equations using his laws of motion, and solving them to find
expressions from which quantitative predictions and retrodictions can be
derived. In his works on celestial mechanics and theory of probabilities,
Laplace asserts that all events, no matter how momentous or insignificant,
follow certain mathematically formulable laws of nature just as surely, he
says, as the revolutions of the planets follow from Newton's laws of
motion and gravitation. When people don't know what links events to the
rest of the universe, he says, they may attribute them to final causes, goals
to which they tend, or to divine purpose, or to sheer chance. But, says
Laplace, these are only expressions of our ignorance of true causes. An
event can't occur without a cause. We make choices only when we are
caused to. Otherwise, according to Laplace, our choices would be the
result of blind chance, which Laplace rejects. Laplace says we should
regard the present state of the world as the effect of its previous states, and
the cause of its subsequent states. An intelligence who could know at a
given instant values for all the forces or momenta which propel nature,
and values for the positions of all the bodies in it, could enter these values

into statements of the laws of mechanics and calculate future or past
momenta and positions. However much of nature is determined by forces
and positions—Laplace evidently believed this to be all of nature—could
be predicted or retrodicted in this way. However, Laplace says, the human
mind offers only a weak idea of such an intelligence, as seen in the
perfection which it has been able to bring to astronomy and mechanics.
By way of comparison, for the Stoics everything comes to pass in the
world according to an unbroken causal connection, according to a law of
fate, in which not even a god can change something. (cf. Max Pohlenz,
Die Stoa, Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung, 1948, v. 1, p. 102.)
Manilius' line, fata regunt orbem, certa stant omnia lege (the fates rule the
world, all things exist by law), may be regarded as pure Stoicism.
(Manilius, Astronomica, between 9 and 15 A.D.)
43. Aristotle thought there were two kinds of physics, one for the
sublunary world, and one for the heavens. Some hold that the Stoics, in a
manner of speaking, invented astrophysics, because they believed that the
same physical laws apply throughout the universe. They believed that
such laws determine everything that happens. Nevertheless, they
maintained we are still free in the sense that we can always choose to
accept what is going to happen as Fate and Nature decree, or not. This
consitutes living according to nature. Whether or not we do live according
to Nature makes no difference to what happens. What is bound to happen
will happen anyway. But how we choose makes a great difference to the
quality of our lives. We can act in conflict with Nature, and suffer
disappointment and pain and grief. Or we can walk with Fate, and achieve
peace. Furthermore, according to the Stoics, since all things are
constituted of one and the same stuff, and subject in every respect to the
same laws, there is a kind of universal "cosmic sympathy" among things,
which is what makes divination and astrology work. (cf. Jim Tester, A
History of Western Astrology, 1987, p. 30, 32, 68-69).
44. H. Rackham says: "The Stoics ... held that the universe is
controlled by God, and in the last resort is God. The sole ultimate reality
is the divine Mind, which expresses itself in the world-process. But only
matter exists, for only matter can act and be acted upon; mind therefore is
matter in its subtlest form, Fire or Breath or Aether. The primal fiery
Spirit creates out of itself the world that we know, persists in it as its heat
or soul or 'tension,' is the cause of all movement and all life, and
ultimately by a universal conflagration will reabsorb the world into itself.
But there will be no pause: at once the process will begin again, unity will
again pluralize itself, and all will repeat the same course as before.
Existence goes on for ever in endlessly recurring cycles, following a fixed
law or formula (logos); this law is Fate or Providence, ordained by God:
the Stoics even said that the 'Logos' is God. And the universe is perfectly
good: badness is only apparent, evil only means the necessary

imperfection of the parts viewed separately from the whole. The Stoic
system then was determinist: but in it nevertheless they found room for
freedom of the will. Man's acts like all other occurrences are the
necessary effects of causes; yet man's will is free, for it rests with him
either willingly to obey necessity, the divine ordinance, or to submit to it
with reluctance. His happiness lies in using his divine intellect to
understand the laws of the world, and in submitting his will thereto." (H.
Rackham, Introduction to edition and translation (1933, 1951) of De
natura deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) by Cicero (106-43 B.C.), p.
viii-ix.)
45. Auguste Bouché-Leclercq says of Stoic attitudes toward

astrology: "That which especially predisposed the Stoics to declare
themselves guarantors of astrological speculations, and to look for
demonstrable reasons for them, was their unshakable faith in the
legitimacy of divination, of which astrology is only one particular form.
They never wanted to depart from a kind of reasoning that their
adversaries considered a vicious circle and which can be summarized like
this: "If the gods exist, they speak; in fact they speak, therefore they exist
[this employs the fallacy of affirming the consequent, or assuming the
converse, but Bouché-Leclercq says in a note that it is "the citadel" of the
Stoics—this is hard to believe, given the acuteness of some Stoics]. The
conception of beings of superior intelligence that would be forbidden to
communicate with man appeared to them to be nonsense." However,
Bouché-Leclercq says, an ordinary person wants to know the future in
order to avoid predicted dangers. On the face of it, this involves the
person in a contradiction. For he or she wants to be able to modify what
has been predicted to be certain to happen. Some of the Stoics "exhaust
themselves in vain efforts to reconcile logic, which leads straight to
fatalism, with practical common sense, which demands of divination some
usable warnings."
46. It appears, though, that we can escape from this contradiction

by holding that when we divine the will of the gods, we find what will
happen if such and such conditions aren't met—a sacrifice or other
offering is not made, or the like. Bouché-Leclercq argues against this. He
says: "If the future is conditional, it cannot be foreseen, since the
conditions could be too, in which case there would be no more place
among them for free acts, with freedom escaping by definition because of
the necessity of arriving at a decision set down in advance." That is, if
some future outcomes depend on and can be influenced by actions
previous to the outcomes, then the outcomes cannot be predicted. For if
they could be predicted, then what previous actions will be taken could
also be predicted, since the previous actions are themselves future
outcomes. Thus there is no real choice possible among previous actions to

be taken. (Auguste Bouché-Leclerq, L'Astrologie grecque, 1899, reprinted
1963, p. 31-32.)
47. However, Bouché-Leclercq assumes here unrestricted

divination. The Stoic Epictetus (1st century A.D.) says: "What can the
diviner see more than death or danger or disease or generally things of that
sort?..... Does he know what is expedient, does he know what is good, has
he learnt signs to distinguish between good things and bad, like the signs
in the flesh of victims [animals sacrificed]?..... Therefore that is a good
answer that the lady made who wished to send the shipload of supplies to
Gratilla in exile, when one said, 'Domitian will take them away': 'I would
rather', she said, 'that Domitian should take them away than that I should
not send them.' What then leads us to consult diviners so constantly?
Cowardice, fear of events. That is why we flatter the diviners. 'Master,
shall I inherit from my father?' "Let us see; let us offer sacrifice.' 'Yes,
master, as fortune wills.' When he says, 'You shall inherit', we give thanks
to him as though we had received the inheritance from him. That is why
they go on deluding us." (Arrian's Discourses of Epictetus, II.47;
translated by P. E. Matheson, in The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers,
1940, edited by Whitney Oates, p. 293.) The passage isn't entirely clear,
but Epictetus seems to suggest that a diviner can see some things which
will happen in the future (death, danger, disease), but not others (what is
good or bad). To this extent, he doesn't admit unrestricted divination.No
matter what diviners say is portended, Epictetus says, wewe should do
what is good, not what is bad. Presumably, then, we are free to choose our
moral attitudes to what is inevitable.
48. Bouché-Leclercq continues: "The Stoics valiantly accepted

the consequences of their own principles. They used them to demonstrate
the reality of Providence, the certainty of divination,and they went into
ecstasies at every turn about the beautiful order of the world, due to the
punctual carrying out of a divine plan, as immutable as it is wise. But they
were no less decisive in rejecting the moral consequences of fatalism,
above all the 'lazy reasoning', which always ends by letting inevitable
destiny alone. Chrysippus turned out prodigies of ingenuity to loosen,
without breaking, the links with Necessity, distinguishing between
necessity properly so-called, and predestination, between 'perfect and
principal' causes and 'adjuvant' [auxiliary, catalytic] causes, between
things fated in themselves and things "cofated" or fated by association;
trying to distinguish, from the point of view of fatality, between the past,
of which the contrary is in reality impossible, and the future, of which the
contrary is also impossible, but which can be conceived as possible. All
things considered, the Stoic school succeeded in saving only the freedom
of the Sage, which consists in freely wanting what the universal
Intelligence wants. The Sage exercises this freedom better, the better and
longer in advance he knows the divine plan." (Bouché-Leclercq, ibid.)

49. Here is how it appeared in the 2nd century A.D. to a Stoic
astrologer, Vettius Valens: "Fate has decreed for every human being the
unalterable realization of his horoscope, fortifying it with many causes of
good and bad things to come. Because of them, two self-begotten
goddesses, Hope and Chance, act as the servants of Destiny. They rule
our lives. By compulsion and deception they make us accept what has
been decreed. One of them [Chance] manifests herself to all through the
outcome of the horoscope, showing herself sometimes as good and kind,
sometimes as dark and cruel..... The other [Hope] is neither dark nor
serene; she hides herself and goes around in disguise and smiles at
everyone like a flatterer and points out to them many attractive prospects
that are impossible to attain. By such deceit she rules most people, and
they, though tricked by her and dependent on pleasure, let themselves be
pulled back to her, and full of hope they believe that their wishes will be
fulfilled; and then they experience what they do not expect..... Those who
are not familiar with astrological forecasts and have no wish to study them
are driven away and enslaved by the goddesses mentioned above; they
undergo every kind of punishment and suffer gladly..... But those who
make truth and the forecasting of the future their profession acquire a soul
that is free and not subject to slavery. They despise Chance, do not persist
in hoping, are not afraid of death, and live unperturbed. They have trained
their souls to be brave and are not puffed up by prosperity nor depressed
by adversity but accept contentedly what comes their way. Since they
have renounced all kinds of pleasure and flattery, they have become good
soldiers of Fate. For it is impossible by prayers or sacrifice to overcome
the foundation that was laid in the beginning and substitute another more
to one's liking. Whatever is in store for us will happen even if we do not
pray for it; what is not fated will not happen, despite our prayers. Like
actors on the stage who change their masks according to the poet's text and
calmly play kings or robbers or farmers or common folk or gods, so, too,
we must act the characters that Fate has assigned to us and adapt ourselves
to what happens in any given situation, even if we do not agree. For if one
refuses, "he will suffer anyway and get no credit" [Cleanthes]." (Vettius
Valens, Anthologiae, quoted and translated by Georg Luck in Arcana
Mundi, Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, 1985, p.
349-350.)
50. Tamsyn Barton is somewhat skeptical about considering

Stoics to have been as much devoted to astrology as has been claimed by
some. She says, in connection with the flourishing of astrology in Late
Republican Rome: "Much has been attributed to the influence of the Stoic
Posidonius on Rome on elite Romans in the generation before Cicero and
Caesar in making astrology intellectually respectable. But, as A. A. Long
(1982) observes, the older authorities who formed this consensus, such as
Cumont, were writing at a time when it was fashionable to see Posidonius’
tademark everywhere. Long rightly casts a skeptical eye over the

evidence for Stoic enthusiasn for astrology in the earlu period. It is true
that in Stoicism the existence of the gods required divination and that
astrology would suit the Stoic search for natural signs revealing the order
of the universe, but the evidence is scanty. … This is the period in which
horoscopic astrology takes off in the Hellenistic world, and it could be
seen as a natural move from other sorts of divination. He concludes,
however, that astrology was at most a subordinate feature of Stoic interest
in divination." On the other hand, Barton says "Long is surely right to
recognize that the Stoics cannot be convincingly isolated as the
determining factor in the rise to prominence of astrology in Rome, though
he overstates the case against their interest, in this period. It seems clear
that Stoic ideas, as generally diffused among the ruling elite, did lend
themselves to the support of astrology, and that their concept of cosmic
sympatheia (harmony) binding together the heavens and the earth became
the first axiom of philosophical astrology. " (Tamsyn Barton, Power and
knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine under the Roman
Empire, 1994, p. 37-38. The reference to Long is A. A. Long, "Astrology:
arguments pro and contra" in Science and Speculation: Studies in
Hellenistic Theory and Practice, ed. J. Barnes et al., 165-92, 1982.)
51. Laplace's deterministic methods of prediction might well have

been welcomed by Hellenistic astrologers, since his methods, derived
from those of Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Euler and other scientists of their
time, would have enabled them to calculate the past and future positions of
the stars with techniques in some ways superior to those of Ptolemy. Such
calculations are the basis of astrology, in most any way the term is
properly defined. Frederick Cramer says that in republican Rome from
140 B.C. to the death of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., the more a person
adhered to Stoicism, the more liable he or she would be to accept fatalistic
astrology. The 96 years from the consulate of Laelius (140 B.C.) to the
death of Julius Caesar encompassed a crucial period in the history of
astrology in the Roman republic. In 139 B.C. astrologers had been
summarily expelled as undesirable foreigners. By the time of Julius
Caesar's death, the majority of Rome's upper class had been converted to a
belief in it. To a humanist who believed in rationalism and the governance
of nature by immutable laws linking cause and effect, astrology was
scientific, and it linked mundane causality with the cosmic laws which
regulated the movements of the stars and ruled the universe. (Cramer,
ibid., p. 58, 80.)
52. Tamsyn Barton says that "It is striking that astrology in any
form was marginal to Roman elite politics until the late Republic." (ibid.,
p. 33) . Barton is especially concerned with relations of astrologers and
astrological practices (as well as physiognomy and medicine) to political
power. It seems incontestable that knowledge of the future is often related
to desire for or use of power, from, in some instances, political power on a

large scale, down to power of individuals over some parts of their daily
lives. What is wanted or expected or declared to be in a future will give,
for non-fatalists, opportunities to change outcomes, and for strict fatalists,
opportunites to accommodate to them. In studying this question for high-
level political power in the Late Roman Republic, Barton distinguishes
three kinds of forecasting or divination (p. 33-4). "First, there was the
college of augurs, who were originally concerned with interpreting the
movements and cries of birds, though by the first century B.C. and
probably for some time before that the auspices were generally taken by
feeding the sacred fowl. … Second, there the XV viri sacris faciundis
(literally, the Fifteen Men for Doing Sacred Things), the keepers of the
Sibylline Books, a set of poems in Greek supposedly bought from a
prophetess by the last king of Rome … The third group is more
confusing. The name haruspices, traditionally associated with Etruria, is
used to describe interpreters of both prodigies and the entrails of sacrificial
animals. … The keynote of roman divination remains clear, however: it
was a matter of establishing and maintaining the pax deoreum (peace of
the gods) in relatiion to the city. Divination, like other religious activity,
is closely implicated in political activity; indeed, it is an integral part of it.
"
53. A reverent attitude toward the stars was not universal in the
Hellenistic era. For the Stoics, the starry sky is the "purest embodiment of
reason in the cosmic hierarchy, the paradigm of intelligibility, and
therefore of the divine aspect of the sensible realm." So says Hans Jonas
in The Gnostic Religion (2nd edition, 1963, p. 254).
54. Marcus Aurelius tells us that we should watch the stars in their
courses as if we were running along with them, and that we should
continually think about how the elements change into one another, for
such thoughts wash away the foulness of life on earth (Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations, VII.47). But this view of the world was turned upside down
by the Gnostics. Gnosticism, as the term is used by the Church Fathers,
covers certain variant forms of Christianity, such as that of Origen (c. 185-
255 A.D.).
55. "On the other hand," E. R. Dodds says, "some modern scholars
apply the term to any system which preaches a way of escape from the
world by means of a special enlightenment not available to all, and not
dependent on reason." Dodds calls St. Paul a Gnostic in this latter sense,
citing Corinthians 1:2.14-15, and observes that the Hermetica, the liturgy
of the Mithraists and the obscure Chaldean Oracles have been called
"pagan gnosis." (E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety,
Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to
Constantine, 1968, p. 18.)

56. Simon Magus, Simon the Magician, self-styled messiah, a
rival of Jesus, is generally counted as a Gnostic. Many believe he is the
Simon who appears in the New Testament: "But there was a man named
Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the
nation of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great." (Acts 8.9,
Revised Standard Version.) Simon professed conversion to Christianity,
but when he saw the apostles Peter and John laid hands on people of
Samaria so they could receive the Holy Spirit, he offered them money for
this power. Peter stingingly rebuked him, telling Simon that his heart was
not right before God, and that he was in the bond of iniquity. (Acts 8.9-
24.) The contrast here is presumably between the truly religious, who
strive to be without sin and submit to God's will, and magicians, who
strive for power over men, nature and even the gods themselves. Simon
sometimes used the nickname Faustus, "the favored one". Jonas says:
"...this in connection with his permanent cognomen "the Magician" and
the fact that he was accompanied by a Helena [whom he said he had found
in a brothel in Tyre and] whom he claimed to be the reborn Helen of Troy
shows clearly that we have here one of the sources of the Faust legend of
the early Renaissance. Surely few admirers of Marlowe's and Goethe's
plays have an inkling that their hero is the descendant of a Gnostic sectary,
and that the beautiful Helen called up by his art was once the fallen
Thought of God through whose raising mankind was to be saved." (Jonas,
l.c., p. 111, 104.) <![endif]>
57. Gnosticism, in one of its major forms, is a kind of extreme

cosmic pessimism which splits the world into a divine part completely
unknowable by man, and a physical part, including man, which is totally
separated from the divine, and was created not by the unknown God, but
by an inferior spirit, a demiurge, a perversion of the divine, whose main
traits are domination and power. Gnostic beliefs were considered
blasphemous by many among both the classical Greeks and the early
Christians. For these Greeks, Gnosticism ran counter to the conceptions
of the divinity of the cosmos, the ordered, animated and intelligent world,
in which man, though not perfect, could aspire to the greater perfection of
the stars. This perfection is a harmony, a fitting together of the parts of
the world into a unified whole, which according to mathematicians in the
tradition of Pythagoras (c. 500 B.C.) produced a "music of the spheres",
inaudible to humans, but within the range of human reason (as Kepler so
fervently believed), and therefore audible within, like music remembered.
Many Christians could not accept the doctrine of the creation of world by
an inferior spirit, nor the severance of God from the government of the
physical world and man. The rule of the Gnostic demiurge who controls
the physical world was taken to be a kind of tyranny, not a kind of
providence.

58. Gnostics opposed the deification of the chief heavenly bodies,
as found in most of the religions of antiquity. The world-view of
astrology had evolved among the Stoics from Babylonian star worship into
a religion in which the cosmic is identified with the divine. This played
into the hands of the Gnostics. The astrological beliefs of the Stoics
required a passive subjection to a rigid necessity. Hence no value could be
attached to the cosmos. The aim of the majority of Stoics was to maintain
a neutral attitude toward good and evil, and to submit to what must be.
Gnostics looked at and evaluated the world of the Stoics from outside of it,
and the experience of the cosmos for them changed from a worshipful to a
terrifying one.
59. "We can imagine," Jonas says, "with what feelings gnostic
men must have looked up to the starry sky. How evil its brilliance must
have looked to them, how alarming its vastness and the rigid immutability
of its courses, how cruel its muteness! The music of the spheres was no
longer heard, and the admiration for the perfect spherical form gave place
to the terror of so much perfection directed at the enslavement of man ....
Here we can discern the profound connection which exists between the
discovery of the self, the despiritualizing of the world, and the positing of
the transcendental God." (Jonas, l.c., p. 261, 263.)
60. Lynn Thorndike reports on a sect, the Mandaeans, derived

from or having sources in common with Gnosticism which seems to still
exist, or at least did in the late 19th century. Their adherents represent the
planets as evil beings, and Jesus Christ as a false prophet and magician
produced by the planet Mercury. They had great affection for
numerology. Thorndike says: "A peculiarity of Mandaean astronomy and
astrology is that the heavenly bodies are all believed to rotate about the
polar star. Mandaeans always face it when praying; their sanctuaries are
built so that persons entering it face it; and even the dying man is placed
so that his feet point and eyes gaze in its direction." (A History of Magic
and Experimental Medicine, 1923-1958, v. 1, 1923, p. 383-384.) In the
Northern Hemisphere, it certainly looks like most of the heavenly bodies
rotate about the polar star.
61. Tamshyn Barton remarks that an "indication of the subversive

potential that led to the repression of astrology [by various Christian
authorities] is the fact that the Fathers [of the Church] also discuss it in
connection with heretical doctrines. Indeed, it is the Gnostics who seem to
spark off the first direct attacks on astrology … Hippolytis of Rome
(martyred 235) attacked the Gnostics with particular emphasis on their
astrology in his Refutation of All HeresiesI, taking his detailed
argumentation from Sextus Empricius. He justifies this excursus, having
carefully disclaimed any knowledge of the art:

'But since, estimating the astrological art as a powerful one, and
availing 'themselves of the testimmonies adduced by its patrons,
they wish to gain reliance for their own attempted conclusions, we
shall at present, as it has seemed expedient, prove the astrological
art to be untenable, as out intention is to invalidate the Peratic
system [of certain Gnostics], as a branch growing out of an
unstable root.'"
(ibid., p. 63).
62. Among the philosophical views of the Hellenistic era, it is the

Stoic, with its reverence for an orderly cosmos, which is closest to that of
the physical cosmology of our own day, even given the uncertainties and
indeterminacies of quantum mechanics. The views of the Gnostics are
compared by Jonas to those of our recent past in which people declare,
with Nietzsche, that God is dead (Jonas, ibid., Chapter 13). Gnostics
declare that the God of the cosmos is dead. Still, Gnostics believe they
can achieve a kind of freedom by coming to know the fix we are in --
hence their name, from gnosis, knowledge. Gnosticism resembles
nihilism of a Nietzschean kind, being based on a view of nature in which
there is no reference to ends or purpose, in which values and meanings can
no longer be found, but must be willed by us, when we can. This at least
makes our wills free. Dreadful freedom, the existentialists called it. An
estrangement of Man and Nature can arise from believing that nature, like
the Gnostic God, is indifferent to man. However, even estranged from
nature, we can find value in nature's orderliness, experienced as beauty,
and satisfaction in understanding and manipulating what we can of it.
63. One of the other great philosophical doctrines of antiquity was

Epicureanism. Rackham says: "Epicurus [based] his main theory of
nature ... upon the atomism of Democritus, holding that the real universe
consists in innumerable atoms of matter moving by the force of gravity
through an infinity of empty space. Our world and all its contents, and
also innumerable other worlds, are temporary clusters of atoms
fortuitously collected together in the void; they are constantly forming and
constantly dissolving, without plan or purpose ... The gods (like
everything else) consist of fortuitous clusters of atoms ... But it is impious
to fancy that gods are burdened with the labour of upholding or guiding
the universe; the worlds go on of themselves, by purely mechanical
causation; the gods live a life of undisturbed bliss in the intermundia, the
empty regions of space between the worlds." (Rackham, ibid., p. viii.)
64. Broadly speaking, the contrast is between a universe in which

there are irreducible chance, disorder, probabilities, and unpredictability,
compared with a universe in which there are order, law, regularity and
certainties, perhaps to the point of complete determinism. It is possible to

have it both ways. For example, a number of American Indian groups
maintained myths which combined chance and order. For example, Ray
Williamson says that the hogan, the prototype of the traditional Navaho
dwelling, appears in Navaho creations myths as the home of many
different creatures, and also as a place of creation. The stars, for example,
are created there. "The story of the creation of the stars is central to the
Navajo conception of the universe," says Williamson, "a universe that is
essentially ordered just as the hogan is ordered but which also contains
mischievous forces of disorder. In this story, Coyote, the trickster,
introduces disorder into the heavens by upsetting the intended orderly
arrangement of the stars." (Ray Williamson, Living the Sky, 1984, p. 162.)
65. According to Gladys Reichard, Coyote is an exponent of

irresponsibility and lack of direction. He seems to be an uncontrolled
aspect of either Sun himself, or as the child of Sun or Sky, Coyote
represents lust on earth, thus matching Sun's promiscuity as a celestial
being. Reichard says: "Coyote, however, observes no rules. Sun, though
reluctant and protesting, assumes responsibility for his childred; Coyote
sates his desire and leaves confusion or worse behind him. Any good that
Coyote accomplishes is fortuitous; Sun's good deeds, though forced, result
in control. Coyote does all the daring things Sun would like to do—in
fact, once did; Sun secretly gloats over them, but of necessity appears to
disapprove..... Order, the foundation of Navaho ritual, is reversed in
Coyote's character. He threw the stars into the sky in a haphazard manner,
he defied hunting rules, he vacillated between evil and good in the
ceremonial assembly, he chose October, a changeable and uncertain
month, to be his. Plants representing him in the rites are unselected, as are
his arrow feathers, and his songs are not grouped in order. After the Bats
had killed him, they ground up his skin with soil from undesignated places
and scattered the mixture in every direction." (Gladys Reichard, Navaho
Religion, 1950, p. 79, 183.)
66. Williamson says of the Chumash Indians of California: "For

the Chumash the entire universe and the supernatural powers within it
were constantly in flux. Without supernatural intervention from humans,
the powers of the world could readily produce events with cataclysmic
results. The astronomers of the 'antap cult ... had within their province the
duty to seek out the necessary knowledge from the celestial beings, to
foresee the future, and to take the proper steps to alter the upcoming
course of events for the well-being of their fellow Chumash..... For the
native Californian, the celestial realm was a place of power and danger.
By carefully timing their intercessions with the beings who peopled the
Upper World, the shamans who understood the movements of the sky
could wrest some of the celestial power to their own uses. Because that
power could also be highly dangerous, the shamans had to be especially
careful to watch for just the right moment, lest they bring ill to the people

for whom they strove to understand and use the power of the cosmos."
(Williamson, ibid., p. 279, 297.)
67. None of us, it seems, is important on the scale of galaxies or

electrons, at least if importance is to be judged on size. Some believe we
have not evolved according to a master plan. Most biologists subscribe to
a lack of premeditated design. One might say that among Darwinists,
there are few Stoics, many Epicureans. Epicurean Darwinists, if they are
consistent, will be left in a world without plan, subject to the vicissitudes
of fortune. Many wish to be saved from such a world. Mircea Eliade
says:. "It could be said that the promise of salvation attempts to exorcise
the redoubtable power of the goddess Tyche (Chance; Latin, Fortuna).
Capricious and unpredictable, Tyche indifferently brings good or evil.....
[To overcome this] Destiny ends by being associated with astral fatalism.
The existence of individuals as well as the duration of cities and states is
determined by the stars. This doctrine and, with it, astrology—the
technique that applies its principles—develop under the impulse given by
the Babylonians' observations of the heavenly bodies. To be sure, the
theory of micro-macrocosmic correspondences had long been known in
Mesopotamia ... and elsewhere in the Asian world. However, this time
man not only feels that he shares in the cosmic rhythms but discovers that
his life is determined by the motions of the stars." (Mircea Eliade, A
History of Religious Ideas, 1978; translation by Willard Trask of Histoire
des croyances et des idées religieuses, 1976, v. 1, p. 69, 83.)
68. Notions of a regular universe are intimately tied to motions of

the stars. Pliny says: "For all over the world, in all places, and at all
times, Fortune is the only God whom every one invokes; she alone is
spoken of, she alone is accused and is supposed to be guilty; she alone is
in our thoughts, is praised and blamed, and is loaded with reproaches
wavering as she is, conceived by the generality of mankind to be blind,
wandering, inconstant, uncertain, variable, and often favouring the
unworthy. To her are referred all our losses and all our gains, and in
casting up the accounts of mortals she alone balances the two pages of our
sheet. We are so much in the power of chance, that chance itself is
considered as a God, and the existence of God becomes doubtful. But
there are others who reject this principle and assign events to the influence
of the stars, and to the laws of our nativity; they suppose that God, once
for all, issues his decrees and never afterwards interferes. This opinion
begins to gain ground, and both the learned and unlearned vulgar are
falling into it." (Pliny, Natural History, 77 A.D., II.v.22-24, Latin edited
by H. Rackham, 1938, p. 182, 184, translation to English by John Bostock
and H. T. Riley, 1855, p. 23-24.)
69. (From Rackham's preface, p. vii-viii: Pliny's "interest in

science finally cost him his life, at the age of 56. He was in command of

the fleet at Misenum on the Bay of Naples in A.D. 79 when the famous
eruption of Vesuvius took place on August 23 and 24, overwhelming the
little towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Pliny as a man of science sailed
across the bay to obtain a nearer view; he landed at Stabiae, and there was
killed by poisonous fumes.")
70. In the Hellenistic Age, Michael Grant reports, "tens of

thousands of people were gripped by an unreasonable, dismal, desperate
conviction that everything in the world was under the total control of
Tyche: Fortune, Chance or Luck. There was a deep-seated feeling that
men and women were adrift in an uncaring universe, and that everything
was hazardous, beyond human control or understanding or prediction.
And so the cult of Chance swept conqueringly over the Mediterranean....."
To many it seemed that Chance and Fortune were beyond the
comprehension of human beings.
71. The historian Polybius of Megalopolis (c. 200 -- after 118)

placed Tyche at the center of the world he was depicting because he felt
that the taking over of the Mediterranean area by the Romans was an event
that could only be explained in this way. "However," says Grant, "his
interpretations of what 'Fortune' actually means are varied and shifting,
like most people's views on the subject. Sometimes he sees Tyche as
everything that lies beyond human control, or displays no rational causes.
Sometimes her name is his label to describe purely haphazard
coincidences—or to reflect the fact that anything can happen to anyone at
any time. Occasionally there is a hint of a purposive Providence, or of the
old Greek idea, so familiar from the tragic drama, that it is Fortune's task
to see that mortal wickedness, or even excessive prosperity, is penalized.
Yet Polybius also views Tyche as basically amoral, and just as likely to
hurt the virtuous. But it is in large-scale operations that his Tyche really
comes into play: when huge and capricious events upset the balance of
history, and the fortunes of nations are abruptly and sensationally
reversed. However, when another, rational cause is perceptible, he prefers
to invoke that instead, calling upon Tyche only when no such rational
cause can be detected." (Michael Grant, From Alexander to Cleopatra,
The Hellenistic World, 1982, p. 214-222).
72. During the centuries immediately before and after the

beginning of the Christian era, people started to speak less about Fortune
and more about Fate and Destiny: "Fate was often viewed as a general
scheme ruling the world and creating a chain of remorseless mechanical
causation. Certainly, there wasn't always much difference, in people's
minds, between 'chance would have it so' and 'it was fated to be so'. But
some writers, realizing that it is illogical to believe in them both at one and
the same time, tried to distinguish between them." For example, Zeno the
Stoic (d. 263 B.C.) saw belief in Fate and causation as the more

respectable, and his follower Cleanthes coupled Destiny with Zeus
himself. The Stoics identified Fate with Divine Reason, which determines
everything and demands our acceptance. Epicurus, however, believed it
was worse to serve such Fate than to serve even the useless popular gods.
The wise, said Epicurus, scorn Fate. Many others felt oppressed by the
inescapable and boring despotism of Fate, which appeared to ruthlessly
restrict the value of human behavior. Nevertheless, millions accepted its
tyranny. (Grant, ibid.)
73. Grant goes on: "Millions, too, including some of the best
educated people of the day, accepted an even more lamentable doctrine:
belief in the power of the sun, moon and stars. For the movements of such
celestial forces, it seemed overwhelmingly certain, must affect the lives
and deaths, fates and fortunes of humankind. The foundation for this
belief was a widespread, profound conviction that some kind of harmony
exists between the earth and these heavenly bodies—some cosmic
'sympathy' which meant that the earth and all the orbs seen shining in the
sky must possess the same laws and behaviour in common. People felt
sure—and philosophers encouraged them—that the cosmos is a unit,
whose parts are interdependent: that is to say, behind the huge and
spectacular processions of the sun, moon and stars, like the marchings of
the Homeric armies before the walls of Troy, some underlying solidarity
and order has to exist—an order which must correspondingly prevail on
earth as well. For it was believed that the heavenly bodies were nourished
by emanations or effluvia from their counterpart the earth, and it therefore
seemed only sensible to conclude that emanations also proceeded in the
opposite direction, too, and influenced the earth and the human beings
who dwelt on its surface."
74. "A clear proof that what happens above affects what happens
below seemed to be provided by the visible influence that the heavenly
bodies exert on the world: the sun makes the vegetation grow and die, and
causes animals to sleep and go on heat; storms and floods come and go
according to the rise and fall of constellations; and the moon appears to
control the tides like a magnet—the laws of tide-generating gravitation
being unknown, this relationship (in so far as it interested the dwellers
round an almost tideless sea) was explained by cosmic sympathy between
a supposedly watery planet and the element of water in earth. So the
whole doctrine seemed to hang together neatly, completely, and rationally,
in coherence with the sciences. Yet it is based on a complete fallacy. The
generalization that links all human activities, as well as the physical
properties of the earth, to the heavenly bodies is quite without foundation.
The pedigree of this set of beliefs had been antique and complex. The
Greek tragic poets described sun, moon and stars as deities, and Plato
accepted this belief, weaving an elaborate astral theology into the fabric of
his ideal state. Aristotle, too, far from hostile to a relationship between

earth and stars, regarded the latter as intelligent, divine beings—an
interpretation that almost all Hellenistic writers shared. People were
learning with fascinated interest about the star-worship and astrological
practices of the Babylonians, for example from Eudoxus of Cnidus (c.
390-340); and once Alexander the Great had absorbed Babylonia into the
world of the Greeks, professional astrologers began to transmit and adapt
its traditions to the west." (Grant, ibid.)
75. Grant remarks on the relation of a theory of tides to

astrological ideas. Pierre Duhem, in his 10 volume work on ancient and
medieval astronomy and physics, Le Système du Monde, 1913, calls the
chapter in which he first brings up astrology (Ch. XIII of v. 2) "La théorie
des marées et l'astrologie" (marées = tides), because he regards the link
between the two to be of primary importance in explaining the power of
astrology. In Duhem's view, the basic principle of astrology was stated
already by Aristotle: "The different parts of the Universe are related to
each other by a strict determinism; this determinism subjects the world
entirely to the government of celestial circulations." The moon, Duhem
says, plays a preponderant role in the astrology ultimately based on this
principle, and "the laws of the tides prove, with evidence, the reality of
this lunar action and consequently of all the influences which emanate
from celestial bodies." Duhem shows how one of the most influential of
the early Stoic astrologers, Posidonius (c. 135-50 B.C.), was also much
interested in explaining tides. Also, the 9th century Arabian astrologer
Abu Ma'shar (Albumasar) devoted 6 chapters of his Introductorium to a
theory of tides, from which Duhem quotes extensively. (Pierre Duhem, Le
Système du Monde, 1913, v. 2, p. 280-286, 377-386, 390.) This work by
Abu Ma'shar was very influential on European scholars during the
European Middle Ages, as a source of both astrology and the works of
Aristotle on nature.
76. The Eudoxus of Cnidus referred to by Grant was one of the

great mathematicians and cosmologists of classic Greece. Otto
Neugebauer refers to the "oft-quoted remark of Cicero (de divinatione II,
42, 87) that Eudoxus has written that one should not believe the Chaldean
practice of predicting the fate of a person from the day of his birth", which
appears to say that Eudoxus rejected horoscopic astrology. However,
Neugebauer goes on to observe that "from the day of birth" may not refer
to astronomical prediction, but to a practice like that attested to by
Herodotus (II, 82), who says that the Egyptians "assign each month and
each day" to a god and that "they can tell what fortune, what end, and
what disposition a man shall have according to the day of his birth." (Otto
Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 1957, p. 188.) This view of
Neugebauer seems to have been misunderstood by P. M. Fraser who says
flatly of astrology (in general) that "Eudoxus is the first to reveal
familiarity with it, even though he rejects its doctrines." (P. M. Fraser,

Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1972, v. 1, p. 435, and v. 2, p. 629, of the reprint of
1984).
77. Fraser's chief source for this evaluation appears to be the

remark made by Cicero. He also refers to Neugebauer's evaluation just
given, saying that Neugebauer "questions whether this is necessarily a
reference to astronomical prediction", without noticing that this leaves
open the possibility that Eudoxus may have approved of some of the
astrological doctrines of the Chaldeans. Fraser, like Grant, is eager to
separate the scientific from the pseudo-scientific achievements of the
Ptolemaic Alexandrians, according to what scientists of Fraser's time
considered scientific and pseudo-scientific. Astrology, along with
alchemy and astrological medicine, he counts among the "corrupted"
sciences, "superstitions" which have "encroached on scientific thought".
"There is indeed," he says, "scarcely a branch of science which did not, in
the course of time, produce its own bastard—the fruit of a decline in
scientific originality, combined with superstition and philosophical
fatalism." (Fraser, ibid.) There seems to be a similarity here between
deciding whether viruses are foregunners of cells or bacteria, or
degenerate cells or bacteria.
78. Grant and Fraser are hard on believers in astrology.

Presumably they mean people who believe in judicial or horoscopic
astrology of the kind introduced in Hellenistic Egypt, versions of which
are still prevalent today. Perhaps, though, they are condemning astral
fatalism in general. They may be objecting to an overextended
determinism, which, as we observed before, many people find morally
repugnant or instinctively incredible. But, as I have claimed before, in
former times a kind of compound of astronomy and astrology was the rule,
and separating the two by today's criteria may distort both the motivation
and the legacy of the achievements of the astronomer / astrologers of the
past.
79. One of the great goals of mathematicians, astronomers,

physicists and other natural philosophers has been to discover and describe
quantitative constancy, invariance, pattern, and order in nature, and, on the
other hand, to find quantitative ways to deal with variability, turbulence,
randomness and chance. The first of these aims tends to lead them to
determinism, and the second tends to leads them to limitations of
determinism. In favorable cases, scientists of this kind find laws or other
devices for predicting future and retrodicting past behavior of physical
systems with some acceptable degree of accuracy. In cases even more
favorable, they find laws which require only small amounts of information
and time, relative to human lifetimes, for useful or revealing applications
of predicting and retrodicting. Such laws are especially useful when they
are mathematical in nature.

80. "I will not go so far as to say," A. N. Whitehead once said,
"that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the
mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the
play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it
is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is
singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very
charming—and a little mad." (Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the
Modern World, 1928, p. 26-27.)
81. It is not unreasonable, I think, to conjecture that the

development of mathematical thought beyond mere counting was initiated,
or at least strongly accelerated, by consideration of celestial objects.
Archeo-astronomers have found increasing evidence that many ancient
peoples in parts of the world from Scotland to south of the Sahara desert,
from pre-Hispanic Mexico to the Egypt of the Pharaohs, had a fairly
sophisticated understanding of celestial phenomena, to some extent
mathematical in nature. (See, e.g., James Cornell, The First Stargazers,
An Introduction to the Origins of Astronomy, 1981.)
82. Development of mathematics went hand-in-hand with

development of astronomy. In contrast with unpredictable and capricious
gods of nature, there arose, in connection, it seems, with consciousness of
time, a vision of the divine manifesting itself in a temporal dominion over
the precise and apparently unvarying cyclic paths of the sun, moon,
planets and stars. Such thoughts are found in Plato's Epinomis. Plato asks
how we are to get wisdom. He runs through a number of domains of
knowledge—farming, the useful and fine arts, sciences of war, medicine
and transportation, and says that none of them constitute wisdom. He asks
what single science there is which, if it were taken away from mankind or
never had made its appearance, people would become thoughtless and
foolish creatures. Answer: mathematics, the knowledge of number. And,
Plato says, our knowledge of mathematics comes to us from Ouranos, the
god of the heavens. Call him Ouranos, Cosmos, or whatever you please,
he is the source of all good things, such as the seasons and our food. And
with the sequence of whole numbers, Ouranos gives us understanding.
This, says Plato, is the greatest gift of all, if people will only accept it, and
let their minds range over the heavens. (Plato, translation by Raymond
Klibansky in Philebus and Epinomis, 1956, reprinted in The Collected
Dialogues of Plato, 1961, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington
Cairns, p. 1519-1520.)
83. Similar thoughts are found in Plato's dialogue Timaeus:

"Sight, then, in my judgment is the cause of the highest benefits to us in
that no word of our present discourse about the universe could ever have
been spoken, had we never seen stars, Sun, and sky. But as it is, the sight
of day and night, of months and the revolving years, of equinox and

solstice, has caused the invention of number and bestowed on us the
notion of time and the study of the nature of the world; whence have
derived all philosophy, than which no greater boon has ever come or shall
come to mortal man as a gift from heaven." (Plato, Timaeus, 47a-b,
translated by Francis Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 157-158 of
1957 edition.) Plato evidently took philosophy to include what many
today would classify as science and mathematics.
84. Of the Demiurge, the Creator, Plato says in the cosmological

myth in the Timaeus, that "he took thought to make, as it were, a moving
likeness of eternity; and, at the same time that he ordered the Heaven, he
made, of eternity that abides in unity, an everlasting likeness moving
according to number—that to which we have given the name Time."
(Plato, Timaeus, 37d, translated by Francis Cornford in Plato's
Cosmology, 1937, p. 98 of 1957 reprint). The phrase "at the same time"
may be confusing. Benjamin Jowett translates: "Wherefore he resolved to
have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he
made this image eternal but moving according to number, but eternity
itself rests in unity, and this image we call time." (p. 1167 of The
Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington
Cairns, 1961). A little later Plato says: "Time came into being together
with the Heaven, in order that, as they were brought into being together, so
they may be dissolved together, if ever their dissolution should come to
pass." (Timaeus, 38b.)
85. But consciousness of time brings consciousness of aging and

death. This incites countermeasures, such as a paradise lost in the past, or
a heaven and hell to go to, or an end of time, or attempts to preserve the
present with all its blemishes, or a changeless world of ideas, or a better or
worse world to come on earth. The ancient Iranians, for example,
developed a religion, Zoroastrianism, in which it was held that the world
was created in a year, and each subsequent year was a repetition of the
year of creation. Yet they also envisaged a continual struggle between
forces of good and evil, represented by the gods Ahura Mazda (later,
Ormazd) and Ahriman, which would eventually be decided in favor of
good. Inasmuch as each year repeats the year of creation, the time of the
Iranians was periodic. The world eternally returns to its beginning, and
starts anew. But inasmuch as the battle between good and evil will
eventually end with the victory of good, the time of the Iranians was
pointed along a line toward a future goal.
86. It appears, then, that ideas of time have been intimately related
to ideas about celestial motions, and hence to views of determinism.
There were various ideas about time in the ancient world. The ancient
Jews tended to concentrate on a future which would bring new things.
This may be taken to imply a time line, rather than a time circle of the sort

one needs for periodicity and cycles and repetition of the same events over
and over. The prophet Isaiah says in the Bible: "Remember not the
former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new
thing." (Isaiah, 43.18, Revised Standard Version.) And later: "The sun
shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give
light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your
God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon
withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days
of mourning shall be ended. Your people shall all be righteous; they shall
possess the land for ever, the shoot of my planting, the work of my hands,
that I might be glorified. The least one shall become a clan, and the
smallest one a mighty nation; I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it."
(Isaiah 60.19-20.) Thus the periodic and repetitious movements of
celestial objects will cease, and time will flow only forward—or cease
altogether. In the meantime, we will go forward in time and history to
approach the consummation—no turning back.
87. This looking into the future by the Jewish prophets is quite
unlike the astrological prediction which grew up in Babylonia and other
nearby cultures. In astronomy, the future is calculated, or based on
calculations, as when an equinox or eclipse or sunrise or tide is predicted.
In astrology, predictions of the future are based on astronomical
calculations. But in biblical prophecy, the future is beheld, proclaimed,
believed in. Furthermore, the prophets looked forward in a kind of linear
time. The tacit use of a linear rather than a circular time generated a
looking backward as well as forward, to see when it all began. Certain
ancient Jews settled on the date October 7, 3761 B.C. of the Christian
calendar for the beginning of the world. The official calendar of present-
day Israel is built around this date. Today's scientific cosmologists put the
date of creation (the so-called "big bang") earlier, at around 15 thousand
million years ago. The time intervals are different, but the principle is the
same.
88. The early Christians implicitly developed the notion of linear

time even further. They furnished the world with a definite beginning, the
creation; a middle, the mission of Christ; and an apocalyptic end, to which
early Christians, and some later ones, could eagerly look forward. Much
the same can be said of the Muslims, although of course they have an
additional prophet, Mohammed.
89. The ancient Greeks tended to spatialize where the

Babylonians, Jews, Christians and Muslims temporalized. For example, in
the Semitic religions we hear of an Eden far off in time, while the Greeks
speak of an island of the blessed far off in the western sea, and
hyperboreans who live far to the north in a region of sunshine and
everlasting spring, beyond the northern wind. The tendency of ancient

Greeks toward spatialization of ideas, and limitation of time as far as
possible to the present, point to a preference for the constant and enduring,
and for order and harmony. Rudolf Wendorff says that when change
occurs and has to be overcome, the Greek philosophers generally took one
or more of the following approaches: (1) they looked the other way, or
didn't take time seriously; (2) they contrasted temporal becoming with
timeless being so time becomes secondary and derived; (3) they tried to
keep change under control by means of unvarying laws or principles that
don't allow for accidents and arbitrariness; 4) they tamed time, up to a
point, by concentrating on cyclical repetition of processes that allow
motion in time but preclude a "going-beyond-the banks" onto a linear time
going to infinity, in which there are always completely new and
unpredictable possibilities. (Rudolf Wendorff, Zeit und Kultur, 1980, p.
56.)
90. For Parmenides (early 500's B.C.), time is an illusion. Only in

myths, he writes, is there an origin of the universe in time, and a genesis of
being. For reason (logos), the very question about such an origin loses its
meaning. Being, the material of reason (so to speak), is unborn,
unchanging, immovable, eternal. Being never was or will be. It is totally
present now, one and indivisible.
91. I propose to take astrology seriously here. Patrick Curry says

that until quite recently: "Astrology was customarily regarded an
inseparable mixture of what is now distinguished between as 'science' and
'mathematics' on the one hand, and 'magic' on the other. The former
elements makes it difficult for historians of science to avoid completely;
but the latter, equally, makes it (along with alchemy) uniquely irritating.
This reaction undoubtedly stems from an often uncritical loyalty of
historians of science to modern science. To put it another way, the efforts
of early modern science to define itself against magic and neo-
Aristotelianism has rubbed off on many of its historians—an attitude
aggravated by the continued existence of astrology, in defiance of
scientific enlightenment. This is quite evident in the literature, beginning
with the doyen of history of science, George Sarton, who was unable to
mention astrology (in relation to early Greek science) without descending
into abusive caricature, explicitly to his feelings about modern astrologers.
For this he was reproved by Otto Neugebauer, in a short but powerful
paper entitled 'The Study of Wretched Subjects', which defended against
such destructiveness 'the very foundations of our studies: the recovery and
study of the texts, regardless of our own tastes and prejudices.'" (Patrick
Curry, Astrology, Science and Society, Historical Essays, 1987, edited by
Patrick Curry, p. 2.)
92. "The great discovery of the sacerdotal astronomers of

Babylonia," says David Amand, "was that of the immutable constancy of

the sidereal revolutions, whose periodicity allows us to predict the return
at fixed dates of astronomical phenomena. By accumulating observations,
these priests were naturally led to the notion of a necessity, which was
conceived either as resulting from the will of the gods, or as being superior
to them. It was in Chaldea that the idea was born of a Fatality related to
the regular movements of the sun, moon and planets distributing good and
evil to people. However, this determinism was not pushed to its ultimate
logical consequences. The priests believed in the arbitrary intervention of
a divine will in the order of nature. They predicted the future by the stars.
But by purifications, sacrifices and incantations, they claimed to remove
the evils and to obtain more surely the announced benefits. In the
Alexandrian epoch, certain schools of astronomer priests, very probably
under the influence of Stoicism, professed a more rigorous doctrine.
Fatality became the sovereign mistress; it governed God himself, that is,
the living universe, and with the stars as intermediaries produced all
physical, intellectual and moral phenomena." (David Amand, Fatalisme
et liberté dans l'antiquité grecque, Recherches sur la survivance de
l'argumentation morale antifataliste de Carnéade chez les philosophes
grecs et les théologiens chrétiens des quatre premiers siècles, 1945, p. 1-
2.)
93. Thus was born a religious science or scientific religion

compounded of astronomy, astrology, and astrolatry, or, as the Germans
say, Sternkunde, Sterndeutung, and Sternglaube—star information, star
interpretation, star faith. Astrolatry I take to include astral religion of all
kinds—worship of the sun and moon as gods or goddesses or powers, and
so on. By astrology, concerned with prediction using the stars, I mean,
unless I state otherwise, something broader than generally understood
today. In the earliest astrology, there were no horoscopes and predictions
of the character and fates of individuals. If it weren't for custom and
awkwardness, it would be better to say something like deterministic
astralism rather than astrology. In particular, in what follows, when I say
"astrology", unqualified, I will usually be referring to something more
general than horoscopic astrology, also known as judicial astrology
(because it is used to make judgments on the basis of celestial objects).
Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that astrology is not a fixed body of
knowledge which has always stayed the same. Its techniques and visions
of the world have evolved. Its principal aim has always been to establish
and define relations between humanity and the heavens, and to discover
laws which rule them both. But during its long history, astrology, in its
broadest sense, has assumed numerous and perhaps innumerable forms,
and has been a part of many different cultures. (Cf. Jacques Halbronn, Le
Monde Juif et l'Astrologie, Histoire d'un vieux couple, 1979, p. 8.)
94. Astrologers and astronomers have long been among the

foremost promoters and defenders of kinds of determinism. In his

capacity as a classicist (which is how he made his living), the poet A. E.
Housman edited the Astronomica, the long poem on astrology written by
Manilius in the 1st century A.D. Manilius was a strict determinist, or
fatalist, who believed we are ruled by the stars. Housman once said that
his elaborate work on Manilius's poem would be remembered long after
his own poems were forgotten. However this may be, while Housman
bowed to a kind of determinism, some part of him was free, to judge from
this poem by him:
The laws of God, the laws of man,

He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
But when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbor to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of Man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong:
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.
--- A. E. Housman, The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman,

1939, from Last Poems, 1922, XII.)
95. For many years, astrology and astral religions, as well as other
studies such as alchemy and theology, were entangled with astronomy.
This is the major reason I felt obliged to take astrology and star worship as
seriously as I take astronomy and mathematics. There are, of course,
many who feel that a study of the history of astrology is a waste of time
(as well as many who do not). However, I agree with Patrick Curry who,
in his study of astrology in 17th and 18th century England, rejects the idea
of considering astrology to be "simply one of history's 'losers' ". (Patrick
Curry, Prophecy and Power, Astrology in Early Modern England, 1989, p.
3). In my view, we distort history if we separate the star worship and
astrology of the past from the history of astronomy as presently practiced.

96. Fortunately, I will not be concerned with truth or falsity of
astrological claims. Those interested in such matters may wish to consult
the works of the psychologist Michel Gauquelin. For more than 30 years,
he made a series of statistical studies of birth data in an attempt to prove or
disprove that there is a positive correlation between the positions of
planets in the sky at birth, and subsequent characteristics of the person
born, as indicated by his or her success in various professions. (See, for
example, Michel Gauquelin Dreams and Illusions of Astrology, 1979, and
Birth-Times, 1983, both translated from French; the latter is called The
Truth about Astrology in the British edition.) In the process, he has cast
considerable doubt on the efficacy of traditional astrological practices.
Some consider that he has definitively refuted the claims of horoscopic
astrologers with solid statistical evidence. However, he also claims to
have found statistical evidence for some influence of planets on people's
character, that is, on their professional success.
97. As far as I know, no satisfactory explanation of the effect

apparently detected by Gauqelin has yet been given. Many proposals have
been made, including some offered tentatively by Gauquelin himself. For
example, Percy Seymour, an astronomer (not astrologer!), described in
1988 "how the planets control the overall direction of the solar magnetic
field near the poles, and how conjunctions, oppositions and squares of the
planets as seen from the Sun control the onset of violent storms on the
Sun," and "how solar activity is linked to geomagnetic activity, the
northern and southern lights, short-term terrestrial weather and long-term
climate." From this, Seymour proceeds to a very briefly stated and (I
think) largely unsupported hypothesis according to which "it is possible
for post-natal fluctuations of the geomagnetic field to recall, via its own
'machine code' [as in computers], some of the pre-natal programming
which it fed into the brain of the developing foetus, and thus influence its
behaviour in certain circumstances." (Percy Seymour, Astrology, the
Evidence of Science, 1988, p. 140, 149.)
98. On the other hand Gauquelin himself says: "Astrology has

always remained enigmatic and, to the perfectly proper question, 'Should
one believe it?', I can only answer by rejecting both the unconditional
opponents and the confirmed upholders .... My ideas on astral influence
have changed continually, swinging back and forth like a pendulum.....
Though I am so full of my subject, so determined to defend it, so proud of
my discoveries, I am still tormented by two asserting demons. The first is
the fear of having been mistaken in asserting that astral influence is real;
the second is the agonizing thought of all that I have been unable to
discover or explain." (Michael Gauqelin, Birth-Times, 1983, p. 180-181.)
99. Gérard Simon, in his study of the influence of astrology on the

work of the great astronomer Kepler, is concerned, among other things, to

reveal the categories of thought which were available to Kepler. He says:
"We start from the idea that before we study the way which a man in a
particular epoch conceptually elaborates the facts available for him to
reflect on, it's a good idea to ask ourselves at the outset about the norms he
obeys when he conceptualizes in general; and therefore an analysis of
what was thinkable for him ought to precede an analysis of what was
thoughtby him." (Gérard Simon, Kepler astronome astrologue, 1979, p.
11.) We can ask how much of what was thinkable and sensible for our
predecessors, but has become unthinkable or nonsensical for us, is well
forgotten, and how much should be revived, or at least commemorated.
100. Astrology thus has narrow and broad meanings. In a narrow

sense, it has to do with predicting character, fate and events on the basis of
zodiacal signs and houses, planetary aspects and the like. In a broad
sense, it is study and knowledge of any influences of celestial objects on
human affairs, on the basis of which predictions can be made. This might
include gravitational influences of the moon on the earth, on the basis of
which we can predict (for example) tides, which influence human affairs
in certain ways. Perhaps this is too broad a definition of astrology. But
where do we draw the line? Planets and stars certainly have some
detectable effects on us. Otherwise we couldn't see them. Furthermore,
quite aside from physical interactions, the orderly movement of celestial
objects has served, at times, as a paradigm for priests, statesmen,
philosophers, poets and a multitude of others. Who really knows – for
sure—what the limits of such effects are?
101. Some have maintained that the non-astronomical content of

astrology belongs to psychology. This may be to take a position allied to
that of the psychologist Carl Jung, who made proposals along this line to
explain the prevalence and what he considered to be occasional successes
of horoscopic astrology. (See, e.g., the article on "synchronicity" in
Naturerklärung und Psyche by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli (1952),
English translation by Priscilla Silz, The Interpretation of Nature and the
Psyche (1955)). If today's physical cosmologists are right in holding that
people have ultimately evolved from stars, our brains and minds may
respond to them, at conception or birth, or later on, in ways we have not
yet discovered. A more exact astrology may yet be found, based not on
horoscopes but on some other quantitative correspondences of celestial
with human activity. Or maybe not.
102. Jacques Halbronn has advanced the idea that astronomers are
not, by virtue of their profession, entitled to pronounce on the validity or
invalidity of astrology. "If man is related to the stars," he says, "this is not
the fault of the stars, it is the fault of man .... It is a neurophysiological
problem more than a cosmobiological or astrophysical problem. It is not a
question of asking if the stars emit but if men receive ....." It is one thing,

Halbronn says, if the relation between men and the stars posited by
astrologers is a regrettable aberration, and another if it has turned out not
to be real. In some ancient religions, bulls were worshipped. Do we have
to ask a zoologist or agriculturalist if such a practice has any rationale, or
if it is part of the nature of bulls to be worshipped? Do we have to ask an
astronomer if there is any rationale in star worship, or if it is in the nature
of a planet called Jupiter to play the role it has played in astrology? Is it in
the nature of tobacco, Halbronn asks, to be a habit for millions of human
beings? (Jacques Halbronn and Serge Hutin, Histoire de l'Astrologie,
1986, p. 145.)
103. While this may be true for astrology and astronomy as these
terms are now generally understood, the fact remains that the two
disciplines were in most people's minds linked together for much of their
history, for several thousand years or more, until they began to separate
about three or four hundred years ago. This interrelationship has left
traces on both the astronomy and astrology of today. Astrologers, for
example, often take into account new discoveries of astronomers, such as
the new planets discovered since antiquity, including the asteroids. Some
astrologers, more conservative, maintain that for astrological purposes one
can consider the sun and moon as planets, along with the five other planets
known to the ancients, and that the new planets are irrelevant. Such
astrologers only use old astronomy.
104. Astronomers, on the other hand, often feel it their duty to try
to prove there is nothing worthwhile in astrology. To that extent at least
astronomers are still concerned with astrology. More generally, while
astronomers may become enthusiastic about the wonders of heaven and
earth as explained by their theories and tested by their observations, they
are usually constrained in their professional work to express this wonder
in non-religious as well as non-astrological ways. Individual astronomers
may write articles and books connecting or disconnecting their
professional beliefs from religious beliefs. But this is not considered as
part of their astronomy. It is something added on, dispensable as far as the
practice of their profession is concerned.
Chapter 2. From Astral Beliefs to Kepler, Fludd and Newton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. In the Chinese Commentary on the Chuang Tzu by Kuo Hsiang (4th

century A.D.) we find: "The principles of things are from the very start
correct. None can escape from them. Therefore a person is never born by

mistake, and what he is born with is never an error. Although heaven and
earth are vast and the myriad things are many, the fact that I happen to be
here is not something that spiritual beings of heaven and earth, sages and
worthies of the land, and people of supreme strength or perfect knowledge
can violate..... Therefore if we realize that our nature and destiny are what
they should be, we will have no anxiety and will be at ease with ourselves in
the face of life or death, prominence or obscurity, or an infinite amount of
changes and variations, and will be in accord with principle.” (A Source Book
in Chinese Philosophy, 1963, translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan, p.
332.)
2. In a charming although perhaps not authoritative book, Peter Lum

says: "The Chinese believed that the world of stars was exactly similar to
that of men. It was perforce a happier land, without flood or famine, but it
was subject to the same laws as China, and its immortal inhabitants were
very similar to the Chinese. The familiar world known to mankind, with its
obvious imperfections, was rather like a reflection in troubled waters of that
ideal world which existed above. And the Chinese believed that as long as
life on earth followed the pattern of the star world in every detail, there
would be peace and happiness. It was only when, owing either to insufficient
knowledge or else to lack of skill in carrying out their instructions, the earth
got out of step with the sky world that discontent and war and suffering
followed. If there was a famine, or rebellion, or civil war, it must be because
the astronomers were held responsible. It was a theory which certainly led to
a rapid development of astronomical knowledge, especially when the
unfortunate astronomers discovered that if they made a mistake, or even
failed to predict and eclipese, they might lose not only their jobs but their
heads as well." (Peter Lum,The Stars in our Heaven, Myths and Fables,
1948, p. 16-17.)
3. Another version is given by Evan Hadingham, based on the annals of

the Formal Han Dynasty (202 B.C. - 8 A.D.). The Chinese Emperor's rule
was sanctioned, Hadingham says, by a blending of earthly and cosmic forces.
The King was said to have Heaven for father and Earth for mother. The
main task of the state astronomers was to detect imbalances in this
relationship by watching for portents such as eclipses, meteors, comets and
other unusual celestial phenomena. This responsibility placed them in a
position of immense power in the Han bureaucracy. An examination of the
annals shows that the scribes edited them, making additions, deletions, and
alterations. Certain omens, such as eclipses, were reported on dates which
were astronomically impossible, which suggests that the importance of
obtaining a sign overrode the Han astronomers' concern for facts. (Evan
Hadingham, Early Man and the Cosmos (1984), p. 247; Hadingham cites W.
Eberhard, "The Political Function of Astronomy and Astronomers in Han
China" in Chinese Thought and Institutions, 1957, p. 38.)
4. Some native Americans simply attributed errors of their astronomers

to incompetence. Ray Williamson speaks about the sun- watchers, or sun
priests, functionaries of the Pueblo Indians, the Hopi and Zuni, who
maintained a kind of solar horizon calendar by monitoring positions of the
sun from day to day, and correlated them with various ceremonies, e.g., at
the solstices. He reports a journal entry for April 18, 1921, made by Crow
Wing, a Hopi Indian: "We think the Sun-Watcher is not a very good man. He

missed some places, he was wrong last year. All the people think that is why
we had so much cold this winter and no snow." (Ray Williamson, Living the
Sky, The Cosmos of the American Indian, 1984, chapter on sun-watchers and
p. 111.)
5. We see why star-watchers, who were often also weather-watchers,

were in demand. We have a flourishing weather prediction industry today,
also not as reliable as we would like. We announce in our daily newspapers
summer and winter solstices and equinoxes, eclipses, comets, meteor
showers, and so on. Supernovae are reported, and are especially valued by
our cosmologist/astronomers, who use them to make predictions about the
future and past of the whole universe. Just as people have done for
thousands of years, we teach our young how to read and use calendars, what
solstices and equinoxes are, and how such things are related to predicting
future changes in daily sunlight and weather. We teach them current
theories of how eclipses work, and what meteors and comets are thought to
be. We also find in our newspapers predictions about the affairs of
individuals, in daily horoscopes written (one supposes) by astrologers. And
we hear of officials who consult astrologers about propitious times for taking
actions.
6. Edward Schafer says of the role of astronomy and astrology in China

during the T'ang dynasty (618-907 A.D.) that astronomical and calendrical
affairs were a monopoly of the court. This was because astronomical
activities had a ritualistic and religious component which involved the
sovereign, the Son of Heaven, who was the link between celestial energy
flowing from above and terrestrial responsibility flowing from below. Only
the Son of Heaven could possess true knowledge of the stars. Prying into
such affairs could be treasonable. To understand the workings and readings
of the armillary sphere and star chart was to approach dangerously close to
state secrets. Thus ordinary citizens of the T'ang empire were forbidden to
dabble in such matters. Officials maintained that this taboo was intended
prevent inexpert interpreters and charlatans from misleading and defrauding
the ignorant masses. There were stringent penalties for the possession and
use of most implements and books which could be used to obtain exact
astrological of what the T'ang code called "our occult counterparts in the sky".
(Edward Schafer, Pacing the Void, T'ang Approaches to the Stars, 1977, p. 11-
12.)
7. "The 'star gods' of ancient China were not mere ensouled stars," says
Schafer, "except, perhaps, to the vulgar. They were inconceivable beings
whose masks and costumes were always hanging in the Vestry or Green
Room of the sky, ready for occasional use when the formless powers who
owned them chose to show themselves more closely to advanced students of
the Highest Clarity than they ever did to mortals whose vision was more
clouded by the obsessive fogs of ordinary careers and mundane
preoccupations..... The beginnings of official Chinese worship and
propitiation of these remote and sublime intelligences are lost in the roots of
Chinese history. In Han times [25-220 A.D.], however, when we begin to
have some clear idea of official cult practices and beliefs, star-worship was
already firmly established. A prominent place was given to it in the state
rituals connected with the worship of heaven carried out in the capital city.
An example, under the date of A.D. 26, was the great imperial sacrifice to

Heaven, with offerings of oxen to the sky-gods, inaugurated in the southern
suburb of Lo-yang. The rite was conducted on a central round "altar" (i.e.,
ceremonial platform) and external altars to the five paramount gods of the
directions. The place of sacrifice was furnished with representations of the
purple palace of the pole and with blazons representing the positions of the
sun in the east, the moon in the west, and of the Northern Dipper. There
were also lesser altars for the planets. These celestial deities were always
paramount in the state cult, since they had a special relationship with the
imperial house, the earthly nexus of the power that radiated from them."
(Schafer, ibid., p. 222-225.)
8. Schafer goes on to say that state ceremonies conducted by the Son of

Heaven himself, or by his surrogates, were momentous and complex affairs in
which numerous potent spirits were invoked. At the winter solstice, in the
most honorable position on a great round platform -- the northern one, facing
south -- the imperial court worshipped the ritual presence of the "Supreme
Theocrat of the Heaven of Primal Light". This epithet refers to "the white
radiance of the eternal breath which pervades the cosmos". Schafer
emphasizes that we should not regard Taoist star worship merely as worship
of the stars. If we do so, we misunderstand their faith as much as if we
regarded the adoration of St. Michael and St. Gabriel as bird worship because
these creatures of pure spirit are often represented with wings. To the
Taoists, the stars were not gods but tokens and guises of cosmic beings, who
might assume other guises and reveal themselves in other symbols. "They
were deities whose location was nowhere, who existed simultaneously in the
brain and in outer space, and could exhibit their numinous presence in any
manner or place that seemed desirable." Taoist priests and initiates wore
special costumes which symbolized their spiritual advancement and
embodied mana which was revealed outwardly by magical diagrams and
talismans. Their divinites were often described as wearing costumes just like
those of their earthly hierophants. Most prominent of these vestments was
the "star hat", referred to very often in T'ang poetry. A westerner might
imagine this as the conical hat of an Arabian Nights' sorcerer, or white-
bearded Merlin, or a fairy godmother, or a wicked witch. However, it appears
that no graphic representation of a Taoist star-hat has survived from T'ang
times. (Schafer, ibid.)
9. According to the Book of T'ang astrology was unnecessary in the

golden ages of China's remotest past: "In the Grand Tranquillity of antiquity,
the sun was not eroded and the stars did not explode." Is this a reference to
sun spots, comets and meteors? to supernovae? In any case, after the rule of
godlike supermen in the earliest times came to an end, Schafer says, "the
skies over the Middle Kingdom were soon flashing with warnings from the
All Highest." Interpretation was needed. The earliest Chinese astrology, like
the earliest Mesopotamian astrology, was an omen or portent astrology,
whose function was to predict on behalf of the monarch and nation. The fate
of individuals was only of interest as far as it bore on the fate of the empire.
Astrologers were officers of the kingdom, "devoted to the interpretation of
strange lights and movements in the heavens, and the timely anticipation of
disasters".
10. Apparently not long before the beginning of the Han dynasty, the
body of lore associated with such startling phenomena acquired a theoretical

framework, chiefly the cosmic dualism of yin and yang, along with the
doctrine of the Five Activities, which could be made to correspond with the
five visible planets. Along with these, there was a fundamental "theory of
correspondences". Schafer says: "Celestial events are the "counterparts" or
"simulacra" of terrestrial events, sky things have doppelgangers below, with
which they are closely attuned..... The germinal essences of the Myriad
Creatures in every case have counterparts up in the sky." They form shapes
or contours under the sky. "Correspondence" has been defined as the relation
between the cosmic and political realms, and between the natural and human
worlds, between macrocosm and microcosm. The emperor, the Son of
Heaven, is a critical nexus between them all, "dedicated to maintaining the
exactness of the correspondences by means of ritual observances". As a
consequence, the early Chinese philosophers pondered relationships rather
than substance, a matter which preoccupied the Eleatics. However, Schafer
observes, there were always skeptics. (Schafer, ibid., p. 55-57.)
11. Among the earliest of the Chinese philosophical skeptics was Wang
Chhung [27-97 A.D.], said by Joseph Needham and Wang Ling to have been
"one of the greatest men of his nation in any age ..." They say: "[He] made a
frontal attack upon the Chinese State 'religion' by an uncompromising
resistance to anthropocentrism of any kind. Again and again he returns to
the charge that man lives on the earth's surface like lice in the folds of a
garment. At the same time, he admits that among the 300 (or 360) naked
creatures, man is the noblest and most intelligent. But if fleas, he said,
desirous of learning man's opinions, emitted sounds close to his ear, he would
not even hear them; how absurd then it is to imagine that Heaven and Earth
could understand the words of Man or acquaint themselves with his wishes.
This position once gained, the whole weight of Wang Chhung's attack on
superstition was deployed. Heaven, being incorporeal, and Earth inert, can
on no account be said to speak or act; they cannot be affected by anything
man does; they do not listen to prayers; they do not reply to questions."
(Joseph Needham and Wang Ling, Science andCivilisation in China, v. 2,
"History of Scientific Thought, 1969, p. 368, 374-375.)
12. Still, paradoxically, Wang Chhung favored individual or horoscopic

astrology, and may even have introduced it into China. He believed "that
among the most important of all influences acting upon men during the
formative period of their lives were those of the stars..... The paradox lies in
the probability that it was precisely Wang Chhung's scientific naturalism
which pushed him into this theory. as a means of escaping from the arbitrary
endowments of local gods and spirits and other 'supernatural' agencies. The
stars were at least regular in their motions." (Needham and Ling, ibid, p.
384.)
13. The Chinese astral religion did not contain horoscopic astrology
until relatively late. This shows, on the one hand, how astral religion in
general may be separate from astrology and in particular from horoscopic
astrology, and on the other hand, how astral religion may be an important
ingredient in a religion as a whole. Charles Dupuis (1742-1809) went so far
as to claim that all religions have grown out of astral religions. Dupuis was a
scholar who became a member of the revolutionary government in France in
1792, and also served briefly in Napoleon's government. However, he soon
retired from politics, and devoted the rest of his life to his studies. In 1795 he

published an extensive work called Origine de tous les cultes, ou la religion
universelle in which he propounded his theory of the astral origin of all
religions, and futhermore that the place where all organized religion
originated was northern Egypt. The work stirred up considerable
controversy, and is said to have led to the expedition organized by Napoleon
for the exploration of Egypt, an invasion which had enormous political and
archeological consequences.
14. Few believe at present that all religion originated in Upper Egypt,
or that all religion grew out of worship of celestial objects. However, that
astrolatry had a considerable influence on the development of many religions
is undeniable, as shown by Dupuis's own impressive scholarship which covers
a multitude of times and places and peoples. He begins by asserting that in
the beginning all religion was pantheistic. Of the early idea of God, he says:
"When man began to reason upon the causes of his existence and
preservation, also upon those of the multiplied effects, which are born and die
around him, where else but in this vast and admirable Whole could he have
placed at first that sovereignly powerful cause, which brings forth everything,
and in the bosom of which all reenters, in order to issue again by a succession
of new generations and under different forms. This power being that of the
World itself, it was therefore the World, which was considered as God, or as
the supreme and universal cause of all the effects produced by it, of which
mankind forms a part. This is that great God, the first or rather the only
God, who has manifested himself to man through the veil of the matter which
he animates and which forms the immensity of the Deity." (Charles Dupuis,
The Origin of all Religious Worship, 1871, p. 15-16, anonymous translation of
material from Dupuis' work. It is difficult to trace the exact provenance of
the material. Dupuis's work of 1795 was revised by P. R. Auguis and
published in 1822, 10th edition, 1835-1836. An abridgement by Count M. de
Tracy was published in 1804. While the content, roughly speaking, of the
anonymous translation into English can be found in the edition of 1835-1836,
the semantically equivalent passages are quite different linguistically.)
15. Dupuis goes on: "Although this God was everywhere and was all,
which bears a character of grandeur and perpetuity in this eternal World, yet
did man prefer to look for him in those elevated regions, where that mighty
and radiant luminary seems to travel through space, overflowing the
Universe with the waves of its light, and through which the most beautiful as
well as the most beneficent action of the Deity is enacted on Earth. It would
seem as if the Almighty had established his throne above that splendid azure
vault, sown with brilliant lights, that from the summit of the heavens he held
the reins of the World, that he directed the movements of its vast body, and
contemplated himself in forms as varied as they are admirable, wherein he
modifies himself incessantly." Dupuis quotes Pliny the Elder (Natural
History, II.1): "The World, says Pliny, or what we otherwise call Heaven,
which comprises in its immensity the whole creation, is an eternal, an
infinite God, which has never been created, and which shall never come to an
end. To look for something else beyond it, is useless labor for man, and out of
his reach. Behold that truly sacred Being, eternal and immense, which
includes within itself everything; it is All in All, or rather itself is All. It is
the work of Nature, and itself is Nature." (Dupuis, ibid., p. 16.)

16. Later, Dupuis says: "It would be a mistaken idea to believe, that
[the Ancients] considered the World merely as a machine, without life and
intelligence, moved by a blind and necessary force..... As the World seemed
animated by a principle of life, which circulates in all tis parts, holding it in
eternal activity, it was believed that the Universe lived as man did and the
other animals, or rather that these lived only because the Universe, being
essentially animated, communicated them for a few instants an infinitesimal
portion of its immortal life, which it infused into the coarse and inert matter
of sublunary bodies. Was it restored back to itself? Man and beast died and
the Universe alone, always alive, circulated around the remains of their
bodies by its perpetual motion, and organized new beings, The active Fire or
the subtle substance, which animated it, by incorporating itself in its
immense mass, was the universal soul of it. This is the doctrine, which is
embodied in the system of the Chinese, on Yang and Yin, one of which is the
celestial matter, moveable and luminous, and the other the terrestrial one,
inert and gloomy, of which all bodies are composed." (Dupuis, ibid., p. 49-
50.)
17. "This is the dogma of Pythagoras," Dupuis continues, "contained in

those beautiful verses in the sixth book of the Aeneid [of Virgil], where
Anchises reveals to his son [Aeneas] the origin of the souls and their fate
after death. 'You must know, my son, he said, that Heaven and Earth, the
Sea, the luminous globe of the Moon and all the Stars, are moved by a
principle of eternal life, which perpetuates their existence; that there is a
great intelligent Spirit extended in all the parts of the vast body of the
Universe, which, while mixing itself in All, is agitating it by an eternal
motion. It is this soul, which is the source of life of man, of the beasts, of the
birds and all the monsters living within the bosom of the Ocean. The vital
force, which animates them, emanates from that eternal Fire, which shines in
the Heavens, and which while it is held captive in the raw material of the
bodies, is only developed as much, as the various mortal organizations permit
it, which subdue its power and activity. At the death of each creature, these
germs of a particular life, these portions of an universal breath, return to
their principle and to their source of life, which cirulates in the starred
sphere.'" (Dupuis, ibid., p. 50.)
18. Matching lives of men with lives of stars is nearly universal. In

Africa, according to Harold Courlander, the following cosmogony is told
among the Yoruba people of Nigeria. "In ancient days, at the beginning of
time, there was no solid land here where people now dwell. There was only
outer space and the sky, and, far below, an endless stretch of water and wild
marshes. Supreme in the domain of the sky was the orisha, or god, called
Olorun, also known as Olodumare and designated by many praise names.
Also living in that place were numerous other orishas, each having attributes
of his own, but none of whom had knowledge or powers equal to those of
Olorun. Among them was Orunmila, also called Ifa, the eldest son of Olorun.
To this orisha Olorun had given the power to read the future, to understand
the secret of existence and to divine the processes of fate. There was the
orisha Obatala, King of the White Cloth, whom Olorun trusted as though he
also were a son. There was the orisha Eshu, whose character was neither
good nor bad. He was compounded out of the elements of chance and
accident, and his nature was unpredictability. He understood the principles
of speech and language, and because of this gift he was Olorun's linguist ....."

19. "Down below, it was the female deity Olokun who ruled over the
vast expanses of water and wild marshes, a grey region with no living things
in it ....." The two worlds were separate, and the orishas of the sky took no
notice of what went on below, except for Obatala, King of the White Cloth. In
order to overcome the monotony of what lay below, he went to Orunmila to
ask how land could be introduced below. By casting palm nuts in his divining
tray, Orunmila determined that Obatala should make a golden chain with
which to descend to the water with sand, to make land with. This Obatala
did. He planted a palm nut, and there was vegetation in the land, but no
people, so Obatala decided to make people out of clay. After making a
number, he got thirsty and began to drink palm wine. He drank so much
that he got drunk, and some of the people he made after that were
misshapen. A city called Ife was founded. Olokun, the orisha of the sea,
angry that water had been covered with land, flooded it, and many people
were drowned. After a while, Orunmila, the deity of divination, whose name
means "The Sky Knows Who Will Prosper", came down from the sky and
turned back the sea. He also taught certain orishas who had come to live
below on the land, and certain men, the arts of controlling unseen forces, and
others the art of divining the future, "which is to say the knowledge of how to
ascertain the wishes and intentions of the Sky God..... Earthly order -- the
understanding of relationships between people and the physical world, and
between people and the orishas was beginning to take shape." (A Treasury of
African Folklore, edited by Harold Courlander, 1975, p. 189-193; this story is
from his own Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes, 1973.)
20. Lum relates that in the myths of Britain, the constellation of the
Great Bear (Ursa Major, the Big Dipper) is interwoven with the story of King
Arthur and the Round Table. His name was alleged to have come from the
words "Arth" and "Uthyr", meaning "bear" and "wonderful". Some of his
followers are said to have claimed that he was an incarnation of the spirit of
the Great Bear. The Round Table may have referred to the circle made by
the swinging of the Great Bear's tail each night when it swept the northern
sky. "Fiona Macleod tells an old story," Lum says, "of how Arthur once fell
asleep on the seashore, long before he had any thought of being king, and in
his sleep a spirit came to him and guided him far up to the north where the
stars of the Great Bear were bright. There he found the knights of heaven
seated at a great circular table, resplendent as the shining stars, and they
spoke to him and gave him wise counsel. They told him that his name should
be Arthur, that he would be king, and that he must pattern his life and the
rule of his kingdom on that of the kingdom of heaven." (Lum, ibid., p. 38-39.)
21. Gene Weltfish tells how some Native Americans who lived along the
Missouri River saw the connection of the heavens with the affairs of men:
"The Pawnees had many tasks to accomplish in the early spring before the
time of planting. Some of them were practical and some ceremonial, but to
the Pawnees who believed that nothing on earth could move without the
heavens, no practical task could be undertaken unless the appropriate
ceremony had preceded it..... The round of spring renewal ceremonies was
heralded by the appearance of two small twinkling stars known as the
Swimming Ducks in the northeastern horizon near the Milky Way. They
notified the animals that they must awaken from their winter sleep, break
through the ice, and come out into the world again." (Gene Weltfish, The Lost
Universe: Pawnee Life and Culture, 1965, p. 79.) And Ray Williamson

relates that according to Pawnee stories, they received from of their ritual
direction from the stars. They claimed that at one time they organized their
villages according to patterns of the stars, and each village possessed a
sacred bundle given to it by one of the stars. When the different villages
assembled for a communal ceremony, they arranged themselves in a way
which reflected the celestial positions of the stars whose bundles they
possessed. There were 18 Skidi Pawnee villages, each associated with a
different star." (Ray Williamson, Living the Sky, 1984, p. 229.)
22. The Oglala Dakota, a branch of the Sioux Indians, were among
those who defeated Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. (Cf. Evan
S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star, 1984) Their chief god, great spirit,
creator and chief executive was (is?) Wakan Tanka, who is sixteen
individuals in one, each of the four categories containing four individuals. As
great spirit, he is sky. Paul Radin says of this religion: "The sky is an
immaterial god whose substance is never visible. His titles given by the
people are taku skan-skan and nagi tanka or the great spirit, and those given
by the priests are skan and to, blue. The concept expressed by the term taka-
skan-skan is that which gives motion to anything that moves. That
expressed by the shamans by the word skan is a vague concept of force or
energy and by the word to is the immaterial blue of the sky, which symbolizes
the presence of the great spirit. His domain is all above the world, beginning
at the ground. He is the source of all power and motion and is the patron of
directions and trails and of encampment. He imparts to each of mankind at
birth a spirit, a ghost, and a sicun [an invisible god] and at the death of each
of mankind he hears the testimony of the ghost and adjudges the spirit. His
word is unalterable except by himself. He alone can undo that which is done.
His people are the stars and the feminine is his daughter." (Paul Radin,
Primitive Man as Philosopher, English translation 1927, p. 329-332, quoting
James Walker, "The Sun Dance of the Oglala Divison of the Dakota,"
Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, XVI,
Part II, p. 72-92.)
23. Plato speaks in many places of the workings of the stars. For
example, there is the myth of Er in the 10th book of Plato's meditation on the
nature of justice, the Republic. Er, the son of Armenius, is killed in battle,
but comes to life again just before he is to be burnt on a funeral pyre. He
describes what he has seen in the other world. This includes a vision of the
structure of the universe, described like this by Francis Cornford in his
translation of the Republic: "What the souls actually see in their vision is not
the universe itself, but a model, a primitive orrery in a form roughly
resembling a spindle, with its shaft round which at the lower end is fastened
a solid hemispherical whorl. In the orrery the shaft represents the axis of the
universe and the whorl consists of 8 hollow concentric hemispheres, fitted
into one another 'like a nest of bowls,' and capable of moving separately. It is
as if the upper halves of 8 concentric spheres had been cut away so that the
internal 'works' might be seen. The rims of the bowls appear as forming a
continuous flat surface; they represent the equator of the sphere of fixed stars
and, inside that, the orbits of the 7 planets. The souls see the Spindle resting
on the knees of Necessity. The whole mechanism is turned by the Fates,
Clotho (the Spinner), Lachesis (She who allots), and Atropos (the Inflexible).
Sirens sing eight notes on consonant intervals forming the structure of a

scale (harmonia) which represents the Pythagorean 'music of the spheres.'"
(Republic, translated by Francis Cornford, 1941, p. 350.)
24. "All this imagery," Cornford concludes, "is, of course, mythical and
symbolic. The underlying doctrine is that in human life there is an element
of necessity or chance, but also an element of free choice, which makes us,
and not Heaven, responsible for the good and evil in our lives." In the myth,
after the souls have completed their journey to the Spindle resting on the
knees of Necessity (probably the Milky Way) Lachesis, daughter of Necessity,
distributor of human fates, says: "Souls of a day, here shall begin a new
round of earthly life, to end in death. No guardian spirit will cast lots for you,
but you shall choose your own destiny." (Cornford's translation, p. 355). The
dead souls are shown a large number of sample lives to choose from. The
man who had drawn the first lot chose, in thoughtless greed, to be reborn as a
tyrant. He did not see the many evils this life contained, and that he was
fated to devour his own children. Plato attributes his choice to innocence and
ignorance: "He was once of those," Plato says, "who had come down from
heaven, having spent his former life in a well-ordered commonwealth and
become virtuous from habit without pursuing wisdom. It might indeed be
said that not the least part of those who were caught in this way were of the
company which had come from heaven, because they were not disciplined by
suffering; whereas most of those who had come up out of earth, having
suffered themselves and seen others suffer, were not hasty in making their
choice." (ibid., p. 357). Cornford draws attention to Plato's intention that
such stories be taken as myth. By this means Plato synthesizes older
speculative interpretations in the manner of Pythagoreans with newer ideas
of rational philosophy.
25. Plato's visions still exerted great cultural force near the close of the
16th century, just before the advent of new cosmologies based on the works of
such people as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Descartes, unified by Newton
in his system of the world. At Florence, in 1589, an elaborate theatrical
production known as the intermezzi was presented at the Medici court in
honor of the marriage of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Here is the opening
scene, as described by Roy Strong: "On May 2nd 1589 the front curtain on
the Teatro Mediceo parted to reveal a Doric temple and above it a cloud,
surrounded by rays of light, which slowly descended to the ground. On this
rode the Doric Harmony, singing of her descent to mortals..... The initial
statement of the Doric Harmony was carried to fruition in the first
intermezzo which took the form of a representation of the Harmony of the
Spheres according to Plato's cosmology, and in particular as described in the
tenth book of Plato's Republic. The prospettiva [a view of the city of Pisa in
perspective] was suddenly covered with star-spangled clouds. Eight Platonic
sirens plus two more of the ninth and tenth sphere sat on clouds telling how
they had forsaken the heavens to sing the praises of the bride. On a central
cloud sat Necessity on a throne with a diamond spindle of the cosmos
between her knees. She was attended by the three Parcae or Fates and they
in turn were flanked by clouds bearing the seven planets and Astraea, whose
advent on earth signalled the return of the Golden Age..... Above were twelve
heroes and heroines, each pair embodying virtues attributed to the onlooking
couple [the Duke and his bride]. Both the sirens and the planets joined in a
dialogue describing the joy of the cosmos at so auspicious an alliance and as
the clouds arose from the lower part of the stage sunlight streamed in, while

above night approached. A concluding madrigal expressed hopes of 'glorious
heroes' as a result of the match. As the cloud vision faded the stage was filled
with sunlight, revealing the prospettiva of the city of Pisa....." (Roy Strong,
Arts and Festivals, Renaissance Festivals 1450-1650, 1973 (1984); p. 137 and
23-24.)
26. The Renaissance court festival, says Roy Strong, "unlike its
medieval forebearers, stemmed from a philosophy which believed that truth
could be apprehended in images..... Our guide to it is a vast tract of
literature, books of emblems and imprese and mythological manuals. These
compilations were an extension and elaboration, under the impact of
Florentine Neoplatonism, of the inherited tradition of hidden meanings .....
Although these texts were known to the middle ages, they were studied with
renewed fervour during the renaissance, when scholars examined them to
recover a lost history or secret wisdom, pre-dating the Christian revelation,
that was passed down through Moses and the Egyptian priests by way of
Hermes Trismegistus to the Greeks..... The acceptance of a pagan theology
that descended from Zoroaster through Hermes Trismegistus to Orpheus,
Pythagoras and Plato enabled Renaissance man to assimilate the whole
heritage of classical mythology and history." (Roy Strong, ibid.; we will talk
about Hermes Trismegistus in a moment.)
27. In a relatively recent European account of the relation of astronomy

to destiny, Goethe (1749-1832) writes:
"Wie an dem Tag, der dich der Welt verliehen,

Die Sonne stand zum Grusse der Planeten,
Bist alsobald und fort und fort gediehen
Nach dem Gesetz, wonach du angetreten.
So musst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen,
So sagten schon Sibyllen, so Propheten;
Und keine Zeit und keine Macht zerstückelt
Geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt.....
Das Liebste wird vom Herzen weggescholten,
Dem harten Muss bequemt sich Will und Grille.
So sind wir scheinfrei denn, nach manchen Jahren
Nur enger dran, als wir am Anfang waren."
("The way the sun stood at the planets' greeting,

The way it stood the day the world endowed you,
You were from that time on developed
According to the law by which you entered.
Thus must you be, and you can't escape,
The sybils and the seers have said it;
No time nor force can disassemble
Imprinted form that grows itself in living.....
What's loved is kept away from hearts that want it,
Will and whim are shaped to a Must unyielding.
We only seem free, and after many years,
We're more bound than when we started.")
(From "Urworte, Orphisch", German text taken from German Poetry from
1750-1900, 1984, edited by Robert Browning, p. 66, 68, my translation.)

28. We have said that Stoics were devoted to astrology in the Hellenistic
era. There were others in that era who embraced astrology. There were, for
example, the Hermeticists. The works called Hermetica, or the Corpus
Hermeticum, are Greek and Latin writings of uncertain origin, evidently
composed from about 200 to 500 A.D., which contain religious or philosophic
teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, the "three-great" Hermes,
perhaps a mythical person or god. Some say this Hermes is not the Greek
Hermes, but the Egyptian god Thoth, perhaps identified with Hermes by
Alexandrian Greeks; however this is also uncertain. William Grese says that
"the predominant view is that the Hermetica are a Hellenistic development of
Greek (especially Platonic and Stoic) philosophy, and the leading exponent of
this position has been André-Jean Festugière." (William Grese, "Magic in
Hellenistic Hermeticism, in Hermeticism and the Renaissance, Intellectual
History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe, edited by Ingred Merkel and
Allen Debus, 1988, p. 45.) However, as Grese observes, in addition to the
religious and philosophic elements in the Hermetica, there are also magical
and astrological elements. These writings are to this day an important part
of the so-called occult tradition.
29. A definition of occult, in this sense, is given by Edward A. Tiryakian:

"I understand intentional practices, techniques, or procedures which: a) draw
upon hidden or concealed forces in nature or the cosmos that cannot be
measured or recognized by the instruments of modern science, and b) which
have as their desired or intended consequences empirical results, such as
either obtaining knowledge of the empirical course of events or altering them
from what they would have been without this intervention ..... To go on
further, in so far as the subject of occult activity is not just any actor, but one
who has acquired specialized knowledge and skills nevessary for the practices
in question, and insofar as these skills are learned and transmitted in
socially (but not publicly available) organized, routinized, and ritualized
fashion, we can speak of these practices as occult sciences or occult arts."
(Edward A.Tiryakian, "Toward the Sociology of Esoteric Culture", American
Journal of Sociology 78, 1972, p. 491-512; quoted by Mircea Eliade,
Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions, 1976, p. 48.) The word esoteric
is also used in this connection, and Tiryakian says "esoteric" systems are the
"religio-philosophic belief systems which underlie occult techniques and
practices; that is, it [the word "esoteric"] refers to the more comprehensive
cognitive mappings of nature and the cosmos, the epistemological and
ontological reflections of ultimate reality, which mappings constitute a stock
of knowledge that provides the ground for occult procedures." (quoted by
Eliade, l.c., p. 48).
30. F. L. Peters observes that Hermeticism was an extremely complex

phenomenon. The theoretical and speculative works of the Corpus
Hermeticum were accompanied by an immense variety of tracts on practical
Hermeticism, which is to say, on the manipulation of natural substances.
Hermeticism had a considerable influence on Muslim culture. With the
assistance, it seems, of Iranian astrologers, Hermes Trismegistus was
incorporated into Islamic learning a generation before Plato or Aristotle
found a firm base there. Many Muslims believed in the influence of stars on
individuals. One of the greatest of the early Muslim scientists was al-Biruni
(11th century a.D.). Among his many works was an Instruction on the
Elements of Astrology, which became a standard work on the subject. Peters

says: "Once again, even in Biruni, one can see the two faces of Islamic
science; the secular tradition of trigonometric functions, astronomical tables
and schemes of world chronology was accompanied and contaminated by a
parallel tradition of horoscopes, astral influences and elaborate theories of
the descent of occult wisdom from the hoary past into the bosom of Islam ...
Each discipline had authentic credentials that established it as a science; and
if astrology was somewhat less exact in its predictions, as Ptolemy willingly
conceded, it was not more so than ethics, for example, with respect to
geometry." (F. L. Peters, Allah's Commonwealth, A History of Islam in the
Near East 600-1100 A.D., 1973, p. 270, 274, 351.)
31. The Hermeticist Joannes Stobaeus (c. 500 A.D.), says: "For the
stars are the instrument of destiny; in acccordance with this they bring to
pass all things for nature and for men." (in Hermetica, edited by Walter
Scott, 1924, v. 1, p. 434). Scott translates a passage from the Latin Hermetic
work known as the Asclepius as follows:
"Asclepius: But tell me, Trismegistus, what part of the government of

the universe is administered by Destiny?."
"Trismegistus: That which we name Destiny, Asclepius, is the force by

which all events are brought to pass; for all events are bound together in a
never-broken chain by the bonds of necessity. Destiny then is either God
himself, or else it is the force which ranks next after God; it is the power
which, in conjunction with Necessity, orders all things in heaven and earth
according to God's law. Thus Destiny and Necessity are inseparably linked
together and cemented to each other. Destiny generates the beginnings of
things; Necessity compels the results to follow. And in the train of Destiny
and Necessity goes Order, that is, the interweaving of events, and their
arrangement in temporal succession. There is nothing that is not arranged in
order; it is by order above all else that the Kosmos itself is borne upon its
course; nay, the Kosmos consists wholly of order. Of these three, the first is
Destiny, which sows the seed, as it were, and thereby gives rise to all that is
to issue from the seed thereafter; the second is Necessity, by which all results
are inevitably compelled to follow; and the third is Order, which maintains
the interconnexion of the events which Destiny and Necessity determine.
But Destiny, Necessity, and Order, all three together, are wrought by the
decree of God, who governs the Kosmos by this law and by his holy ordinance.
Hence all will to do or not to do is by God's ruling wholly alien from them.
They are neither disturbed by anger nor swayed by favour; they obey the
compulsion of God's eternal ordinance, which is inflexible, immutable,
indissoluble. Yet chance or contingency also exists in the Kosmos, being
intermingled with all material things....." (Hermetica, v. 1, p. 362-364.)
32. In the Lord's Prayer of the Christian New Testament we

have:
"Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven."

(Mark, 6.7-12 (Revised Standard Version, 1952, revision of American

Standard Version, 1881-1885, 1901, in turn a revision of King James Version,
1611)
33. The influence of Hermeticism in the European Renaissance, and on

the origins of modern science has been much debated. There can be no doubt
that its influence was considerable in some ways. A translation and
publication of the Corpus hermeticum was completed in 1471 by Marsilio
Ficino, and this and subsequent translations and related works were in
considerable demand. An ancient pedigree was sought for Hermes
Trismegistus. The pedigree according to Ficino runs from Plato (who, Ficino
claims, couldn't have thought up all his wisdom by himself) to Philolaus, then
to Pythagoras (said to have obtained his wisdom in Egypt), and so on, back to
Hermes. What about Hermes' source? "Here," says Wayne Shumaker, "we
pass out of the world altogether. Mercury 'puts aside the fogs of sense and of
fancy, bringing himself thus to an approach to mind; and presently
Pimander, that is, the divine mind, flows into him, whereupon he
contemplates the order of all things.' The pedigree of the pimander [divine
intelligence] terminates in God Himself, whose word must perforce be
accepted." (Wayne Shumaker, Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, A Study in
Intellectual Patterns, 1972, p. 204.) What emerges, says Shumaker, is una
priscae theologiae ubique sibi consona secta, "a system of aboriginal theology
everywhere harmonious with itself". That is, a certain group of Renaissance
scholars and their followers sought in the Hermetic writings a pattern which
would allow the reconciliation of any pagan system with Christianity. It was
a kind of structuralism. Shumaker remarks that a vestige of it is found in
George Eliot's Middlemarch, in which Mr. Casaubon is attempting to work
out a "Key to All the Mythologies." The aim of Renaissance syncretists like
Ficino (who was an enthusiastic astrologer) was not to contrast mythologies,
nor to criticize them, but to unite them in a harmonious concordance.
34. In her Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964) and
subsequent works, Frances Yates tried to show that Hermeticism was a
major influence on the development of modern science. "The Renaissance
magus," she says, "was the immediate ancestor of the seventeenth century
scientist." (Frances Yates, "The Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science",
in Art, Science and History in the Renaissance, 1968, edited by C. S.
Singleton, p. 258.) Karin Johannisson summarizes this point of view. The
Hermetic tradition in the Renaissance, she says, started in the 15th century
with the translation of Neoplatonic writings by Marsilio Ficino and his circle
in Florence, Italy. This included the Corpus Hermeticum. "Here," says
Johannisson, "the proud notion of a pristine knowledge was depicted, a gift
from God to Adam and an exhortation to Man to complete the work of
creation by unlocking it and decoding its underlying structure ... Nature has
its own language, and the means of interpreting it was a secret alphabet,
derived from Greek number mysticism and the cabala, accessible only to the
chosen." This Hermetic tradition was carried further by Paracelsus and his
followers, and such people as Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), John Dee (1527-
1608) and Robert Fludd (1574-1637). These traditions, according to
Johannisson, were transformed into a concrete program in two renowned
Rosicrucian manifestos, the Fama fraternitas (1614) and the Confessio

fraternitas (1615). Johannisson takes these to have made a positive
contribution to the development of early modern science.
35. "They maintained," Johannisson says, "the idea that knowledge

cannot be limited by given methods, and that against rationality, objectivity,
and critical doubt as the cardinal virtues of science must be polace proud
hope that the boundaries of science can always be transcended, the dream of
a perfectible science in the service of mankind." Johannisson takes the story
to the end of the 18th century, when during the years around the French
Revolution, "the concepts of magic and science once again seem to merge in
the intense mystical activity of the orders, and when the scientific academy
and the secret society fulfill similar functions as platforms for scientific
activity and propaganda." (Karin Johannisson, "Magic, Science, and
Institutionalization in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries", in
Hermeticism and the Renaissance, Intellectual History and the Occult in
Early Modern Europe, 1988, based on a 1982 meeting, edited by Ingrid
Merkel and Allen G. Debus, p. 251-261.)
36. Johannisson asserts that a 16th and 17th magus considered himself
to be a natural philosopher in the same way, say, as Kepler, Galileo and
Newton were natural philosophers. (The terms "scientist" and "physicist"
were not yet in common use.) "The magus," she says, "understands nature as
an animate and active network of ultimately spiritual forces, the scientists
sees it as a "machine," a manifestation of the universal laws of nature." Thus
Johannisson regards laws of nature as antithetical to spirituality, rather
than as rules complementary to spirituality, or perhaps rules which even
spirits must obey. "The magus believes that because nature is animate -- not
completed and finished -- he can enter into it, operate on it, and manipulate
it."
37. But a magus is himself a part of nature, and had no choice about
entering it. And to say that nature is not complete is not to say that it
doesn't obey natural laws, be they only laws of probability. Johannisson says:
"The scientist on the other hand would not attempt to exceed nature; his task
is to understand and to describe it, to come as close as possible to its
unassailable mechanism; for him the laws of nature are inexorable and
unbreakable, absolute criteria for what is natural and supernatural. For the
magus, the supernatural simply coincides with the unusual, the marvelous,
the artificial; the laws of nature are not regarded as absolute and can be
exceeded by art..... Magic and science work with different methods. Whereas
science is based on the conviction that experience and reason are valid
instruments of knowledge, magic is based on the conviction that such values
cannot be fixed, and the aim is continually set far beyond the boundaries of
what is empirically and rationally verifiable. The theories of science are
dictated by logic, those of magic by analogy. In opposition to rationality and
understanding (episteme) stand irrational hope and use (techne). At its most
general, then, magic can be characterized as the utilization of art in order to
attain specific desired ends, not in order to attain knowledge and
understanding..... Magic strove to transcend the laws of nature, science to
decode them, but also to accept subordination to them." (Johannisson, ibid.)
38. But there isn't, and never has been, a clear demarcation between
science as knowledge and understanding, and technology as use of science

and other practical arts. Scientists, on the whole, must use and create or rely
indirectly on technology in their pursuit of understanding, and technicians
must use and create scientific understanding in realizing their goals. There
is, however, a clear demarcation between technology as use limited by
natural laws, and magic as use not limited by natural laws.
39. "To summarize," Johannisson says, "magic as a scientific activity

builds on a defined conception of knowledge -- derived from the Hermetic
tradition -- stressing experiments and rationality in a mathematical sense,
together with a visionary utopianism aiming at practical results." The
Hermetic tradition, however, shows few signs of appreciating what applied
mathematics is like, as understood by such people as Archimedes, Newton,
and mathematicians today. On the contrary, Hermeticists are prone to
engage in numerology, number mysticism and number magic, which are not
applied mathematics in the same sense.
40. Number mysticism and numerology go back to ancient times. The

Hellenistic era, the period of the Hermeticists, the Gnostics, the Stoics, the
Epicureans, the Academics, and early Christianity, was also the period of the
Neoplatonists, who looked back not only to Plato but to the Pythagoreans,
some of whom have customarily been taken to have been among the great
mathematicians of ancient Greece, and some of whom (not necessarily the
best mathematicians) were devoted to a kind of numerology. How much of
classical Greek mathematics was due to Pythagoras or his immediate
followers, and how much to other pre-Socratic or later Greeks has been for a
long time a difficult and debated question.
41. Pythagoras himself appears to have been a kind of shaman, "the

wisest of men", a miracle-worker who founded a secret society in which he
taught metempsychosis (the reincarnation or migration of souls), the music or
harmony of the heavens or spheres, immortality of souls among the stars,
and various magical rituals and practices. Walter Burkert has been a
relatively recent participant in the long debate about the relation of
Pythagoras and Pythagoreans to the science of mathematics. He holds that
the general belief in the Pythagorean origin of mathematics (mathematics,
say, as Aristotle and Euclid understood it) stems from no earlier than the
Neoplatonic and neo-Pythagorean scholastic traditions of late antiquity,
many hundreds of years after the introduction of mathematical science in the
6th and 5th centuries B.C.
42. It is questionable that Greek mathematics originated in the

revelation of a guru, within a secret society founded to do mathematics, since
it arose in close connection with the development of Greek naturalistic views
of the world by Pythagoreans and non-Pythagoreans alike. Geometry was an
important component of astronomy among the classical Greeks, and some of
the geometers were not Pythagoreans. Earlier than in other fields, geometry
and astronomy became the domain of specialists because their increasing
complexity required special talent, and the existence of such talent is
independent of membership in any particular school. The Sophists, who were
not mathematically inclined, were detached from the natural philosophers,
and the exactness of the mathematical parts of natural philosophy contrasted
more and more with the uncertainty of other kinds of philosophy. By Plato's
time, mathematics was already the model science. Individual Pythagoreans

had some part in this development, but the mathematics of the classical
Greeks was Greek, not merely Pythagorean. (Walter Burkert, Lore and
Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, translation with authorized revisions by
Edwin L. Minar, Jr., 1972, of Weisheit and Wissenschaft: Studien zu
Pythagoras, Philolaus und Platon, 1962, p. 406, 426-427.)
43. Some early Pythagoreans, perhaps including Pythagoras himself,

were devoted to numerology, which Burkert takes to be of pre-historic origin.
Indeed, number dominates the Pythagoreans' general view of the world. But
devotion to number in the form of number mysticism and number symbolism
is quite different from devotion to mathematics as a science. Burkert gives
this as another reason that Greek mathematics in the manner of Euclid or
Archimedes didn't arise from the Pythagoreans. He says: "It has long been
known that conscious and unconscious, rational and irrational impulses, logic
and mysticism, interpenetrate in a complicated and nearly inextricable
fashion. As Kepler discovered his second planetary law in 'Pythagorean'
manipulation of regular polyhedra, so one might find it obvious that precisely
the pre-philosophical lore of Pythagoras provided the stimulus for
Pythagorean science. But not only does the cosmic significance of number [as
in numerology] come from pre-logical number symbolism, but, even in that
which Aristotle presents as the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, there
emerges again and again a spirit and method directly opposite to that of
exact mathematics, so that the latter cannot have arisen from the activities of
the Pythagoreans. It is not an unbroken unit of science and religious-ethical
teaching that we find in the Pythagorean tradition, but a groping attempt to
mediate between two levels, to transpose an ancient interpretation of the
world into the language of the recently founded philosophia." (Burkert, ibid.,
p. 466, 479-480).
44. It appears, then, that the contrast of numerology with mathematics

related to experience is found already among the pre-Socratic Greeks. In the
early 17th century, in the work of people like Johannes Kepler and Robert
Fludd, heirs of a neo-Pythagorean revival in the European Renaissance of a
neo-Pythagorean upsurge in Hellenistic times in North Africa, we find a
mixture of the two, with mathematics and its relation to experience having
mostly the upper hand in Kepler, and numerology and magic having mostly
the upper hand in Fludd. (I will give details about the contrast and clash
between Kepler and Fludd later.)
45. Burkert concludes that the Pythagorean philosophy synthesized

scientifically valid mathematics with scientifically invalid numerology. He
regards this synthesis as largely the the work of Philolaus, following some
prodomal attempts by Hippasus. He says: "The tradition of Pythagoras as a
philosopher and scientist is, from the historical point of view, a mistake. But
the fascination that surrounded, and still surrounds, the name of Pythagoras
does not come, basically, from specific scientific connotations, or from the
rational method of mathematics, and certainly not from the success of
mathematical physics. More important is the feeling that there is a kind of
knowing which penetrates to the very core of the universe, which offers truth
as something at once beatific and comforting, and presents the human being
as cradled in a universal harmony. In the figure of Pythagoras an element of
pre-scientific cosmic unity lives on into an age in which the Greeks were
beginning, with their newly acquired method of rational thought, to make

themselves masters of their world, to call tradition into question, and to
abandon long-cherished beliefs. The price of the new knowledge and
frreedom was a loss in inner security; the paths of rational thought lead
further and further in different directions, and into the Boundless. There the
figure of the ancient Sage, who seemed still to possess the secret of unity,
seemed more and more refulgent. Thus after all, there lived on, in the image
of Pythagoras, the great Wizard whom even an advanced age, though it be
unwilling to admit the fact, cannot entirely dismiss." (Burkert, ibid., p. 480,
482.)46. Nicomachus and Iamblichus and other neo-Pythagoreans of the 2nd
through 4th centuries A.D. (part of the Hellenistic era, in the extended sense)
associated numbers with ethical and social entities, taking themselves to be
following a tradition established long before by the Pythagoreans
themselves. To take one case, justice was associated with square numbers,
perhaps because there are two "balanced" factors in a square (4 = 2· 2, 9 = 3· 3
etc.). One of Aristotle's commentators, Alexander of Aphrodisias, reports that
some took the number 4 to represent justice, or even to be justice, since it is
the least square of a whole number (not counting 1). Others took 9 to
represent justice, perhaps because (as a guess) it is the square of the
"balanced" number 3 which has a beginning, middle and end. The number 2
might be considered as balanced, but some Pythagoreans took odd numbers
to be "limited" and even numbers to be "unlimited", and perhaps 3, as the
least of the limited numbers, was considered more appropriate for justice. Or
maybe this wasn't the way it happened at all. W.K.C. Guthrie observes, thus
complicating matters, that some late commentators took 3, 5 or 8 for justice.
(W.K.C. Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy, 1967, v. 1, p. 303-304.)
47. To take another example, marriage is associated with 5, or is 5,

because it is the union of male, associated with odd numbers (in particular 3),
and female, associated with even numbers (in particular 2), and, of course, 3
+ 2 = 5. Again, opportunity, or "fit and proper" time was identified with 7
"because in nature the times of fulfilment with respect to birth and maturity
go in sevens." A man, for example, can be born after 7 months, cut teeth after
another 7, reach puberty after the second period of 7 years, grow a beard
after the third period of 7 years, etc. As inaccurate as this sounds, the
reckoning of human lives in multiples of 7 is said by Guthrie to have been a
commonplace of Greek thought.
48. Aristotle severely criticized theories of this kind in his Metaphysics.

Nevertheless, some of the followers of Pythagoras were some of those who
initially developed the classical Greek mathematics which culminated with
the works of such mathematicians and astronomers as Eudoxus, Euclid,
Eratosthenes, Apollonius and Archimedes. Many of these works are
theoretically sound and of practical value to this day. Mathematics,
especially, has the peculiar property, among sciences, that while there
continue to be new developments in it, often the old developments remain
useful, or even essential. On the whole, good mathematics may be forgotten,
ignored, re-invented, re-formed or reformed, extended, placed in more
general contexts, placed on new foundations, and so on -- but not shown to be
mistaken.
49. Edward Strong argues against such authors as E. A. Burtt (The

Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, 1925) that the triumphs of
mathematical philosophy in the work of people like Galileo, Descartes and

Newton did not descend from the mathematical philosophy of the neo-
Platonists and neo-Pythagoreans which had been elaborated by a number of
Italian philosophers in the 15th and 16th centuries. "The Florentine
Platonism of the fifteenth century and the Pythagorean-Platonic
metamathematics of the sixteenth century are not historically eligible for the
honor of having instructed men to turn from classification to measurement."
(Edward W. Strong, Procedures and Metaphysics, A Study in the Philosophy
of Mathematical-Physical Science in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century,
1936, p. 10.)
50. The "classification" which Strong refers to is a kind of numerology,

and the measurement a kind of applied mathematics. In Platonic philosophy,
numbers, as such, have an intermediate existence between what can be
sensed and the eternal ideas of which they are instances. Among the neo-
Platonists, this led to a kind of theological mathematics, as Strong calls it.
This is found in such neo-Platonists as Nicomachus and Theon. "Neither
one," Strong says, "attempts to deduce mathematical or 'scientific' truths
from the mystery of numbers; rather we see them treating number as
possessing properties which they insist is other than that of their
arithmetical work. Both recognize that arithmetic is a self-contained science,
but they also consider it as the way of initiation into realities which lie
beyond the limited procedures of the mathematicians." (Edward Strong,
ibid., p. 28.)
51. In theological arithmetic, properties of the soul, society, ethics, the

elements, and so on, are identified with numbers by a succession of analogies.
"Numbers provide a symbolism and method of classification -- a symbolism of
unity and multiplicity in explaining creation, and a classification of
hierarchical relationships and essential virtues by means of triadity and
triangularity, and so forth. Number as a kind of 'universal and exemplary
plan' in the mind of God has its fundamental meaning not so much in the
notion of law as in the notion of efficacy or power ..... Efficacy and creation
rather than law and quantitative relations, divinity rather than
demonstration, divine numbers as transcending the physical and
mathematical rather than a vision of mathematical order 'saving'
appearances: these contrasts emphasize the transformation which
mathematics undergoes in its elevation to the status of divine arithmetic."
(Edward Strong, ibid., p. 33.)
52. In ancient Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, numerals are letters of the
alphabet, though perhaps specially marked in some way. It appears to have
been this that gave rise to the view that hidden meanings and
correspondences of written words can be found by adding together the
numerical values of their letters. Among the Jewish cabalists, this was
known as gematria, among the Greeks isopsephia, among the Muslims, hisab
al-jumal. (Cf. George Ifrah, From One to Zero, A Universal History of
Numbers. 1985, translation by Lowell Bair of Histoire Universelle de Chiffres,
1981, Part IV, Ch. 16-21.) Various Christian writers also use the technique.
Such techniques are still practiced today, here and there. Idries Shah gives a
number of examples in one of his works on the Sufi mysticism of the
Muslims, which began to spread with the advent of Islam in the 7th century
of the Christian calendar, and which still lives today. Shah regards the Sufis
to have means of contacting the underlying wisdom of humanity, and to

"correspond to the inner reality of Islam, as with the equivalent aspect of
every other religion and genuine tradition." (Idries Shah, The Sufis, 1964, p.
28)
53. Unfortunately, this wisdom seems to exist largely in cryptic or

secret form, and illogicality is said by Shah to be a key feature of Sufism. In
any case, in Arabic, most words can be assigned roots consisting of 3
consonants. Many words will then have the same root. Furthermore, there is
a standard way of associating letters of the Arabic alphabet with numbers
(given on p. 174 of The Sufis). The Hisab el-Jamal (different transliteration
of the hisab al-jumal of Ifrah?) is said to be the "standard rearrangement of
letters and numbers". (Shah, p.110.) With these things in mind, Shah says,
in a comment on the significance of "dots" to Sufis: "Among the Sufis, NQT --
"dot," "point," sometimes "abbreviation" -- has an important value in
conveying teachings. In one aspect this is connected with the mathematical
part of Sufism. The Arabic word for "geometrician" or "architect" is
muhandis. It is composed of the letters M, H, N, D, S, which are equivalent
to the numbers 40, 5, 50, 4, 60. These total 159. These numbers, resplit
conventionally into tens, hundreds and units, yield 100 = Q, 50 = N, 9 = T.
These three consonants, combined in the order 2,1,3, provide the root NQT.
This root means "dot," "point." In certain ceremonial usages, therefore, the
word "point" is used to convey the concealed word which is its parent -- the
word muhandis, the Prime Builder." (Shah, ibid., p. 372.)
54. Gershom Scholem describes a short Jewish work called the Sefer
Yesirah or Book of Creation which seems to date from the 2nd or 3rd century
A.D. It circulated widely in many lands during the European Middle Ages,
and is found today even outside of academies, especially among occultists.
Scholem considers that it probably originated from neo-Pythagorean sources
such as the writings of Nichomachus of Gerasa (c. 140 A.D.), together with
the idea of "letters by means of which heaven and earth were created" which
may have come from within Judaism. 55. The basic thesis of the work,
accoording to Scholem, is that: "All reality is consituted in the three levels of
the cosmos -- the world, time, and the human body, which are the
fundamental realm of all being -- and comes into existence through the
combination of the twenty-two consonants [of the Hebrew alphabet], and
especially by way of the '231' gates, that is, the combinations of the letters
into groups of two (the author apparently held the view that the root of
Hebrew were based not on three but on two consonants)." The 22 consonants
are divided into 3 groups according to a peculiar phonetic system. The groups
contain 3, 7 and 12 letters. The group of three consists of "matrices"
(sometimes translated "mothers"), corresponding to ether (or spirit), water
and fire. From these everything else came into being, and correspond also to
the 3 seasons of the year (3 rather than 4 was an ancient Greek partitioning),
and the 3 parts of the body: head, torso and stomach. The letters in the
group of 7 correspond especially to the 7 planets, 7 heavens, t days of the
week and 7 orifices of the body. They also represent 7 fundamental
opposites: life and death, peace and disaster, wisdom and folly, wealth and
poverty, charm (or beauty) and ugliness, sowing (or fruitfulness) and
devastation, domination and servitude. And they correspond to the six
directions of heaven: above (or height), below (or depth), east, west, north and
south [presumably the 7th is earth, or an observer?] The 12 remaining
consonants correspond to the 12 principal activities of man, the 12 signs of

the zodiac, the 12 months of the years, and the 12 chief limbs of the human
body. Scholem observers that the scheme of the Sefer Yesirah betrays its
relationship with astrology, although it is based on language mysticism.
From such ideas, says Scholem, "direct paths lead to the magical conception
of the creative power of letters and words" (Gershom Scholem, p. 24-35 of
origins of the Kabbalah, 1987, translation of ursprung und Anfänge der
Kabbala, 1962; there is an English translation of the Sefer Yesirah by Knut
Stenring under the title The Book of Formation or Sepher Yetzirah, 1923, and
another in The Qabala Trilogy, unattributed, called the "The Sepher Yetsira",
from the French translation by Carlo Suarès, 1968. (Gershom Scholem, p.
24-35 of origins of the Kabbalah, 1987, translation of Ursprung und Anfänge
der Kabbala, 1962; and another in The Qabala Trilogy, 1985, unattributed,
called "The Sepher Yetsira" based on the French translation by Carlo Suarès,
1968.
56. There have been numerous other species of number magic and
mysticism. Examples are beliefs in special values of certain numbers, such
as a belief that 7 must be especially significant since in Genesis God is said to
have created the universe in 7 days, and there are many other places in the
Bible where the number 7 appears. The connection with the Bible is stressed
in an unusually elaborate and worked out treatment of the religious
significance of small integers in two volumes by the Christian writer Paul
Lacuria (Les Harmonies de l'être, exprimée par les nombres, 1899. The
number 7 is especially considered in Chapters XV-XVIII. Sample: the 7 divine
attributes Life, Liberty, Light, Holiness, Wisdom-Justice (linked) and
Eternity correspond (in these orders) to the colors red, orange, yellow, green,
blue-indigo and violet, to the musical notes do, re, mi, fa, sol-la (linked), ti (v.
1, p. 196-197), and the integers 1 through 7. Of course there are also 7 days
in a week, according to the ancients 7 "planets" (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), etc.
57. Henry Corbin describes the "science of the balance" ('ilm al-Mîzân)
associated with the Muslim writer Jâbir ibn Hayyân, as described by the Muslim Shî-ite
writer Haydar Amli (8th century A.D., 14th century A.H.), and said by him to have been
originated by Pythagoras. Haydar Amôli explains that 1 is the cause of number, 2
is the number of the First Intelligence as second existence; 3 is the number of
the universal Soul; 4 is the number of nature; 5 of "prime matter"; 6 of space
("corporeal volume"); 7 of the celestial Sphere; 8 of the Elements; 9 of the 3
natural kingdoms, mineral corresponding to 10's, vegetable corresponding to
100's, animal corresponding to 1000's. "Each number carries by itself an
esoteric secret which is not found in any other number."
58. There are "balances" of 7 and 12, "correspondences between the

astronomy of the visible [exterior] Heaven and the astronomy of the spiritual
[interior] Heaven, between the esoteric hierarchy and its cosmic
correspondences." The 7 divine attributes as given here are Life, Knowledge,
Power, Will, Word, Hearing and Sight, to which correspond 7 names called
the "Imams of the divine Names". In the spiritual world, there are 7
prophets who are manifestations of the 7 "ecstatic Angels of love": Adam,
Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus and Mohammad. There are 7 planets,
7 climates corresponding to them, 7 Earths and 7 peoples who inhabit them,
and 7 degrees of hell. One has the 12 primordially created angels, the 12
Imams who are the 12 friends of God, and the 12 signs of the zodiac.

59. There is also a "balance" of 19, which is of greatest importance, "for
the system of the world is ordered according to the number 19." This is
because "the whole universe is in the image of God." There are 7 planets and
12 signs of the zodiac: total 19. There are the Intelligence and Soul of the
universe, 9 celestial spheres, 4 elements, 3 natural kingdoms, and Man: total
19. There are 7 great prophets and 12 Imams belonging to them: total 19.
The 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are reduced to 19 "degrees" of letters by
a rather complicated process. And so on. There is a balance of 28, and other
balances. Corbin ends his treatment of this numerological system with a
description, derived from Ibn 'Arabî of the "knights of the invisible", the
Sages who, it is said in the Koran, understand the true meaning of certain
parables: "it is thanks to them that we can have in this world a 'science of
correspondences'." (Henry Corbin, Temple et Contemplation, Essais sur
l'Islam Iranien, 1980, "La science de la balance et les correspondences entre
les mondes en gnose islamique, p. 67-141.)
60. Another familiar kind of numerology is a belief in magical

properties of square matrices of numbers, "magic squares", in which the
entries are the integers from 1 to n2 for some n, and the sums are the same in
rows, columns and main diagonals. For example, if the 4 rows 1-15-14-4, 12-
6-7-9, 8-10-11-5, 13-3-2-16 are arranged into a square in this order, the sums
are all 34. This particular example appears in a work called Oedipus
Aegyptiacus (1652) by Athanasius Kircher, a noted 17th century Jesuit
"Hermetic pseudo-Egyptologist" (so characterized by Frances Yates, The
Rosicrucian Enlightenment, 1972, p. 230; the square is given by Hans
Biedermann, Handlexikon der magischen Künste, 2nd edition, 1973, p. 316.)
61. Such correspondences fail to be applied mathematics, as

mathematicians today understand this term, because the mathematical
structures don't correspond naturally to anything in the events or things they
are purported to apply to. Gematria, the association of numbers with
qualities like justice or institutions like marriage are examples of what I call
appliquéed mathematics. This is an attempt to attribute a mathematical
structure to something which doesn't have a mathematical structure, or at
least has no interesting or revealing mathematical structure. One may be
trying to quantify the unquantifiable. Examples might be attempts to apply
partial differential equations to political movements in ways in which such
equations are applied to physical phenomena (although statistical sampling
methods as used in polls might be applicable), or to the movements of
Beethoven's symphonies (which isn't as wild an idea as it might seem, since
timed sounds can in a certain sense be specified by such equations). Natural
philosophers and their descendants, the natural scientists, must submit to
the mathematics which is in the cosmos; magicians and astrologers try to
force some mathematics on it which doesn't belong to it. <![endif]>
62. Edward Strong warns that the cabalistic and numerological

maneuvers of such Florentine Platonists and Hermeticists as Marsilio Ficino
and Giovanni Pico did not provide a metaphysical foundation for the 16th and
17th century mathematical philosophers. These Platonists were neither
mathematically nor empirically minded. They were concerned with such
problems as comparing the views of Plato and Aristotle on knowledge and
being, and with the reconciliation of neo-Platonism and Hermeticism with
orthodox Christianity. They did not engage in a mathematical realism, but in

a mystical number symbolism. "Through love and through the knowledge of
superior numbers, one penetrates into the inner mysteries. The way upward
yields to spiritual love; but if one would know the workings of the creative
spirit in the created things, he should consider symbolic number. As in
Proclus, the divine numbers are defined in respect to their status and
function: their status is to symbolize and classify the incorporeal and
incorruptible beings, and their function is to create copies in matter. Upon
its own showing, the doctrine does not display the universe as a structure of
mathematical order and relations. Rather, a religious and mystical system
borrows number as a useful symbol of incorporeality and turns arithmetic
into arithmology. The divine appropriates the arithmetic, and arithmetic the
divine, in the 'divine arithmetic' of these Neo-Platonists." (Edward Strong,
ibid., p. 196-197.)
63. The distinction between applied and appliquéed mathematics was

made by Kepler (not in these terms) in his controversy with the physician,
Robert Fludd, who was also an alchemist, astrologer and Hermeticist. This
interchange is described by (among others) Max Caspar in Kepler, 1946,
translated from German by C. Doris Hellman, 1959, p. 290-293; by the Nobel
physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific
Theories of Kepler", in Naturerklärung und Psyche by Carl Jung and
Wolfgang Pauli, 1952, English translation by Priscilla Silz in The
Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955; by Frances Yates in Giordano
Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 1964, p. 440-444; by Robert Westman,
"Nature, art, and psyche", in Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the
Renaissance, 1984, p. 177-229; and by Judith V. Field in Kepler's
Geometrical Cosmology, 1988, p. 179-187.
64. It appears to have been Kepler's harmony theory which led to the
controversy with Fludd, who also had propounded a theory of musical
correspondences in his Utriusque Cosmi ... historia (1617-1618). In Kepler's
appendix to his Harmonice mundi (1619 -- sometimes called Harmonices
mundi), Kepler compares his own work with that of Ptolemy in the 3rd book
of Ptolemy's Harmonica, and also with the work of Fludd. As to Fludd,
Kepler objects that whereas he (Kepler) develops musical theory in
considerable detail and then demonstrates a celestial counterpart, Fludd
gives a condensed version of a textbook for musicians, and then deals with
practical matters of music-making. Kepler says: "... he differs from me as a
practitioner from a theoretician. For while he considers [musical]
instruments themselves, I investigate causes or consonances in nature, and
when he teaches how one can compose a tune with many voices, I produce
instead many mathematical demonstrations, that are in songs formed by
nature as well as choral pieces." (Johannes Kepler, Harmonice mundi, 1619,
vol. 6 of Gesammelte Werke, p. 374; cf. the translation into German by Max
Caspar, Weltharmonik, 1939, reprinted 1971, which has something like this,
translated into English (p. 362): "For while he [Fludd] considers the
instruments, I investigate the causes of nature or consonances, and when he
teaches how one composes a song with many voices, I produce instead of this
mathematical proofs for very many laws that are valid for choral as well as
the many-voiced singing out of nature."
65. Furthermore, Kepler observes that Fludd derives his harmonies

purely from properties of numbers, whereas he (Kepler) finds his from

astronomical measurements. Indeed, Fludd never makes any reference in his
theories to an observed astronomical quantity. Kepler remarks that Fludd's
Hermetic analogies 'are dragged in by the hair'. Field says: "The crucial
difference between Kepler and Fludd seems ... to be that Kepler demanded
that his cosmological theories should be in good numerical agreement with
measured properties of the observable Universe." (l.c., p. 187.) That is, the
mathematics should be applied, not appliquéed.
66. In Fludd's opinion Kepler's science refers only to the "outside of

things", whereas he (Fludd) penetrates to the inner, invisible depths and
holiness of things. Fludd distinguished between formal mathematics (his
own kind) and vulgar mathematics (Kepler's kind). The mathematics of
Fludd was, in fact, largely numerology -- a kind of purely verbal
manipulation of numbers. These verbal manipulations were, in turn, often
extracted from or references to elaborate engravings which were basic in
Fludd's system. This has been emphasized by Westman who says we must
look at Fludd's engravings "not as illustrations but rather as ways of
knowing, demonstrating, and remembering." (Westman, ibid., p. 181.)
Fludd's pictures, however, do not function in the way geometrical diagrams
do for Kepler. "It is as though Fludd's pictures," Westman says, which
appear to be about nature, are really pictures of psychic states; they are
visualizations of intuitions and feelings projected onto the world, but lacking
any sufficient criterion of correspondence to an external reality." (ibid., p.
211.)
67. The mathematics of Kepler (1571-1630) was awakened in him by

the cosmos, tested by way of observations, and found not to be purely a
matter of words. "The divine voice," he says in the Astronomia nova (1609),
"which commands men to learn astronomy, expresses itself in the world, not
in words and syllables, but through things themselves and through the
agreement of the human intellect and senses with the entirety of celestial
bodies and phenomena." (Quoted by Alexandre Koyré, Astronomical Revolutions,
1973, p. 163, translation by R. E. W. Maddison of La révolution astronomique, 1961).)
Kepler's pictures -- geometric diagrams -- were projections of correspondences
between geometrical relations and images in his mind and geometrical
relations realized outside him. Kepler's view in his Harmonice mundi of the
relationship between the human mind and the Divine Mind -- based on an
analogy with the center, circumference and radii of a circle -- fits in very well,
as Pauli observes, with an interpretation of knowledge as a "matching" of
external impressions with pre-existent inner images. (Pauli, ibid., p. 162.)
68. Kepler says: "For, to know is to compare that which is externally

perceived with inner ideas and to judge that it agrees with them, a process
which Proclus expressed very beautifully by the word "awakening," as from
sleep. For, as the perceptible things which appear in the outside world make
us remember what we knew before, so do sensory experiences, when
consciously realized, call forth intellectual notions that were already present
inwardly; so that that which formerly was hidden in the soul, as under the
veil of potentiality, now shines therein in actuality. How, then, did they [the
intellectual notions] find ingress? I answer: All ideas or formal concepts of
the harmonies, as I have just discussed them, lie in those beings that possess
the faculty of rational cognition, and they are not at all received within by
discursive reasoning; rather they are derived from a natural instinct and are

inborn in those beings as the number (an intellectual thing) of petals in a
flower or the number of seed cells in a fruit is innate in the forms of the
plants." (quoted by Pauli, ibid., p. 162-163.)
69. Kepler's cosmic harmonies are given by proportions. For example,

Kepler asserted in the Harmonices mundi that the slowest angular velocity of
a planet at aphelion (position on the planet's elliptical orbit furthest from the
sun) is to the largest angular velocity of the planet at perihelion (position
nearest the sun) as one small whole number is to another. Stated in another
way, the ratio of the angular velocities equals the ratio of two whole numbers.
One of the ratios in this proportion (a proportion is an equality of ratios) is
between two whole numbers, but the other is between two quantities (the
velocities) which can be represented by geometrical magnitudes.
Furthermore, Kepler calculated that the ratios of the small whole numbers
were ratios corresponding to consonant musical intervals, such as a fifth, or a
major or minor third, and thus, for example, equal to the ratios of the lengths
of a string (or strings) which would produce the sounds of these intervals.
For example, for Mars, he found a fifth, and for Earth, a minor semitone.
(Alexandre Koyré, The Astronomical Revolution, 1973, p. 335; translation by R. E. W.
Maddison of La révolution astronomique, 1961.)
70. When two geometric magnitudes, or magnitudes which can be

represented by geometric magnitudes (such as velocities or weights) are
compared in a ratio, the terms in the ratio must be in the same units -- for
velocities, both feet per second, or both kilometers per hour, etc. Kepler's
third law of planetary motion maintains that the squares of the periods
(times taken for one revolution around the sun) of two planets are to each
other as the cubes of the semi-major axes of the elliptical orbits on which they
move (approximately) -- provided the the two periods are in the same units,
and the two lengths of the semi-major axes are in the same units. The
periods, or the lengths of the semi-major axes, might be incommensurable (in
the mathematical sense, related to the difference between rational and
irrational numbers) with some unit of measure, but the ratios could still be
equal to a ratio of small whole numbers. For example, in modern terms, the
ratio of 3 times pi to 2 times pi equals the ratio of 3 to 2.
71. Kepler took geometry to be fundamental to God's creation, and

God's geometrical relationships to be basic features of the cosmos which can
be awakened in us by our sensory contacts with the world outside us. He
criticized the algebraists of his time for their lack of depth and their
utilitarian attitudes. When it is a question of the foundations of
mathematics, he said, it is necessary to return to geometry. (cf. Gérard
Simon, Kepler astronome astrologue, 1979, p. 149-153.) The cosmic
harmonies which he derived he considered to be characteristic of the cosmos
by virtue of the fact that they arose from taking ratios of geometrical
magnitudes which appear in nature, and in us. That the magnitudes which
appear in us do indeed correspond to the ones outside of us can be verified by
making measurements outside of us to see if the proposed ratios of these
magnitudes do indeed obtain. However, he says in the Harmonice mundi
that we are born with archetypal harmonies in our soul which are not images
of harmonies, but the harmonies themselves -- indeed, these harmonies are
the soul. (Simon, ibid., p. 141.) Fludd also was much concerned with cosmic
harmonies, but Kepler complained that Fludd's ratios did not arise from

taking ratios of objective geometrical magnitudes, but from subjective and
arbitrary assignments of numbers to various pictures which Fludd carried
around in his mind. Fludd's ratios were ratios of small whole numbers not
connected with actual cosmological magnitudes, except in the case of musical
intervals.
72. Pauli remarks on Fludd's aversion to the quantitative, in the sense

in which physicists take this word. In Fludd's system, there are two polar
fundamental principles, form as a principle of light, coming from above, and
matter, a dark principle, dwelling in the earth. Pauli says: "Fludd's
depreciation of everything quantitative, which in his opinion belongs, like all
division and multiplicity, to the dark principle (matter, devil), resulted in a
further essential difference between Fludd's and Kepler's views concerning
the position of the soul in nature. The sensitivity of the soul to proportions,
so essential according to Kepler, in in Fludd's opinion only the result of its
entanglement in the (dark) corporeal world, whereas its imaginative
faculties, that recognize unit, spring from its true nature originating in the
light principle (forma). While Kepler represents the point of view that the
soul is a part of nature, Fludd even protests against the concept "part" to the
human soul, since the soul, being freed from the laws of the physical world,
that is, in so far as it belongs to the light principle, is inseparable from the
whole world-soul." (Pauli, ibid., p. 198-199.) It appears that Fludd used the
word forma rather as we commonly use the word symbol today.
73. Pauli says: "Fludd's attitude, however, seems to us somewhat

easier to understand when it is viewed in the perspective of a more general
differentiation between two types of mind, a differentiation that can be traced
throughout history, the one type considering the quantitative relations of the
parts to be essential, the other the qualitative visibility of the whole. We
already find this contrast, for example, in antiquity in the two corresponding
definitions of beauty: in the one it is the proper agreement of the parts with
each other and with the whole, in the other (going back to Plotinus) there is
no reference to parts but beauty is the eternal radiance of the "One" shining
through the material phenomenon. An analogous contrast can also be found
later in the well-known quarrel between Goethe and Newton concerning the
theory of colours: Goethe had a similar aversion to "parts" and always
emphasized the disturbing influence of instruments on the 'natural'
phenomena." (Pauli, ibid., p. 205-206.)
74. Kepler's mathematical images didn't always participate in

correspondences in the way Kepler thought they would to begin with -- as
comparison with nature external to him revealed to him at times -- but in his
view, they were intended to be used to establish correspondences of
something implanted in him with something outside of him. Furthermore,
his mathematics was based on the works of great mathematicians of
antiquity such as Euclid, Apollonius and Archimedes, augmented by the work
of numerous later "vulgar" mathematicians of the same kind (to use Fludd's
pejorative designation), including himself. Most of this mathematics is as
valid today as it ever was, and much of it is still widely applicable, though
often buried in complex mathematical systems and traditions elaborated
since Kepler's time.

75. Kepler was sometimes extravagant in his correspondences, by
today's standards. For example, there was his proposal in the Mysterium
cosmographium (1st edition, 1597; 2nd edition with extensive added notes,
1621) that the number and distance of the planets follow a priori from
properties of the five regular solids. However, he devoted incredible labor to
testing this proposition against Tycho Brahe's observations. In his last major
work, the Harmonices mundi (1619), this proposition had evolved into
Kepler's third law of planetary motion, that the squares of the periods of the
planets are proportional to the to the cubes of the semi-major axes of the
ellipses in which they move. This law still stands, to a first approximation.
Kepler's theory of the connection of musical harmony with the motions of the
solar system, a quantitative theory of the Pythagorean "music of the
spheres", elaborated in the Harmonices Mundi, hasn't fared as well as his
laws of planetary motion. But it was not occult philosophy. "I hate all
cabalists," said Kepler.
76. Pauli commented on the difference between people like Kepler, who
are concerned with the quantitative relations between parts of things, and
people like Fludd, who are concerned with qualitative visibility of wholes of
things. There are other contrasts between the viewpoints of Fludd and
Kepler. One lies in the use of language. In Chapter V of his work De stella
nova (On the new star) (1606), Kepler argues at some length that the names
of the signs of the zodiac are arbitrary, and don't have any occult significance.
Gérard Simon observes that these pages are characteristic of Kepler's
attitude, and show that Kepler grasped the fact that traditional judicial
astrology is based on a lack of distinction between the thing and the symbol,
between the symbol and the name, between the name and the meaning. "It is
a question," Simon says, "of knowing if words conform to things." (Gérard
Simon, ibid., p. 102.)
77. In the appendix to the Harmonices mundi, Kepler accuses both

Ptolemy and Fludd of concocting cosmic harmonies which are "pure
symbolisms ... poetical and rhetorical". It's an old story: the debate about the
relation of language to the rest of reality, which goes back at least to Plato's
Cratylus. The example of the zodiac doesn't reveal the profundity of the
question. It is quite easy to believe that the names of the signs of the zodiac
are named after quite arbitrary shapes assigned to certain constellations, and
that, for example, Libra, the Scales, has no particular connection with justice
or fair-mindedness (although astrologers believe otherwise). But is all use of
language arbitrary in this way?
78. In the De stella nova, Kepler ridicules the cabalists for regarding
language as a direct gift of God, and for extracting extravagant hidden
meanings from words and phrases by transposing their characters. It must
be remembered, though, that on the basis of the book of Genesis, the cabalists
believed, as do many others, that God spoke the world into existence. And, as
Robert Westman brings out, Fludd's major works are of the genre of
commentaries on Genesis, and while "Fludd had a strong interest in the
created world of nature -- perhaps much more so than preceding
commentators on Genesis -- his ultimate concern was still with Genesis
itself." (Robert Westman, "Nature, Art and Psyche" in Occult and Scientific
Mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984, p. 125-229, especially p. 191-200;

Westman cites Arnold Williams, The Common Expositor: An Account of the
Commentaries on Genesis, 1527-1633, 1948.)
79. Brian Vickers examines the distinction between analogy and

identity, and between literal and metaphorical language. He says: "In the
scientific tradition, I hold, a clear distinction is made between words and
things and between literal and metaphorical language. The occult tradition
does not recognize this distinction: Words are treated as if they are
equivalent to things and can be substituted for them. Manipulate the one
and you manipulate the other. Analogies, instead of being, as they are in the
scientific tradition, explanatory devices subordinate to argument and proof,
or heuristic tools to make models that can be tested, corrected, and
abandoned if necessary, are, instead, modes of conceiving relationships in the
universe that reify, rigidify, and ultimately come to dominate thought. One
no longer uses analogies: One is used by them. They become the only way in
which one can think or experience the world." (Brian Vickers, "Analogy
versus identity: the rejection of occult symbolism, 1580-1680", in Occult and
scientific mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984, p. 95.)
80. Vickers considers such exemplars of occult attitudes toward

language as Boehme, Ficino, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Comenius and John
Webster, and critics (as least by implication) of such attitudes like Francis
Bacon, Galileo, Seth Ward, John Wilkins, Daniel Sennert, Johann Van
Helmont, Robert Boyle and John Locke. For example, there is Galileo's
remark in "The Assayer" (Il Saggiatore, 1623), addressed to Lothario Sarsi, a
pseudonymn of a Jesuit priest, Horatio Grassi: "I am not so sure that in
order to make a comet a quasi-planet, and as such to deck it out in the
attributes of other planets, it is sufficient for Sarsi or his teacher to regard it
as one and so name it. If their opinions and their voices have the power of
calling into existence the things they name, then I beg them to do me the
favor of naming a lot of old hardware I have about my house, "gold." (Galileo,
"The Assayer" (Il Saggiatore), 1623, in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo,
1957, translations and notes by Stillman Drake.) Later in the same work, we
find: "To excite in us tastes, odors, and sounds I believe that nothing is
required in external bodies except shapes, numbers, and slow or rapid
movements. I think that if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, shapes
and numbers and motions would remain, but not odors or tastes or sounds.
The latter, I believe, are nothing more than names when separated from
living beings, just as tickling and titillation are nothing but names in the
absence of such things as noses and armpits." (Galileo, ibid., p. 277.)
81. Isaac Newton had similar views. In a letter to Richard Bentley of

25 February 1692/1693, he complains about a statement of Bentley's
"representing it as absurd as that there should be positively an infinite
arithmetical summ or number wch is a contradiction in terminis: but you do
not prove it as absurd. Neither do you prove that what men mean by an
infinite summ or number is a contradiction in nature. For a contradiction in
terminis argues nothing more then an improperty of speech. Those things
wch men understand by improper and contradictious phrases may be
sometimes really in nature wthout any contradiction at all. A silver inkhorn
a paper Lanthorn an iron whetstone are absurd phrases & yet ye things
signified are really in nature." (The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, edited
by H. W. Turnbull, v. 3, 1961, p. 254.)

82. Vickers also refers to the controversy between Kepler and Fludd.
Kepler's attitude toward analogy is illustrated by a quotation from a letter of
Kepler to Maestlin of 1605: "Every planetary body must be regarded as being
magnetic, or quasi-magnetic; in fact, I suggest a similarity, and do not
declare an identity." (Koyré, loc. cit., p. 252.) In short, Kepler understood the
limitations of mathematical models.
83. Vickers quotes a 1968 Malinowski lecture of S. J. Tambiah, "The

Magical Power of Words", concerning the effect of "sacred words" which are
"thought to possess a special kind of power not normally associated with
ordinary language", derived from the widespread "ancient belief in the
creative power of the word". Examples are found in the Vedic hymns of the
Hindus, in certain Buddhist doctrines, in the Iranian Parsi religion, in the
religions of the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians and Semites who believed that
the world and its objects were created by the word of God, and among the
Greeks whose doctrine concerning logos postulated that the essence of things
lies in their names. In the Bible, for example, we find: "So shall my word be
that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not reutrn unto me void, but it shall
accomplish that which I please." (Isaiah 55:11).
84. In fact, the 3rd verse of the first book of Genesis reads in the
Revised Standard Version: "God said let there be light." --"God said let
there be light." A little later, in Genesis 2.19-20, it is said of the first man
Adam: "So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and
every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call
them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every
beast of the field..... " In the Christian Gospel of John, we have "in the
beginning was the Word" and "the Word was God" and "the Word made
flesh". Here "Word" is a translation of logos, whose meaning is rather elastic,
but which many agree in _this_ context refers to the "word of God" as
understood in the Old Testament. Perhaps John also intended the word to
carry its connotation of reason, and of order, as opposed to chaos. In any
case, a great many Jewish, Muslim and Christian commentators stress the
fact that God created by speaking. Occasionally, a commentator will say that
it is as if God created by commanding orally, so creation would be analogous
to language acts. But many hold that God's acts of creation, as described in
Genesis, were language acts. As a consequence, they regard language as a
most powerful and holy instrument. God gave this gift to Adam and, it is
said, when God let Adam name the creatures, he gave them dominion --
power -- over them.
85. Questions of divinity aside, language is, of course, a most powerful

instrument. Who would deny the power of command, promise, entreaty,
description, lying, literature, and all the other effective acts of language? In
Plato's Cratylus, Socrates calls Pan the declarer and mover of all things, and
says he is speech, or the brother of speech. Who can conceive of human
society, civilization, culture, not founded on the motive power of language?
But mover of all things? Of the sun and planets, and the particles or waves
or wavicles that compose them?
86. The limits of language are under constant review. Suffice it here to
quote two opposed points of view. "Learning to speak," says Han-Georg

Gadamer, "does not mean to use a preexistent tool for designating a world
already somehow familiar to us; it means acquiring a familiarity and
acquaintance with the world itself and how it confronts us..... Language is
not a delimited realm of the speakable, over against which other realms that
are unspeakable might stand. Rather, language is all-encompassing. There
is nothing that is fundamentally excluded from being said, to the extent that
our act of meaning intends it." (Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Man and Language"
(1966), in Philosophical Hermeneutics, 1976, p. 63, 67, translated by David
Linge from Gadamer's Kleine Schriften).
87. Contrarily, Alfred North Whitehead says: "Language was

developed in response to the excitements of practical actions. It is concerned
with the prominent facts..... But the prominent facts are the superficial
facts..... There are other elements in our experience, on the fringe of
consciousness, and yet massively qualifying our experience..... Language is
incomplete and fragmentary, and merely registers a stage in the average
advance beyond ape-mentality. But all men enjoy flashes of insight beyond
meanings already stabilized in etymology and grammar. Hence the rôle of
literature, the rôle of the special sciences, and the rôle of philosophy: -- in
their various ways engaged in finding expressions for meanings as yet
unexpressed." (Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures in Ideas, 1933, p. 166-
167, p. 227-228.)
88. Kepler made the point that naming a sign of the zodiac Scorpio
after a tenuous resemblance of a constellation to a scorpion does not give the
sign, or planets in the sign, any capacity to instill in humans any of the
characteristics of scorpions. This is a false conclusion based on an invalid
analogy. But Kepler didn't reject the usefulness of analogy in general.
Alexandre Koyré observes that in Kepler's Astronomia nova, when Kepler
was concerned with the nature of the force which causes the planets to
revolve around the sun, he says we can only proceed by analogy with other
more usual, better known emanations, notably light and magnetic force.
Kepler commented that if we proceed in this way, our knowledge of the
motive force of the sun will be vague and incomplete. But it gives some idea
of the kind of reality we are dealing with. (Koyré, ibid, p. 199.)
89. Kepler's attitude toward analogy resembles to a degree (is

analogous to!) Galileo's attitude toward idealization, about which Koyré‚
wrote so eloquently in his Études galiléennes. Galileo conceived of bodies
falling in vacuums, frictionless surfaces, undisturbed objects moving forever
with constant velocities equal to their initial velocities (in circles, to be sure),
the orbits of cannonballs being perfect parabolas (just as the ancients had
conceived of the paths of the stars as being perfect circles -- but the
cannonballs are sublunary), simple pendulums being isochronous (a little off,
but nearly right for small oscillations). As we would say today, Galileo
produced mathematical models for various physical states or processes, and
such models capture only certain quantitative aspects of phenomena. Kepler
was also much given to making geometric models, and he was especially fond
of his exotic model of the solar system based on the regular and star-shaped
polyhedra.
90. Neither Kepler's nor Galileo's models agreed exactly or completely

with reality. Mathematical models seldom do. They are idealizations or

abstractions, and, in the case of quantities conceived of as continuous,
inevitably introduce some degree of approximation. Galileo's treatise in
which he founds the science of strength of materials contains drawings of
unidealized wooden beams, with knots in the wood visible, and showing
plants growing out of crevices in the stone wall in which the beam is
anchored. (Galileo Galilei, Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno …
due nuove scienze, 1638; the drawings are on p. 116 and 119 of the
translation into English by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio, Dialogues
concerning Two New Sciences, 1914.) Galileo's geometrical idealizations and
abstractions obviously don't capture all the properties of such objects, but
only certain essential properties -- essential for Galileo's purpose.
91. As for Kepler, he realized in the long run that his lovely model with
inscriptions and circumscriptions of the regular solids in the planetary
spheres didn't match reality, and that not even the introduction of the star-
shaped semi-regular polyhedra would give an exact model. But the model
served to guide him to the discovery of his three planetary laws, which have
endured. They too, however, apply only to idealized systems, such as the pair
consisting of one planet and the sun, with the sun fixed, in which the effects
of other planets and objects are ignored. And even here one often considers
the planet and the sun as mere points, rather than extended bodies. Thus
the laws yield only good approximations to certain behavior of planets. It
isn't too easy to give a precise meaning to the "good" in "good
approximations", but it is clear to many who compare the predictions of the
laws with actual measurements that the approximations given by the laws
are not subjective assignments of numbers to the phenomena: the laws can be
used to estimate something which is happening outside their users.
92. We have seen something of the gulf between number mysticism and
applied mathematics. Johannisson's assertion that the Hermetic tradition
stressed "rationality in a mathematical sense" must not be taken as support
for the contention that natural philosophers were led by Hermeticists to
realize the place or importance of mathematics in such sciences as astronomy
and physics. People applying mathematics to nature on the whole have had
to struggle against the influence of Hermeticists. This judgement is not a
new one. For example, Robert Westman concludes in a study of the supposed
contributions of Hermeticism to the Scientific Revolution: "Kepler and
Galileo provide specific criteria for allowing us to weight one theory above
another in terms of their mathematical intelligibility and their empirical
adequacy. This the Hermeticists failed to do because they either separated
mathematics from natural philosophy or could not see how they were
connected or totally subordinated mathematical statements to physical
ones..... What significant physical and mathematical insights Bruno and
other alleged Hermeticists arrived at came from their individual, creative
intuitions, often under the influence of doctrines first formulated in medieval
natural philosophy, and in spite of their adherence to Hermetic doctrines."
(Robert Westman, "Magical Reform and Astronomical Reform: The Yates
Thesis Reconsidered", in Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution, 1977, p.
71, his italics.)
93. Johannisson also discusses the role of Freemasonry and

Rosicrucianism in early modern science. "The Rosicrucians," she says, "--
whether existing as an actual society or not -- integrated in their program an

open view of the world and a rejection of the Church's authority together with
a passionate belief in science as the way to progress." (ibid.) Their science
was based on Hermeticism and Paracelsianism, and comprised chiefly magic,
cabala and alchemy. To these, Johannisson adds "mathematics, physics,
cosmology, and a medicine that stressed humanitarian ends." However, the
mathematics and physics were more in the manner of Fludd than of Kepler,
and show little trace of the tradition of Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes or the
quantitative natural philosophers of the Middle Ages who studied the
motions of physical objects.
94. A number of the theses of Frances Yates, especially those having to

do with Rosicrucianism have been toned done by most of her followers --
Johannisson, it seems, is one of the more faithful. In 1979, Brian Vickers
went so far as to argue at length that in her book The Rosicrucian
Enlightenment, "Yate's proposed rewriting of Renaissance history is an
edifice built not on sand but on air." ("Frances Yates and the Writing of
History", Journal of Modern History, v. 51, no. 2, 1979, p. 287-316.) Still,
Merkel and Debus say in 1988 that "there are few who would now dispute
that, taken in context, the Rosicrucian tracts were of great concern to
seventeenth-century scientists and physicians representing many schools of
thought." (ibid., "Introduction", p. 9.)
95. Newton wrote a few comments on a Hermetic tract, described by

Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs ("Newton's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet of
Hermes Trismegistus: Its Scientific and Theological Significance", 1988, in
Hermeticism and the Renaissance, Intellectual History and the Occult in
Early Modern Europe, 1988, based on a 1982 meeting, edited by Ingrid
Merkel and Allen G. Debus, p. 182-191.) Newton carried out extensive
alchemical studies, which Dobbs treated in her book The Foundations of
Newton's Alchemy, or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon", 1975. Alchemy is of
an age and nature comparable to astrology, and connections between the two
are ancient. For example, the basic metals were associated with planets (as
always, including the sun and moon), and astrological and alchemical
significances of the planets and the metals were interwoven.
96. The psychologist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung argued at length

that much of the symbolism of such studies, especially of alchemy, arose from
projections of changes of the personality of the investigators onto their
material. The older alchemy, according to Jung, never had as its central aim
the investigation of the nature of matter and its combinations. Such
maneuvers as it undertook that we would be willing to today to admit as
bona fide chemistry were secondary to the work of psychological
transformation which was performed by way of alchemical operations. In
this view, only during the course of the 17th century did a kind of
rationalistic and materialistic alchemy precipitate out of the older alchemy,
by way of corpuscular and mechanical theories of matter, in which matter
was conceived to be made of tiny particles moving according to regular
patterns.
97. It should be kept in mind that in our concentration on the heavens,

on astral religion and astrology, and later, on mathematical cosmology and
the inititiation of celestial mechanics, we must guard against a distortion of
the attitudes of the people who have pursued these subjects. Although of

course there were individual differences, such people were often also very
interested in the transformations of matter on earth, and didn't always try to
live with their heads above the lunar sphere. Whatever the merit of Jung's
theories about the psychological burden of alchemy, many natural
philosophers were concerned with what we would call chemical reactions,
although to be sure until the 17th century these were usually presented in a
context of some four or five element theory (fire, air, earth, water, and "fifth
essence" (quintessence or aether) inherited from antiquity.
98. During the late 16th and early 17th century in Europe there was a
kind of flowering of alchemy, analogous to the flowering of astrology in that
period. Dobbs says: "In their rejection of the pagan accounts of natural
phenomena offered by Aristotle and Galen, Renaissance Hermeticists had
come to emphasize anew the importance of the first chapter of the book of
Genesis. In Genesis was a divine account of the creation of the world, one
which could not be disputed, and one which could lend itself to interpretation
as a divine chemical separation. If the act of creation itself was to be
understood chemically, then all of nature was to be understood similarly. In
short, chemistry was the key to all nature, the key to all the macrocosmic-
microcosmic relationships sought by Robert Fludd and others. A study of
chemistry was a study of God as He had Himself written out His word in the
Book of Nature. Such a study could only lead one closer to God and was
conceived as having moral value as well as contributing to the better grasp of
the workings of nature and to the providing of better medicines for the relief
of man's illnesses." (Dobbs, loc. cit., 1975, p. 61.)
99. In the 17th century, it was a common assumption of the

"corpuscularians" -- of whom Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is perhaps the most
famous -- that everything natural is made of elementary corpuscles or
particles, all made of the same kind of matter. Dobbs says: "The primitive
particles might differ in figure and magnitude, as did the letters of the
alphabet; larger units, like words, were formed by the combinations of the
primitive particles in different orders, groups, and positions. The alphabet
analogy was quite commonly drawn upon to explain chemical changes. Yet
however the particles might differ in size, shape, and arrangement, they were
all made from the same basic substance." (Dobbs, ibid., p. 46.) Thus we are
tempted to make a link between Jewish kabbalism and the alphabetical
notation of our own chemistry.
100. Newton spent considerable time and effort on alchemy, but it

remains difficult to say exactly how alchemy and Hermeticism influenced his
work in mechanics. J. E. McGuire has argued that "Newton's intellectual
orientation embodies a framework of concepts that largely emerge from the
Neoplatonism developed by his Cambridge contemporaries" and that
"traditions of magic and alchemy did not play a significant role in shaping
Newton's conception of nature." Hermeticism played a limited role in
Cambridge natural philosophy, he says, because the Cambridge Platonists
sought a restoration of Neoplatonism, which they tried to legitimize by
relating their writings to Christian Hermeticism. "For a short time in the
early 1690s," McGuire says, "Newton explicitly accepted this ideology, but,
like his Cambridge contemporaries, he did not accept any specific Hermetic
doctrines." (J. E. McGuire, "Neoplatonism and Active Principles: Newton and

the Corpus Hermeticum", in Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution, 1977,
p. 131-133.)
101. On the other hand, Richard Westfall argues: "I am seeking the
source of the Newtonian concept of forces of attraction and repulsion between
particles of matter, the concept that fundamentally altered the prevailing
philosophy of nature and ushered in the intellectual world of modern science,
I am offering the argument that alchemy, Newton's involvement in which a
vast corpus of papers establishes, offered him a stimulus to consider concepts
beyond the bare ontology of the mechanical philosophy. It appears to me that
the Newtonian concept of force embodies the enduring influence of alchemy
upon his scientific thought." (Richard Westfall, "Newton and alchemy", p.
330, in Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984, p. 315-335.)
Westfall says he sees no necessary opposition between his views and
McGuire's. He takes McGuire to have shown that the Platonism of Newton's
teachers at Cambridge, in which one finds a concept of "active principles",
influenced Newton's conception of force. Westfall agrees, and says that
alchemy influenced Newton's conception of force, too. He observes that: "...
for every page in Newton's papers of direct reference to [the Cambridge
Platonists] More and Cudworth there are well over a hundred on alchemy. I
cannot make those papers disappear." (Westfall, ibid., p. 331.)
102. Dobbs, Westfall and others, have said that Newton's concept of
force, one of the central and more mysterious concepts in Newton's mechanics
(his theory of how pieces of matter behave), descended at least partly from his
alchemical ideas. There has been an enormous debate over the ontological
status of Newton's forces. Newton himself indicates at the beginning of his
Principia that there are three kinds of forces: resistive force, or inertia;
impressed force, which tends to change the state of a body from rest or
uniform (constant velocity) motion, and of which he mentions the three kinds,
from percussion, from pressure and centripetal; and attracting force, such as
gravity (repelling force is not mentioned here, although presumably a
centripetal force might be interpreted as repelling -- Newton does speak of
repelling forces elsewhere in the Principia.) (Isaac Newton, Philosophiae
naturalis principia mathematica (MathematicalPrinciples of Natural
Philosophy), familiarly known as the Principia, 1687, Motte's translation
revised by Cajori, 1934, p. 2.) Procedures for quantitatively measuring forces
are provided by Newton's three laws of motion (ibid., p. 13; see Appendix to
this chapter), especially the second law which, in our terms, asserts that a
force on body is to be measured by the rate of change in momentum of the
body it produces, where the momentum of a body is to be found by measuring
the mass and velocity of the body, and multiplying these together (Newton's
definition, ibid., p. 1). Thus, in the case of a mass constant in time, a
quantity of force acting on a body is proportional to the acceleration of the
body, the rate at which its velocity changes.
103. The question has often been asked, do Newton's definitions and
axioms constitute a definition of force? Is "force" just a word we use for rates
of changes of momentum, or is there something in addition to this which
constitutes the force, a "power" or "cause" or "activity"? (See, for example,
Ernst Nagel, The Structure of Science, 1961, Chapter 7, esp. p. 186-192.) A
number of physicists and philosophers have taken the attitude that Newton's
statements should be interpreted as defining the word "force", and felt that to

postulate any additional underlying properties would be to introduce non-
existent or useless or nonsensical "metaphysical" principles. The only way
we know a force to be present, in this view, is to make physical
measurements, and interpret them according to Newton's laws. For a fixed
mass, if an acceleration is found by measurement, then a force has acted, and
not otherwise.
104. In the earlier years of the debate, beginning in Newton's own

lifetime, the word "occult" rather than "metaphysical" was often used. Many
natural philosophers, especially Descartes and his followers, wished to
eliminate "occult properties" from physical science. This indeed was one of
the most revolutionary aspects of the Cartesian philosophy, and one which
goes a long way toward explaining its enormous success in connection with
physics, even though Descartes's detailed physical theories were often faulty,
and also the considerable opposition it provoked among theologians, despite
Descartes' care to avoid controversy with ecclesiatical authorities. Descartes
argued for a sharp separation between matter and spirit, and to a large
extent reduced matter to mere extension, something amenable to
mathematical description. In the astrological, alchemical and theological
contexts of the time, this must have seemed to some like an infusion of pure
oxygen, and to others like an intrusion of poison gas. In either case, it was
not something philosophers could take lightly.
105. Descartes's views were not wholly agreeable to Newton and some
of his teachers and followers for a number of both physical and theological
reasons, and a considerable debate grew up around this question. One of the
reasons Newton wrote the Principia was to make a contribution to the
overthrow of certain aspects of the Cartesian philosophy, as Euclid's motive
in the Elements may have been to introduce people to the theory of regular
polyhedra -- both works turned out to be monumentally more applicable.
Part of the continuing debate hinged on whether or not there are spiritual
components of forces. Questions like these were asked: are the planets held
in their courses by continual divine action, or were they set in motion by
divine action and left to run on their own, or were they set in motion by
purely physical actions, or have they simply been running forever?
106. The arguments of later philosophers, especially a host of

positivists from Comte to the present, over whether or not Newtonian forces
can only be recognized by making physical measurements and seeing
whether or not they satisfy Newton's laws leave out the way Newton arrived
at the concept of force. Some positivists have said about this, roughly
speaking, that they are only interested in reconstructing mechanics on a
sound logical basis, and not in how the discoveries were made. A few years
ago, there was much reference to the "context of discovery" versus the
"context of verification". It is certainly true that physicists have paid little
serious attention to the astrological and alchemical background of classical
mechanics, and seem in many ways to have been the better for it. Still, we
may enquire whether or not a knowledge of the background might lead to the
re-introduction, suitable refined and modified, of some of the older notions
which are excluded by a positivistic point of view. Indeed, we may go further
and ask whether or not many physicists still harbor and frequently make use
of thoughts about forces and energy which go beyond measurements
interpreted according to mathematical equations. For one thing, with the

advent of quantum mechanics, observers have catapulted back into a
prominence which they formerly had. If Carl Jung and his followers are
right, one of the great differences between alchemy and chemistry as we
know understand lies in the amount to which the minds and emotions of
observers is present within the practice of alchemy itself, and absent from our
practice of chemistry -- at least officially.
107. The physicist Paul Davies starts his book The Forces of Nature,
1986: "In daily life we see the activity of forces all around us. The force of
gravity guides the planets in their motion and raises the ocean tides.
Electrical forces display themselves in thunderstorms. Mechanical forces
drive our machines and our own bodies. Everywhere we look, matter is
subjected to forces of some sort, arising from a multitude of agencies ..... The
world is full of objects -- people, planets, clouds, atoms, flowers -- and full of
motion. Things happen when moving objects act collectively. How do objects
know about each other? How do they respond to the presence and activities
of other objects? ..... Although uniform motion is natural and needs no
explanation, changes in motion require the action of some external agency.
Because the state of uniform motion is regarded as natural, we say that when
a body is disturbed from this state it is being forced. The agencies which
produce forced motion are called forces. It is the action of forces which
enriches the activity of our universe, and which enables different parts of the
world to be aware of each other's existence. Without forces, nothing could act
on or influence anything else, and all the matter in the universe would
disintegrate into its elementary constituents, each subatomic particle moving
independently of all the others." (Paul Davies, The Forces of Nature, 2nd
edition, 1986, p. 1-2.)
108. Just so: agencies, actions, influences. Davies goes on: "The effect
of a force on a material body is to bring about an acceleration. This is
described by Newton's second law..... To determine how a body responds to a
given force F, which may be varying from time to time and place to place in
both magnitude and direction, it is necessary to solve [ F = ma ] for the
position of the body." (ibid., p. 3.) The force is there before the acceleration,
and before the equation, and it takes a brave philosopher to maintain this is
only manner of speaking.
109. The physicist James Trefil remarks that the Nobel laureate
physicist Richard Feynman once said, in the witty way he had, that in pre-
Newtonian theories of planetary motion, "you have to have angels following
the planets along, flapping their wings to move them." He added that in
Newton's explanation, "the angels flapped their wings to push each planet
toward the sun, rather than along its orbit." (James Trefil, Reading the Mind
of God, 1989, p. 8.) I don't know if this was a pure joke, or if Feynman was
revealing a knowledge of how theories of planetary motion actually
developed. We will see later that the theory that angels control the planets
was a popular one in the middle ages. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas held
a version of it.
110. At one stage in his work, up through the 1670's, Newton

postulated a kind of "universal subtle matter" or "aether", which could be
used to explain the attractive force of gravity and other forces. It was, so to
speak, a kind of "unified field theory", or GTE (Grand Theory of Everything).

Newton never could quite make this theory work, but he didn't abandon the
idea of a universal aether entirely. In what appear to have been his last
ruminations about the mechanism of the world, in the Queries at the end of
his Opticks (4th edition, 1730), he speculates on a very thin, exceedingly
"elastick and active" aetherial medium -- definitely not a fluid -- which
conveys light and heat, and "pervades all Bodies", and is "(by its elastick
force) expanded through all the Heavens", and can also be used to account for
the mechanism of vision. (Newton, Opticks, 1730, Dover edition, 1952, p.
339-406.)
111. Newton goes so far as to ask: "Are not gross Bodies and Light
convertible into one another, and may not Bodies receive much of their
Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" (ibid., p.
374.) There is considerable speculation in the Queries on the nature of
chemical interactions, based on a corpuscular theory of matter. And in the
very last sentence of the Opticks, he takes a swipe at astral religion: "And no
doubt, if the Worship of false Gods had not blinded the Heathen, their moral
philosophy would have gone farther than to the four Cardinal Virtues; and
instead of teaching the Transmigration of Souls and to worship the Sun and
Moon, and dead Heroes, they would have taught us to worship our true
Author and Benefactor, as their Ancestors did under the Government of Noah
and his Sons before they corrupted themselves." (ibid., p. 406.)
112. While Newton failed to make his unified aether theory work in
general, he certainly made his theory of forces work in the domains to which
he applied them. In Dobb's words: "The universe lived again as Newton's
thoughts swung on toward the Principia in the 1680's, for forces and active
principles were everywhere. Not only was there the attractive force of
gravity binding the planets into a vibrant whole, there was also activity in
the sub-structure of matter. Gone, in Newton's mind, were the inert particles
of Cartesian matter resting quiescently together between impacts. In their
place were structured corpuscles of increasing complexity, held together upon
occasion by attractive forces of their own, but also capable upon other
occasions of repelling each other. Change was the order of the day in the
little world and matter matured and decayed and was constantly replenished
by active principles." (Dobbs, ibid., p. 212.) Newton's universe did not run
like a clock. An untellable number of writers have referred to Newton's
system of the world as a clockwork or machine-like universe, but as far as
Newton himself is concerned -- aside from various of his followers -- the
accusation is not just. It might be better attributed to Descartes or even
Leibniz, with whom Newton was frequently at odds.
113. In his Introduction to the Principia, Newton defines rational

mechanics (as distinguished from practical mechanics) to be "the science of
motions resulting from any forces whatever, and of the forces required to
produce any motions, accurately proposed and demonstrated." He offers his
work as "the mathematical principles of philosophy", and says that this
philosophy consists in this -- "from the phenomena of motions to investigate
the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other
phenomena; and to this end the general propositions in the first and second
Books are directed." Newton continues: "In the third book I give an example
of this in the explication of the System of the World; for by the propositions
mathematically demonstrated in the former Books, in the third I derive from

celestial phenomena the forces of gravity with which bodies tend to the sun
and several planets. Then from these forces, by other propositions which are
also mathematical, I deduce the motions of the planets, the comets, the moon,
and the sea. I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of Nature by
the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles, for I am induced by
many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by
which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either
mutually impelled towards one another, and cohere in regular figures, or are
repelled and recede from one another. These forces being unknown,
philosophers have hitherto attempted the seach of Nature in vain; but I hope
the principles here laid down will afford some light either to this or some
truer method of philosophy." (Newton, ibid., p. xvii-xviii.) It appears from
this that he had even greater goals in mind than those he achieved in the
Principia, and that the Queries in the Opticks are as close as he came to
reaching them. Do you suppose Newton thought he had failed in what he
wanted to do?
114. Paul Davies wrote a second version of his The Forces of Nature, he
says, to take account of new theories that there is a single "superforce" in
which all forces have their origin. (Davies, ibid., p. vii.) There has been great
hope among certain physicists that a GUT (Grand Unified Theory) of this
kind will be generally accepted in the near future. But even if this doesn't
come to pass, the success that Newton had with his forces remains, suitably
altered to meet the demands of relativity and
quantum theory.
115. James Trefil begins his book Reading the Mind of God "This book
is about an idea, one of the most astonishing and least appreciated ideas in
modern science. I call it the principle of universality. It says that the laws of
nature we discover here and now in our laboratories are true everywhere in
the universe and have been in force for all time." (James Trefil, Reading the
Mind of God, 1989, p. 1.) Trefil goes on to say that has found in lecturing to a
wide variety of audiences that those not made up of university scientists give
evidence of not knowing about this kind of universality. His explanation is:
"The principle of universality is so important that it is never explicitly
taught. We [scientists] learn about it almost by osmosis. It pervades our
work, particularly in fields like astronomy, but is seldom explicitly stated."
(ibid., p. 2.) If Trefil is right, many people even today assume unless taught
otherwise that celestial objects play according to different rules than material
things on earth.

116. This doesn't, though, in itself exclude theories in which angels

control planets, unless angelic control is confined to a kind of perfect celestial
matter, different in kind from terrestrial matter. One need only extend
angelic control to everything that moves. Furthermore, Newton's idea of
universality had precedents. Some of the Stoics, for example, believed that
the universe, the Divine Mind and ordinary matter everywhere, is made of
one kind of stuff, such as Chrysippus's pneuma, and they had the idea that
Fate rules the world with the orderliness of the heavens, akin to the idea that
there are natural laws which are the same throughout the physical world.
Some of the pre-Socratic philosophers of Greece had ideas of the same genre,
concerning elements or atoms, and logos or cosmos. A number of them had
systems in which there was more than one kind of stuff, but most of these
postulated the same several kinds of stuff everywhere. There were also the
long-lived theories, popular among astrologers and poets, of man, a
microcosm, correlated with the universe, the macrocosm. All of these are
kinds of physical universality.
117. What was different about Newton's kind of universality? Newton

had a concept of momentum, which can be very simply measured by
multiplying inertial mass times velocity, and a concept of force as a rate at
which momentum is changed. And he had a mathematical technique, the
calculus, which could be used, in some important cases, to find mathematical
expressions for determining the motion of a body when mathematical
expressions for the forces acting on the body are known. His law of gravity
gave an expression for one force, the inverse square expression for gravity.
That there is something reasonable about the way matter moves was not a
novel idea in the time of Newton, nor was the idea that there are quantitative
expressions describing such motions, nor was the idea that matter is made of
the same kind of stuff everywhere. But who would have thought, until
Newton, that a program for deriving mathematical expressions giving the
successive of moving objects could be laid down with three such simple laws,
stateable in three sentences? Such a simple program! Alas, finding
expressions for all the relevant forces acting on an object is seldom easy and
probably sometimes impossible, and even when such expressions have been
found, carrying out the program has turned out in many important cases to
be mathematically very difficult, and most likely sometimes impossible in
any deterministic or at least determinable (or, as some say, computable) way.
But when Newton's method works, it works like magic!
Appendix to Chapter 2

Newton’s Laws
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A1. In the latter part of the 17th century, Isaac Newton, building on the
work of many predecessors, formulated a small number of laws from which
quantitative predictions about the movements of objects in the heavens can
be made. It was soon realized that some movements of terrestrial objects
could also be predicted with Newton's laws. While celestial objects are
nowadays seen to change, and even in a certain sense to be born, live and die,
the Newtonian laws according to which they change seem to be permanent,
although they have been extended in various ways. Newton's laws and the
myriad of consequences which have been drawn from them make up classical
or Newtonian mechanics, sometimes called rational or analytical mechanics.
The part of classical mechanics which applies to the motions of objects in the
heavens is commonly called celestial mechanics.
A2. In his textbook on classical mechanics (1985), Laurence Taff

observes that classical mechanics rests on Newton's three Laws of Motion,
and he states them as they are in Newton's Principia, 1687 (translated from
Latin):
Newton's First Law. "Every body continues in its state of rest, or of

uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by
forces impressed upon it."
Uniform motion of a body is motion with a constant velocity, that is, with
unchanging speed and direction. A right line is what we now call a straight
line.
Newton's Second Law. "The change of motion is proportional to the motive

force impressed and is made in the direction of the right line in which that
force is impressed." <![endif]>
The motion of a body is defined by Newton to be the product of a quantity

called the mass of the body, which measures its reluctance to change its state,
with the velocity of the body, which measures the rate at which its distance
from some reference point is changing, and also specifies a direction in which
the change is taking place. This is called momentum today. The velocity
and/or direction may change at each instant of time. The change in motion is
actually the rate of change of momentum. Except in a few simple cases a
quantitative statement that this rate of change of momentum is proportional
to impressed forces requires the techniques of the mathematical discipline
known as calculus. To say the rate of change of momentum is proportional
to the impressed forces is to say that it is some fixed number multiplied by
the quantity which measures the force at each point of space and instant of
time. The particular fixed number or constant to be used is different for
different units of measurement for time, distances and forces (second or
years, meters or feet or miles, pounds or dynes, etc.). Often impressed forces

are different at each point of space, but at any one given point are the same
for each instant of time.
Newton's Second Law is the most dominant of the three laws of motion
since it gives a recipe for forming differential equations. These are
statements made using concepts of calculus. In many cases they can be
solved using methods of calculus, in one or another sense of the word solved
(including approximate solutions), to give quantitative descriptions of the
behavior of a great number of physical, chemical, biological, geological,
statistical, and other kinds of systems. It can be shown that the first law can
be derived as the special case of the second law in which the magnitude of the
impressed forces is zero.
When the word motion in the second law is interpreted as momentum,

and this meaning is used in the first law, the statement in the first law that a
body tends to continue in a state of uniform motion in a straight line can be
interpreted to mean that the momentum of a body in such a state will stay
the same as it moves, so Newton's First Law contains a law of conservation of
linear momentum.
Newton's Third Law. "To every action there is always opposed an equal
reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always
equal and directed to contrary parts."
This should not be taken to mean that objects never move. If I push on you,
thus exerting a force, and you move backwards, an explanation according to
Newton’s Third Law is that your reaction push was at the instant of contact
equal in magnitude to my push, though in the opposite direction (along a
straight line). This diminished the magnitude of my push in an amount equal
to the magnitude of the push you exerted. However, although my push was
weakened, there was still some more of my push it left over, so to speak, so
you were subjected to an acceleration in the direction of my push –-- and you
moved.
To do celestial mechanics, Taff observes, one supplements these

postulates with Newton's Law of Gravitation:
Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. "Every particle in the Universe

attracts every other particle in the Universe with a force that varies directly
as the product of their masses and inversely as the square of the distance
between them; furthermore, this force acts along the line joining the two
particles."
Thus the force of gravity exerted by one particle on another particle can be
measured by finding numbers measuring their masses in some way, and
multiplying these together; then finding the distance between the particles in
some way and squaring it and dividing the result into the product of the
masses; and finally, multiplying by a fixed number determined by the units of
measurement being used. (Laurence G. Taff, Celestial Mechanics, A
Computational Guide for the Practitioner, 1985, p. 1-2; Taff's quotations from
Newton's Principia are from the translation by Florian Cajori, 1934, p. 13-14,
and Newton's definitions of motion, mass (or quantity of matter and vis

insita), impressed force, etc., are given on p. 1-6.) The gravitational forces
which bodies exert on other bodies are determined by regarding bodies as
made up of particles in some way, and using techniques of calculus. This is
not a very easy task, on the whole. Its study is known as potential theory (for
reasons we won't go into here).
A3. Having stated these laws of classical mechanics, and supplemented

it with Newton's Law of Gravitation in order to do celestial mechanics, Taff
observes that there is essentially no more physics in his book -- the rest is
mathematics. In effect, Taff defines classical mechanics to consist of the
consequences of Newton's three laws of motion, as worked out using methods
of mathematics, and celestial mechanics to consist of the consequences of the
laws of motion together with the law of gravitation. From this point of view,
the "impressed forces" spoken of in Newton's Second Law are confined to
gravitational forces when doing what one might call “pure” celestial
mechanics.
A4. The word mechanistic is open to conflicting interpretations. Some

have taken it to be opposed to animistic, so a mechanistic universe is one in
which planets and the like have no internal principles of change, as they did
for Aristotle and countless others. In particular, for some, divine guidance is
precluded in a mechanistic universe. The attitude is captured in a story
about Laplace. Napoleon is supposed to have asked Laplace why he never
mentioned the Creator in his work on celestial mechanics, and Laplace is
supposed to have replied: "Sire, j'ai pu me passer de cette hypothèse" -- "Sir,
I have been able to dispense with that hypothesis."
A5. Others have taken a mechanistic universe to be one made out of

gear wheels, pulleys, levers, springs and the like, in the manner of a machine,
which runs and has run forever on its own. However, the author of the Laws
of Motion, Newton, believed that a Creator was involved in the working of the
world. Aside from divine guidance, he also speaks in Definition III of the
Principia of bodies having inertia or vis insita (innate force), an internal
power of resisting change in motion, tending to make it continue in whatever
state it is in. This attributes to machines something beyond their mere
extension in space and time. Because of this proposal, and because he was
not able to find a satisfactory mechanical model for his theory of gravity
(although he made a few conjectures), Newton was accused by followers of
Descartes of introducing so-called "occult powers" into natural philosophy of
the kind which had been popular among medieval scholastic philosophers,
and which Descartes had been at great pains to banish. Descartes himself
had tried to base a theory of gravity on the motion of vortices -- little
whirlpools, so to speak. An important part of Newton's purpose in writing his
Principia was to show that Descartes's model doesn't work as an explanation
of gravitation.
A6. Thus the connection of classical mechanics with machines is not as

close as some have thought. There is also the question of mathematics. E. J.
Diksterhuis made a study of the transition to "classical science" which took
place during the 17th century, and came to this conclusion: "The
mechanization of the world-picture during the transition from ancient to
classical science meant the introduction of a description of nature with the
aid of the mathematical concepts of classical mechanics; it marks the

beginning of the mathematization of science, which continues at an ever-
increasing pace in the twentieth century." (E. J. Dijksterhuis, The
Mechanization of the World Picture, 1961, p. 501, translation by C. Dikshoorn
of De Mechanisering van het Werelbeeld, 1950.) That is, according to
Dijksterhuis, the transition to a mechanized universe was characterized not
merely by the use of machine-like models, but by the introduction of
mathematically based descriptions and theories. However, mathematical
descriptions are sometimes more than descriptions of machines. Or so I
believe -- there are those who have maintained otherwise.
Chapter 3. Some Astrological Techniques
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. We have discussed astrology, and in particular judicial or horoscopic

astrology, as a method of prediction, but we haven't yet gone into much detail
about its techniques. In fact, the details and methods have undergone much
change over the course of centuries. However, in Europe, at the time of the
Renaissance, the basic procedures of that branch of predictive astrology
concerned with casting horoscopes were roughly as they are now. The
process of casting a horoscope (or "figure" or "scheme") begins with locating
the positions of various celestial objects. For birth horoscopes (nativities or
genitures), one starts with as exact a value as one can determine of the day,
hour and minute of birth of a person, together with the longitude and latitude
of the place of birth. Using tables calculated by astronomers for a fixed time,
longitude and latitude (different astrologers may use different tables), the
positions of the planets (taken to include the sun and moon), and perhaps
certain stars, are calculated using the local time and geographical
coordinates, and located in one of the signs of the zodiac. The sun and moon
are considered as planets for this purpose, and the sun is considered as the
most important of the planets.
2. The zodiac, which is an imaginary band centered on the ecliptic, the

yearly path of the sun among the stars (equivalent to the earth's yearly
motion around the sun), is defined in different ways by different astrologers,
but in a popular and ancient version, the zodiac is 17o wide (or so) and is
divided into 12 zones or "signs", named and symbolized according to
constellations found in them. Ancient Egyptian astrologers used 36 decans of
10o each rather than 12 sections of 30o each, each assigned a name and
symbol. Versions of these were used by numerous astrologers during the
Middle Ages and later, but appear to play only a small role in present-day

astrology (cf. Wilhelm Gundel, Dekane und Dekanstern, Ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte der Sternbilder der Kulturvölker, 1936.) The "sun sign" of a
person is the zone of the zodiac in which the sun is located when a person is
born, or in some systems, conceived. When someone is said to be a "Libra" or
to have been born "with the sun in Libra", it means the sun was in the Libra
zone of the zodiac when he or she was born. Similarly, each person has a
moon sign, and since the positions in the zodiac of all the known planets are
customarily taken into consideration, one could also speak of a "Venus sign",
"Mars sign", etc., although this isn't often done.
3. The ascendant of a person may be defined as the sign of the zodiac

which was rising in the east at the instant the person was born. This is
determined by the daily motion of the stars in the sky (equivalent to the
earth's rotation on its axis). The sun sign and other planetary signs of a
person are determined by the year, month and day of birth, but for the
ascendant one needs the hour and place (determined by latitude and
longitude). Most astrologers have considered the ascendant to be at least as
important a determinant as the sun sign. Just as the zodiac is divided into
12 signs, the apparent daily movement of the stars is divided into 12 houses.
There are numerous ancient and modern ways of doing this. Each house is
considered to govern a different sector of human life. Usually the zones of the
houses are identified by numbers, and in one method, these are assigned in
the direction opposite to the movement of the stars, starting from the
ascendant (more precisely, from the degree of the ecliptic which was rising at
the instant of birth, which is a position in one of the signs of the zodiac).
4. In relatively recent times, a circular diagram has been used to record

this data, with the zodiac represented in a relatively narrow band between
the outer circumference of the circle and the circumference of an inner circle,
and the houses represented as sectors of the inner circle. The positions of the
planets are recorded in these sectors. Formerly (apparently into the 18th
century), a square diagram was used, with the houses represented by
triangles, 4 on the sides of an inner square, and 8 upside down with respect
to these, 2 for each side of an outer square. The positions of the planets are
recorded in the triangles. In either case, casting a horoscope consists of
determining and recording this data, and the resulting diagram is called a
horoscope. Often certain angles, or approximate angles, which planets make
with each other as views from earth are noted on horoscopes. These are
called aspects, and they include conjunction, opposition, trine, square or
quartile, and sestile or sextile, corresponding to angles of separation of 0, 180,
90 and 60 degrees. The calculations needed to cast a horoscope are fairly
complicated, and numerous different techniques have been proposed.
5. Besides the significance attached to planetary positions in zodiacal

signs, to the positions of planets in the houses, and to planetary aspects,
there were a number of other astrological interpretations. A number of the
these are summarized by J. D. North in his study of the extensive role of
astronomy/astrology in the works of Chaucer (J. D. North, Chaucer's Universe
(1988); Chapter 5, "Some Generall Rewles of Theorike in Astrologie".)
6. The planets themselves are assigned various characteristics,

regardless of their positions in the sky. Saturn, for example, is on the whole
intrinsically evil, and detailed descriptions of its (or his) particular evils are

given. The Sun is associated with brightness, intelligence, understanding,
etc. And so on. The zodiacal signs and constellations which determine them
are also assigned various characterics of their own. Besides these intrinsic or
essential properties of planets and signs, there are additional accidental
properties of the planets (besides the signs, houses and aspects), due to their
positions. For example, there are the five dignities: domiciles, exaltations,
triplicities, terms and faces. These dignities, which are of Hellenistic origin or
earlier, are explained by the Arabian astrologer Alkabucius (al-Qabisi; fl. 950
A.D.) in a treatise (Introductorium ad scienciam astrologie judicialis) widely
used in the Middle Ages and later.
7. A domicile (or domus) of a planet is a sign of the zodiac regarded as a

home for a planet. The domiciles of Mercury, for example, are Gemini and
Virgo, with Gemini being the gaudium of Mercury, the sign in which it
"rejoices". Two planets have only one domicile -- there are 12 signs and 7
planets. A sign opposite to a domicile of a planet is a detriment, which is
especially alien to the planet. An exaltation is a sign in which a planet is
especially powerful. A sign opposite to an exaltation is a dejection. A
triplicity is a triple of signs forming an equilateral triangle in a horoscopic
diagram. The terms arise from a subdivision of each zodiacal sign into five
unequal parts, and the faces from a subdivision of each zodiacal sign into ten
equal parts (so the ecliptic is subdivided into 360 parts, the number of days in
an ancient Egyptian year). The faces derive from the ancient Egyptian
decans. Three different ways of determining the terms are given by Ptolemy:
an Egyptian, a Chaldean, and one of his own.
8. In addition to these dignities, there were the notions of hyleg

(pronounced "high-ledge") and alcochoden (or alchocoden), to be used in
determining how long a person could be expected to live. The hyleg was one
of four specific places in the ecliptic assigned to a person on the basis of his
natal horoscope by means of complicated and inscrutable rules. The
alcochoden was the planet which had most dignity in the place of the hyleg.
There was also an elaborate system of lunar mansions, arising from a
subdivision of the ecliptic into 27 or 28 equal parts -- the mansions --
corresponding to the number of days in a lunar month (about 27 and a half
solar days). The moon's status (waxing, waning, full, new, etc.) in each
mansion, and its position in the zodiac, were all involved.
9. There is more. But this should be enough to show how complex and
intricate a discipline astrology can be. The assignment of positions of planets
and houses and aspects in horoscopes is a kind of applied observational
astronomy, in the modern sense of the word "astronomy". An interpretation
of these positions is the special province of astrology. A basic assumption of
astrologers is that the planets exert influences on characters and fates of
individuals. The positions of the sun, moon and other planets at birth
indicate determining influences. Each of the houses in a person's horoscope
is taken to govern some department of life. The various dignities and virtues
and powers of the planets are taken into consideration. The aspects are good
or bad indicators, depending on which approximate angle and which planets
are involved.
10. On the basis of birth horoscopes, astrologers make determinations

of both the characters and the fates of individuals. In addition to these

nativities, there are also hour or horary horoscopes, which are cast to show
the positions of the planets at a given time so they can be used to answer
questions about what will happen after that time. These can be correlated in
various ways with the birth horoscopes of questioners. The result can be
used for determining predictions, or "elections", which are courses of action or
non-action which questioners are advised to follow, or "interrogations", in
which the answers to specific questions of many kinds are obtained. And so
on. Horoscopic astrology is a complicated subject.
11. Judicial astrology is used not only to predict the future, but also to
read character. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, speaking from the standpoint of
modern Islam, says: "Human types can also be divided astrologically, here
astrology being understood in its cosmological and symbolic rather than its
predictive sense. Astrological classifications, which are in fact related to
traditional medical and physical typologies, concern the cosmic
correspondences of the various aspects of the human soul and unveil the
refraction of the archetype of man in the cosmic mirror in such a way as to
bring out the diversity of this refraction with reference to the qualities
associated with the zodiacal signs and the planets. Traditional astrology, in a
sense, concerns man on the angelic level of his being but also unveils, if
understood in its symbolic significance, a typology of man which reveals yet
another facet of the differentiation of the human species. The correspondence
between various parts of the body as well as man's mental powers to
astrological signs and the intricate rapport created between the motion of the
heavens, various "aspects" and relations between planets and human activity
are also a means of portraying the inward link that binds man as the
microcosm to the cosmos." (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred,
1981, p. 178-179.)
12. An essence of some people's reaction to judicial astrology,

particularly in the face of its complexity, is captured by Stephen Leacock: "I
was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on December 30, 1869. I am not
aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at the time,
but should think it extremely likely." (Preface to Sunshine Sketches of a
Little Town, 1912, p. vii.)
13. I have two pieces of now quite antiquated computer software called
LodeStar and HoroScopics, put out for astronomical hobbyists by a company
called Zephyr Services. The Lodestar program will show a diagram of the sky
for any date from 9999 BC to 9999 AD, giving the locations of over 9000 stars,
planets and galaxies, and the sun and moon. The HoroScopics program will
give a birth horoscope, with houses and aspects. I don't have the source code
for these programs, but it appears that the HoroScopics program consists
basically of part of the computer code for the LodeStar program extended by
some code which graphs a horoscope instead of a diagram of the sky, and
which assigns interpretations to classes of positions of the basic planets of
astrology (including the sun and moon). Naturally, only a part of the code for
LodeStar is needed for HoroScopics, since the influence of only a few celestial
objects are needed for casting horoscopes. This illustrates rather vividly how
astronomy, as we now understand it, is fundamental to astrology, but is
nowadays quite sharply separable from it.

14. The sun, moon and planet signs are different for different people on
account of the sun's motions through the zodiac, which are equivalent to the
earth's approximately elliptical (nearly circular) revolutions around the sun.
The astrological houses are different for different persons on account of the
daily motions of the heavens, equivalent to the earth's rotations on its axis.
There is another motion of the earth, the precession of the equinoxes,
equivalent to a revolution in a circle of the earth's axis around a central line,
a so-called "wobble", so that the positions of the axis trace out a right circular
cone. This causes observers on earth to see a movement with respect to the
constellations in the zodiac of the places where the ecliptic, the central circle
of the zodiac and apparent path of the sun through the sky, crosses the
celestial equator, which is the imaginary extension of the earth's equator into
the heavens. These two places are called the spring and autumn equinoxes,
and their motion is called the precession of the equinoxes. The precession is
slow compared to human lifetimes, taking about 25920 years for a complete
circuit. Taking this motion of the earth -- or the heavens as viewed from
earth -- into account has caused many serious astrologers considerable
trouble.
15. The precession of the equinoxes may seem to moderns to be

something of interest only to astronomers and perhaps people concerned with
long range calendars. However, there is evidence that when it was first
discovered, it had a powerful effect on some people. There was a religion in
the ancient Roman world known as Mithraism which has often attracted
historians because, among other things, it was one of Christianity's major
competitors in the Roman Empire. Ernest Renan once declared that "if
Christianity had been stopped at its birth by some mortal illness, the world
would have become Mithraic." (Ernest Renan, Marc-Aurèle et la fin du
monde antique, 1923, p. 579.) Mithraism was one of the mystery or secret
religions, and has been difficult to interpret. For some 75 years or so, the
dominant interpretation was that of Franz Cumont, who traced it to a Roman
importation of an Iranian (Persian) cult based a god Mithra. This
interpretation has come into question. It seems now that the Roman god
Mithras may have corresponded to the Iranian god Mithra in name only, and
that Iranian names and details were attached to Mithraism chiefly to give it
an exotic and esoteric coloring. David Ulansey has proposed that the
Mithraic religion originated in an interpretation of the discovery of the
precession of the equinoxes by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus about 128
B.C.
16. A prominent characteristic of the Mithraic religion is its basic

symbol of a man killing a bull. Roughly speaking, this symbol is to
Mithraism what the cross is to Christianity. The symbol normally contains
other items besides Mithras and a bull -- a scorpion, a dog, a snake, a raven,
a lion and a cup. In 1869, a German scholar named K. B. Stark suggested
that the symbol could be interpreted as a star map, with Mithras being
identified with the constellation named after Perseus -- who was commonly
associated with Persia -- and the bull being identified with the constellation
Taurus (which, of course, means "bull"). This interpretation was not accepted
by Cumont, but various scholars have recently revived it. What the killing of
the bull signifies, according to Ulansey, is the heliacal setting of Taurus (last
day it is visible on the horizon just after sunset), symbolized as a killing of
Taurus by the constellation just above it -- Perseus, or Mithras. This had

been for some hundreds of years before the discovery of the precession been
associated with the spring equinox which occurred about the same time,
although by the time of Hipparchus the heliacal setting of Taurus was
occurring later than the spring equinox by a couple of weeks.
17. How could the discovery of precession have had such a powerful
effect? As viewed from earth, regarded as fixed by most ancient astronomers,
the precession of the equinoxes can be taken as evidence for a gradual
rotation of the entire heavens, as the equinoctial points slowly move along
the celestial equator. Only a very powerful god could move the entire
heavens. Ulansey says: "I have argued that Mithraic iconography was a
cosmological code created by a circle of religious-minded philosophers and
scientists to symbolize their possession of secret knowledge: namely, the
knowledge of a newly discovered god so powerful that the entire cosmos was
completely under his control. It is not difficult to understand how such
knowledge could have come to form the core of an authentic religious
movement. For the possession of carefully guarded secret knowledge
concerning such a mighty divinity would naturally have been experienced as
assuring privileged access to the favors which this god could grant, such as
deliverance from the forces of fate residing in the stars and protection for the
soul after death during its journey through the planetary spheres. If we
understand salvation to be a divinely bestowed promise of safety in the
deepest sense, both during life and after death, then the god whose presence
we have discerned beneath the veils of Mithraic iconography was well suited
to perform the role of savior." (David Ulansey, The Origins of theMithraic
Mysteries, Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, 1989, p. 125.)
From this beginning, Mithraism evolved into a religion based on an ideology
of power and hierarchy, especially attractive to the military and militant.
18. The place of horoscopic astrology in the past is difficult to

understand for a 20th century reader whose knowledge of this kind of
astrology is chiefly based on newspaper and magazine articles dealing only
with sun signs. The system seems too simple for anyone to have taken
seriously. But in fact serious casters of horoscopes both past and present
base their character analysis and forecasting on more complex
considerations, as the above sketch shows. Furthermore, their methods are
based not only on astronomical observations but on information and proposed
correlations gathered over long periods of time. Thus astrology has many of
the characteristics of a science, and has been taken by numerous intelligent
and thoughtful people to be a science, according to their definitions of
"science" (or a natural philosophy in earlier times).
19. In understanding the place of astrology in the past, it has been

thought useful for a long time to distinguish between judicial astrology, as we
have just described it, and natural astrology. Hugh Dick says: "The chief
source of confusion in virtually all modern discussions of the place of
astrology [during the Renaissance] has arisen from the failure to define terms
and to distinguish betwe en the various kinds of belief. During the
Renaissance, the two basic divisions of the pseudo science were natural and
judicial astrology. According to the doctrines of the former, the heavenly
bodies exercised certain powers upon the earth, but not all these were what
we should call occult. To believe that the sun gives heat and the moon affects
tides was to accept the teachings of natural astrology, though before the

conception of the macro-microcosm was destroyed most believers went
further than this. Judicial astrology, on the other hand, concerned not
merely the influence of the stars but also the prognostication of events or
tendencies through knowledge gained by this study." (from the Introduction
by Hugh G. Dick to Albumazar: A Comedy (1615) by Thomas Tomkis, edited
by Dick, 1944, p. 18-19).
20. Dick quotes John Ferne, a writer on heraldry who conveyed

conventional ideas on the subject: "The third of the Mathematicals is
Astronomy or Astrologie... Astronomy (as I have been taught)
comprehendeth the revolution of the Heavens, the rising, going downe, and
motion of Starres. But Astrologie is divided into two members, the one is
called naturall, and the other superstitious [i.e., judicial]. That part which is
naturall, noteth the stations of times, the courses of the Moone and Starres,
but that which is called superstitious ... teacheth, by the judicials of the
Starres and heavenly bodies, to give a prediction of seasons of the yeere, of
nativities, and the manners of men: of fates, and fortunes future, to
kingdomes, provinces, and townes, to the states and conditions of people."
(John Ferne, The Blazon of Gentrie, 1586, quoted by Hugh Dick, loc. cit., p.
19; I have modernized some though not all spellings.) <![endif]>
21. Dick notes that the doctrines of the two branches of astrology
overlapped, and that it is not always easy to draw a line of demarcation
between them, yet he says that to men of the time the dichotomy was
apparent. This may be so, but the distinction needn't have been of much help
in deciding what should part of astrology should be rejected. It wasn't
possible to simply accept all natural astrology and reject all judicial astrology.
For example, according to the doctrines of natural astrology, the heavenly
bodies exercise certain powers on the earth and its inhabitants. These
included the sun's heating and the moon's action on bodies of water, along
with influences we now longer allow, such as certain actions on the human
body which physicians had to take into account. Now, to say that the sun
heats us seems unobjectionable by any criterion. Can we make reliable
predictions about the sun's heating? Yes, we can. Not as reliable as we
would like, but predictions of temperature changes and precipitation as made
in today's weather reports are a useful guide. Physicists and cosmologists
also make long range predictions about the sun's heating, on the basis of
thermodynamics and the evolution of stars. As to the moon's influence,
predictions of low and high tides can be found today in newspapers and
television weather reports.
22. In these two prototypical cases, the natural and judicial components
are intertwined, and both can claim successes. We no longer say that
weather and tide predictions are applications of astrology, but this is what
they were taken to be by most people during the Renaissance. Alleged
planetary influences on the fates and fortunes of individuals, and the special
branch of judicial astrology concerned with the casting of horoscopes, have
not been verified in this way. This seems to be true even in the case of the
reformed astrology based on planetary aspects, as recommended by Kepler,
although, as we said earlier, the results of Michel Gauquelin in relatively
recent years have raised some questions about the total failure of this kind of
astrology. In this case, the underlying planetary influence, the natural
astrology component, has not been found, nor have the predictions, the

judicial component, been very successful. In the case of the sun's heat and
the moon's tides, the influences, the natural component, are granted today in
the form of gravitation, and meteorological and nuclear processes, and the
predictions, the judicial component, are made using mathematics as well as
elaborate observations.
23. Corresponding to the distinction between judicial and natural

astrology, a more general distinction can be made between magical and
naturalistic beliefs. William Hine has argued that in studying magical and
astrological beliefs in the 17th century, and how they may have arisen out of
Renaissance ideas, we should make a distinction between magic proper, as
dealt with by certain prominent Renaissance figures, and a Renaissance
naturalism independent of magic, which is not yet the naturalism of Galileo
or Francis Bacon. Hine bases his argument on work of Marin Mersenne
(1588-1648), a prominent scientist and churchman, friend of Descartes, who
maintained a wide correspondence with other scientists of his time. In his
Quaestiones celeberrime in Genesim, 1623, Mersenne distinguishes between
magicians and atheists, the latter corresponding to Renaissance naturalists
who were not magicians. The naturalists or atheists deny God's role in the
world and "attribute everything to nature alone", while the magicians
"worship demons" and attribute many activities to evils. On the one hand,
Mersenne was concerned to limit the claims of magicians without
undermining the authenticity of Christian miracles, which he felt were a
guarantee of the authenticity of Christianity itself. On the other hand, he
was concerned to show that the atheists were wrong to try to explain
everything by nature alone, since, among other things, the Christian miracles
are authentic, in his view.
24. As an example, Mersenne analyzes the work of Giulio Cesare

Vanini who had been convicted of atheism and burned at the stake in
Toulouse. Mersenne felt that the execution of Vanini was justifiable because
Vanini would not acknowledge the existence of God, nor of angels and
demons. He "attributed all things to fate, and adored Nature as the
bounteous mother and source of all being." Vanini claimed there were people
who had a natural power to cure diseases, analogous to magnetism.
Magicians also drew analogies with magnetism, but related their powers to
the influence of angels and demons, or heavenly influences of an astrological
nature. Thus, Hines concludes, "it may well be that later scientists such as
Newton, for example, saw in attraction a representation not of a hidden
magical power, but of an occult, natural power." (William L. Hine,
"Mersenne: naturalism and magic", in Occult and scientific mentalities in the
Renaissance, 1984, edited by Brian Vickers, p. 165-176.)
25. As to the place of astrology in this classification, Hine says: "For

both naturalists and magicians the stars played a significant role in
influencing the terrestrial world. For the former, however, the influence of
the stars amounted to a form of determinism, providing a source and
guarantee of regularity and order in the universe .... In contrast to the
naturalist view, which emphasized natural law and ran the risk of
determinism, magic was based on a certain conception of human freedom ....
In magic the question is not whether man's destiny is determined for him by
his stars, but whether he can discover the stellar influences on his life and
take steps to counteract them, if necessary, or direct them for his own

benefit." (Hine, ibid., p. 168.) Mersenne mounted a considerable attack on
astrology in his Quaestiones celeberrime in Genesim.
26. There was during the European Renaissance a kind of flowering of

astrology. In his book The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, A Study in
Intellectual Patterns, 1972, Wayne Shumaker describes some of the most
notable writings on astrology and magic during this era. He gives, for
example, an analysis of the influential work by the physician Marsilio Ficino,
De vita coelitus comparanda, 1489 (On Guiding One's Life by the Stars, or
perhaps On Obtaining Life from the Heavens; third part of De vita triplici).
Ficino, like all physicians of his time, was versed in astrology, and this work,
by a physician for physicians, is saturated with astrological lore. For
example, Ficino describes "how tones, or compositions of tones, can be
discovered which belong to specific heavenly bodies. The method requires,
first, that we find out the power or effects of a star, a constellation, or even an
aspect and what things are repelled by it, or attracted. The next step is to
consider what star dominates what place and what men, and to observe the
tones and songs used there so that you will be able to use the same ones and
the meanings implicit within them..... Finally, we must study the daily
positions and aspects of the stars, and, under these, find out the speeches,
songs, motions, and leapings (saltus), together with the customs and actions,
to which men are moved by them so that we may be able to imitate these in
the songs which we will address to a given part of the sky." (Shumaker, p.
133.) And: "The occult virtues of things have not an elemental source but a
celestial one. Stellar and planetary rays are alive; they shine, as it were,
from the eyes of living bodies, and offer wonderful gifts from the imaginations
and minds of celestial beings." (l.c., p. 129). Nevertheless, Ficino was not an
astrological fundamentalist, and in his later writings pointed up a number of
deficiencies in the astrological practices of his time. Don Allen Cameron
remarks that Ficino said in later life "that he has no patience with those who
trust the stars instead of God, but in some forms of business it is wise to
consult the heavens." (Wayne Shumaker, The Star-Crossed Renaissance, The
Quarrel about Astrology and Its Influence in England, 1941, p. 11.)
27. Ernst Cassirer describes the work of Pietro Pomponazzi on fate, free
will and predestination, De fato, libero arbitrio et praedestinatione (1520):
[For Pomponazzi] divine foreknowledge does not necessarily conflict with the
freedom of human action .... Man grasps the past and present according to
its 'that', but grasps the future only according to his knowledge of the 'why',
because the future is not immediately given to him, but is rather only
deducible through its causes. But this difference between an immediate and
mediate, between given and deduced knowledge, is not valid for divine
knowledge. For in divine knowledge all temporal differences, so necessary for
our conception of the world, disappear. To know the future divine knowledge
needs no mediation, no discursive succession of the conditions by virtue of
which the future comes to be."
28. As to another problem, that of "the compatibility of divine

omnipotence with human freedom and responsibility", Cassirer says of
Pompanazzi: "Although he does not quite dare to express himself
unambiguously on this point, Pomponazzi's judgment tends unmistakably
towards a strict determinism. In his work on natural philosophy, De
naturalium effectuum admirandorum causis, the causality of events is

interpreted in a strictly astrological sense. The world of history and the
world of nature are both viewed as necessary results of the influence of the
heavenly bodies. And elsewhere too, whenever he is speaking freely,
Pomponazzi considers Fate in the Stoic sense the relatively most satisfactory
and rational solution. What makes the acceptance of this solution difficult
are not so much logical as ethical objections. A substantial part of the work
is dedicated to the removal of these objections..... [W]ith an energetic blow,
Pomponazzi severs the bond that had hitherto conjoined metaphysics and
ethics. In principle, each is completely independent of the other. Our
judgment concerning the value of human life is not dependent on our ideas
concerning the continuation of life or the immortality of the human soul; and
similarly the question of the value or non-value of our actions must be
considered from a point of view other than what caused these actions. No
matter how we may decide this latter question, the ethical-practical
judgment remains free. This freedom is what we need, not some chimerical
causelessness." (Ernst Cassirer, The Individual and the Cosmos in
Renaissance Philosophy, 1963, p. 82-83 of the translation by Mario Domandi
of Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance, 1927.)
29. Eugenio Garin says that Pomponazzi had "no doubts concerning the
celestial connection, and therefore the determination on the part of the stars,
of all human events." Pompanazzi believed that the whole world rises and
falls in successive cycles. Pomponazzi says in De fato: "And as we see that
the earth which is now fertile will be barren, and the great and the rich will
become humble and wretched, so the course of history is determined. We
have seen the Greeks dominate the Barbarians, now the Barbarians
dominate the Greeks, and so everything goes on and changes. So it is
probable that he who is now a king will one day be a slave, and vice versa.....
If then someone asks you, what kind of game is this? You would be well
advised to reply that it is the game of God." Garin says: "Having established
this eternal and universal vicissitude of things, this perennial cycle of ascent
and descent, the revival of astrology with all its great themes follows logically
from it." But Pomponazzi separated astrology and magic from the
supernatural. "What matters to Pomponazzi," Garin says, is to bring every
apparently abnormal phenomenon back into the sphere of rational
interpretation and natural causes. Not demons nor miracles, but nervous
tension, force of the imagination, powers and qualities which are occult not
because they are supernatural but because they have not yet been
understood: these are the causes of miraculous events." (Pietro Pomponazzi,
quoted by Eugenio Garin, Astrology in the Renaissance, 1983, p. 98-101,
translation of Lo Zodiaco della Vita, 1976.)
30. The most elaborate and famous of the Renaissance compendia of

magic is no doubt the De occulta philosophia libri tres (1531) of Henry
Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim. Shumaker describes the contents of the
first of these three books, which is concerned with "natural magic": "It
discusses the elements; the occult virtues in things; sympathies and
antipathies; the dominance of superiora over inferiora; the powers and
influences of the planets, the signs, and certain fixed stars; how to attract
'the divinities who rule the world, and their ministers the daemons'; poisons;
fumigations; unguents and philters; rings; lights and colors; fascination;
divination and auguries; presages and prodigies; geomancy, hydromancy,
aeromancy, and pyromancy (one divinatory skill for each of the elements); the

revival of the dead; dreams; passions and their effects on the body; the
virtues of words, including proper names; incantations and enchantments;
the relations of letters in several languages (Hebrew, 'Chaldaean,' Greek, and
Latin) to signs and planets; and much else."
31. The subject of numbers is brought up in the first book. Shumaker

says that in Book I: "... we are informed that the order, the numbers, and the
shapes of letters 'are not arranged by chance or accident (non fortuito, nec
casu) or by the caprice of men, but are formed divinely, so that they relate to
and accord with the heavenly bodies, the divine bodies, and their virtues.' Of
all languages Hebrew is sacratissima not only in its shapes (figuris) but also
in its vowel points and accents, ;as if consisting in matter, form, and spirit,
having been produced in God's seat, which is Heaven, by the positions of the
stars.' ..... Briefly, the letters are not, as is understood today, conventional
symbols chosen from an almost unlimited range of possibility but are so
representative of the actual structure of the universe, or its parts, that
manipulations of them have intrinsic power. The belief requires no
explanation. It is still common among illiterate people and among children,
who, if told that 'eau' means 'water,' may say, 'But it's really 'water,' isn't it?'
With what degree of seriousness I do not know, C. S. Lewis plays with a
similar idea in his cosmic trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and
That Hideous Strength, in which the 'Old Solar' spoken beyond the sphere of
the moon not merely expresses but contains the real nature of things.' The
22 Hebrew character "are like secrets or sacraments and are vehicles, as it
were, of their material referenda and of the 'essences' and powers these
contain..... For this reason Origen believed that Hebrew names lost their
force when translated. 'Accordingly the twenty-two letters are the basis of
the world and of all the creatures which exist and are named by them.'"
(Shumaker, ibid., p. 135-137.)
32. Numerology is especially developed in the second of the three books

of Cornelius Agrippa, which is concerned with "celestial magic". Numbers,
Shumaker remarks, are the basis of the entire quadrivium of the
universities: arithmetic, astronomy, geometry and music. (This could be
misleading, since astronomical theories and observations, geometric
abstractions and diagrams, and melodic and harmonious sounds are more
basic than numbers in astronomy, geometry and music, respectively). And
Book II of Agrippa's occult philosophy opens with a praise of mathematics
and a claim that "everything which is done in terrestrial affairs by natural
energies is accomplished, led, or governed by number, weight, measure,
harmony, movement, and light."
33. The mathematics of Agrippa, like the mathematics of Fludd, is

largely numerology. Shumaker reproduces a number of elaborate drawings
by Fludd and others which illustrate such matters as cosmic harmonies and
the relations of numbers to the heavens. An example of Agrippa's
numerology reproduced by Shumaker consists of a matrix called scala
novenarii (the scale of nines) with 6 rows and 11 columns, showing
significances of the number 9. We have such things as the names of God in 9
letters, the 9 choirs of angels and 9 angels who preside over heaven, the 9
moving sphers, the 9 orders of bad daemons, and so on. Many numbers are
considered by Agrippa. We learn, for example, that "the human foetus
becomes a perfect body, ready to receive a reasonable soul, on the fortieth

day; women require forty days to recover from a birth; an infant does not
smile for forty days; Christ preached forty months, was in the tomb forty
hours, mounted into the sky forty hours after his Resurrection." There is a
consideration of "geometrical figures, musical and other sounds, and similar
harmonies and proportions in the human body and soul." We find that the
geometrical figures "have no less power than the numbers themselves." The
pentagram, which has five acute and five obtuse angles, along with five
triangles, has all the qualities of the number five, and has wonderful force
against demons. Other regular polygons have other qualities and virtues.
We hear again about celestial harmonies, and how the "proportions, measure,
and harmony of the human body resemble those of the universe." "Every part
or member of man," we are told, "corresponds to 'some sign, some star, some
intelligence, some divine name." (Shumaker, ibid., p. 137-146.)
34. Book III of Agrippa's Occulta philosophia is concerned with

"religious magic". There is an extensive treatment of the names of God and
their use in magic, along cabalistic lines. God's members are discussed, and
God's ministers: spirits, daemons, and angels, including those which govern
the signs, stars, winds, the 4 elements, and those formerly called fauns,
satyrs, Pans, nymphs, naiads, nereids, dryads, muses, genii, and lemurs. The
names of these spirits and daemons are elaborated upon. There are
instructions for attracting good daemons and repelling bad ones. There is
material on the divinity of kings, princes, and pontiffs; how the seven planets
act as instruments for bestowing virtues on man; why man has mastery over
all other living creatures; and how to carry out various purifications,
expiations, adorations, vows, sacrifices and oblations.
35. It should not be thought that astrology enchanted all scholars

during the Renaissance. Shumaker analyzes the refutation of astrology,
Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem of Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola (1495 -- Agrippa's Occulta philosophia was 1531). Pico seems to
have started as a believer in magic who was working toward a summa of the
kind achieved by Cornelius Agrippa. But Pico underwent a passionate about-
face. A story was told by Tycho Brahe, the astronomer and mentor of Kepler,
that Pico was moved to his attack on astrology when three Italian astrologers
predicted his death at a certain time in his 33rd year. According to Brahe,
the prediction came true even though Pico shut himself up in his room when
the time approached. However, Shumaker says that Pico actually died at age
31. Another possible motive for the attack is Pico's admiration for
Savonarola, who regarded astrology as a superstition unworthy of Christians.
36. Pico's treatise is long, and is characterized by Shumaker as being

full and well-informed. Its gist is summarized by Shumaker: "For a cosmic
universe which was conceived animistically, in which planets 'rejoiced' and
were 'dejected,' 'looked at' each other with friendly or unfriendly feeling, and
varied from 'benevolence' to 'malevolence' in their attitudes toward men, Pico
wanted to substitute one in which the heavenly bodies performed quite
dispassionately and without consciousness roles assigned them at the
beginning by a Creator-God who allowed the evil initiated by men to cause
suffering but did not place in the skies forces which would dispose them to act
well or badly..... As an example let us take Aristotle. His soul did not come
from the stars because, as he himself proved, it was immortal and
incorporeal. His body, fit to serve his soul, did not come from the sky ... but

from his parents. As a result of the power of choice inherent in his mind and
body he elected to philosophize. His progress came from his plan and his
industry, and that it was especially great was a consequence of his teacher's
doctrine and the good fortune of his age, when a good beginning had been
made and materials were at hand to bring philosophy to perfection. He was
superior to his disciples because he had not a better star but a greater genius,
the source of which was God. Similarly, the greatest of all philosophers,
Socrates, ascribed his wisdom not to the luminaries but to a god or daemon
who kept him company." (Shumaker, ibid., p. 16-27.)
37. However, Thorndike says of Pico that his work against astrology on
the whole "is rambling and ineffective as far as orderly presentation and
cumulative argument are concerned." Furthermore, Thorndike says of the
first part: "This effort to give the impression that most of the great minds of
the past have condemned astrology is weak and unconvincing to anyone at all
acquainted with the past history of the subject. Pico selects only those
persons and data that support his contention, suppressing the evidence to the
contrary, or misrepresents the attitude of other personages ..... On the whole,
his citations are about as unconvincing as those of the astrologers in favor of
their art. He had a wide, if not exhaustive, acquaintance with the past
literature germane to his theme, but the use he makes of it is that of the
advocate and dialectical disputant, almost at times that of invective, rather
than that of the impartial historian of ideas." In general, according to
Thorndike, "One cannot but feel that the importance of Pico della Mirandola
in the history of thought has often been grossly exaggerated." (Lynn
Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 1923-1958, v. IV,
1934, p. 532, 529-530, 485.)
38. Still, the historian Jacob Burckhardt called Pico's piece Oratio de
hominis dignitate one of the noblest bequests of the Renaissance. Here Pico
speaks on the question of free will. Of God, he says: "He formed man
according to a general image that contained no particularities, and, setting
him in the centre of the world, said to him: 'We have given you, Adam, no
definite place, no form proper only to you, no special inheritance, so that you
may have as your own whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you
may choose, according to your wish and your judgment. All other beings have
received a rigidly determined nature, and will be compelled by us to follow
strictly determined laws. You alone are bound by no limit, unless it be one
prescribed by your will, which I have given you. I have placed you at the
centre of the world, so that you may more easily look around you and see
everything that is in it. I created you as a being neither heavenly nor
earthly, neither mortal nor immortal, so that you may freely make and
master yourself, and take on any form you choose for yourself. You can
degenerate to animality or be reborn towards divinity..... Animals bring forth
... from the bodies of their mothers everything they ought to have. The
higher spirits are, from the beginning or soon afterwards, everything they
will be for eternity. But on man, the Father conferred, at the moment of
birth, the seeds and germ of every form of life. Those which he cultivates will
grow in him and bear fruit. If they are the plant seeds, he will vegetate; if he
follows the senses, he will become an animal; if he cultivates the power of
reason within him, he will become a celestial creature; if he follows
intelligence, he will become an angel and a son of God.'" (Pico della

Mirandola, quoted by Ernst Cassirer in The Individual and the Cosmos in
Renaissance Philosophy (1927, 1963), p. 85-86.)
39. Here Pico attributes magical powers to man. Only man has no
strictly determined nature and is subject to no strictly deterministic laws,
contrary to what some Stoics and astrologers have claimed. A person can do
anything he or she wants to. This illustrates a fundamental distinction
between astrology and magic, or astrology and other kinds of magic. Magic,
generally speaking, concentrates on giving power and understanding to
people, aims which magic shares with science. Astrology seeks to understand
certain powers of nature over people, so they can accommodate to it, or take
steps to deal with it. No astrologer or astronomer undertakes to change the
stars.
40. Despite the refutations of Pico della Mirandola and others, people
continued to put stock in astrology. Shumaker quotes Paul Kocher (Science
and Religion in Elizabethan England, 1953) who observed that "of the six
full-scale polemics published in England against astrology in the Elizabethan
age, five -- those by William Fulke, John Calvin, William Perkins, John
Chamber, and George Carleton -- came from ecclesiastics." (Kocher, p.202;
the work by Carleton is called Astrologomania: The Madnesse of Astrologers,
1624.) In addition to these, Dick lists Thomas Cranmer, James Pilkington,
Roger Hutchinson, and Andrew Willett and remarks that he could give many
more. (Dick, loc. cit., p. 23-25.) Furthermore, the State issued various
proclamations and statutes against sorcery, taken to include astrological
prediction. It was recognized that such prognostications could be a cause of
disorder in the Commonwealth. In the same treatise in which he revealed his
belief in witches, his Daemonolgies in Forme of a Dialogue (1597), King
James attacked judicial astrology.
41. But after discussing opposition to astrology, Kocher goes on: "And
who, on the other side, spoke up for astrology? To the bewilderment of the
modern analyst, chiefly the foremost scientific men of the age ... an almost
solid front of physicians, astronomers, and other natural philosophers,
renowned for their achievements." This seems to be overstated, since many
of the natural philosophers were skeptical about various kinds of astrology,
and tended only to think there was something in it. This too is
understandable, since scientists took it that there are laws which are
independent of human will, and of chance. "Were a choice necessary,"
Shumaker says, "causation might, after all, be better laid to physical rays
emanating from planets and stars, which at least were subject to observation,
than to mystical numbers, cabalistic verbal formulas, and devils." (l.c., p. 54.)
Physicians in those days were especially prone to accept astrological theories.
They were a part of their standard repertoire.
42. Keith Thomas discusses the practice, role and relations with
religion of astrology in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. In connection
with religion, he says: "Committed to the belief that the will was necessarily
free, the clergy therefore reasoned that it was impossible to predict future
human behaviour. If the astrologers did so, it could only mean that they
were in league with the Devil. Charms and spells, said Bishop Carleton [in
1624], were the Devil's rudiments, but judicial astrology was the Devil's
university. Astrologers in tacit league with Satan deserved the fate

prescribed for every other kind of witch. They were also suspect because of
their mathematical calculations. The memory of Roger Bacon had been much
besmirched by the assumption that mathematics was part of the black art,
and it was notorious that the Edwardian reformers had destroyed
mathematical books at Oxford under the delusion that they were conjuring
books. 'Where a red letter or a mathematical diagram appeared, they were
sufficient to entitled the book to be Popish or diabolical.' (This may account
for the disappearance at this period of nearly all the works of the fourteenth-
century Merton College school of astronomers.)"
43. "Modern historians tend to think that few genuine Elizabethan

scientists were liable to be accused of witchcraft. Yet both John Dee and
Thomas Hariot suffered from such suspicions and in the seventeenth century
John Aubrey recalled how the Elizabethan astrologer, Thomas Allen, was
maligned by the belief, 'in those dark times', that astrologer, mathematician
and conjurer were all the same thing. During the reign of Mary, a clergyman,
William Living, was arrested by an ignorant constable who found among his
books a copy of the astronomical textbook, John de Sacrobosco's Sphere,
exclaiming, 'It is no marvel the Queen be sick, seeing there be such conjurers
in privy corners; but now, I trust, he shall conjure no more.' The Elizabethan
surveyor, Edward Worsop, also commented on the popular assumption that
books with crosses, circles and Greek geometrical terms were likely to be
works of conjuration. Such prejudices lasted well into the seventeenth
century, and were fanned by the widespread conviction that anything
mysterious must have a diabolical origin..... The sequestrators who seized
the papers of the mathematician Walter Warner in 1644 were reported to be
'much troubled at the sight of so many crosses and circles in the superstitious
algebra and that black art of geometry.'" (Keith Thomas, Religion and the
Decline of Magic, 1971, p. 362-363.)
44. Don Cameron Allen discusses many defenders and detractors of

astrology in Europe during the 250 years or so from about 1450 to 1700.
Among the early works by writers in Italy, along with those of Ficino, who
was rather ambiguous about the powers of astrology, and Pico della
Mirandola, who made a thorough and influential attack on its powers (after
having published a favorable description earlier), Allen analyzes the work of
an early staunch defender, Giovanni Pontano. In his De fortuna (1501),
Pontano was much concerned with the relationship of chance or fortune to
stellar influences. He held that stellar influences incline us this or that way,
but that they can be overcome, for example by prudence and reason. (This is
a very old idea, going back at least to Ptolemy of Alexandria).
45. Our fortune comes from the stars, but reason and prudence are
sometimes useful in perfecting fortune. Allen says: "The arch stone of
Pontano's theory is his notion of the fortunate. Nature, he says, begets
certain men who are the children of fortune and others who are not. The
fortunate man, unlike the virtuous man, does not need to follow a code of
conduct; he has only to follow his natural impulses, and he will be carried to
the highest goals. Pontano admits that he does not know why this is so;
reason can no more explain it than it can explain why one man wins at dice
and another man loses. The fortunate are like prophets, sybils, and poets;
they are agitated by a divine power. Reason and study have nothing to do
with their successful careers; in fact, the fortunate often lose their occult

power when they try to reason or begin to study." (Don Cameron Allen, The
Star-Crossed Renaissance, The Quarrel About Astrology and Its Influencein
England, p. 42). When a learned friar complained that Pontano had not
given enough place to providence in his views, Pontano found an answer in
the stars. "God, he says, created the stars and gave them power over
everything below save the wills of men; therefore, fate is a sort of partner of
men's wills in the governing of earthly business." (ibid., p. 43.)
46. In England, the practice of astrology reached an apex of influence

and respectability during the Elizabethan and Stuart eras, that is, in the late
16th century and during the first three quarters or so of the 17th century,
and yet at the same time came under attack from many quarters. In his
biography of William Lilly, the leading astrologer during the middle two
quarters of the 17th century, Derek Parker uses Shakespeare as a source
from which we can get an idea of the place of astrology in the minds of most
English people during Elizabethan times. Shakespeare makes many
allusions to astrology in his plays and sonnets. For example, in Julius
Caesar, Cassius says to Brutus:
"Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves that we are underlings." <![endif]>
(Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, I.ii, 140-141.)
These lines, says Parker, have often been misunderstood. The meaning
is that there are times when men are best able to master their fates -- which
a competent astrologer could calculate for them -- and that a man is an
underling if he doesn't act at a moment when the planetary positions are
propitious for him. To say that the fault is not in the stars of the conspirators
is to say that the planetary positions are propitious for the assassination of
Caesar. There is something compelling about this interpretation, given the
context of the whole play, and it indicates a faith in astrology, together with a
view that the stars incline but do not compel. (Derek Parker, Familiar to All,
William Lilly and Astrology in the Seventeenth Century, 1975, p. 47-54.)
Numerous other passages from Shakespeare's writings show a similar
attitude toward astrology. Prospero, in The Tempest, says in the manner of
Cassius:
"... by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If I now court not but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop."
(Shakespeare, The Tempest, I.ii, 180-184.)
One may take it that Shakespeare could expect such beliefs to be common in
his audiences.

47. Parker cites a speech of Ulysses from Shakespeare's Troilus and
Cressida as showing "more vividly than any other easily accessible quotation
the Elizabethan vision of a parallel system of heavenly and earthly order, and
... of the palpable connection between them":
"The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,

Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture, to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture!"
(Shakespeare, The History of Troilus and Cressida, I, iii, 85-101.)
Parker says: "The astrological theory fitted soundly into the Elizabethan's
general conception of the universe, with its great emphasis on order -- an
emphasis which stressed, certainly, the necessity for oder within the State,
an inflexible social order; but which reached out beyond man's life, or rather
through it, to the easily discernible order within the observable universe: the
order of the moving planets and the fixed stars, impressive by the fact that it
seemed to regulate what otherwise would easily become a chaos, but also
because it provided a paradigm by which man could learn about his place in
the natural, universal order of things..... Astrology had too long been
regarded as an immutable law for any but the strongest mind to ignore the
fact. It would have taken as much single-minded courage for an Elizabethan
positively to deny the planets their effect on man's life as for an early
Victorian to deny God his influence." (Parker, l.c., p. 53-55.)
48. However, lest we think that astrology was supported by all of

Shakespeare's characters, there is the speech of Edmund in King Lear: "This
is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often
the surfeits of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the
moon, and the stars: as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly
compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary
influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable

evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a
star. My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's Tail, and
my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and
lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the
firmament twinkled on my bastardizing." (Shakespeare, King Lear, I, ii, 115-
129.) It has been suggested, however, that this view of Edmund the Bastard
toward astrology was meant by Shakespeare to convey Edmund's rebellious
and atheistical character.
49. With an emphasis opposite to that of Parker, we find Hugh Dick

saying: "During the sixteenth century in England judicial astrology occupied
a crumbling position. To be sure, the great mass of people, as well as many
educated men, retained varying degrees of faith in it, but the body of dissent
constantly grew more strong. Judicial astrologers and their absurd
pretensions became a favorite butt for the satirists, and scornful allusions to
"figure-flingers" and "star-gazers" thread the whole literature of the
Renaissance." (Dick, ibid, p. 20.)
50. Dick also calls attention to the character of the general run of
astrologers in Renaissance England: "For men in touch with the future, they
were a ragged, rascally lot, as the satirists never failed to remark. The
account of his own life by that gifted opportunist William Lilly introduces us
to a notable set of rogues who professed astrology dyuring the early years of
the seventeenth century: Simon Forman, purveyor of aphrodisiacs to the
Countess of Essex; one Evans, a Welsh clergyman who had fled his cure of
souls to live in drunken squalor in Gunpowder Alley .....; William Hodges, the
Staffordshire crystal-gazer; Alexander Hart, an ex-soldier, who professed to
discover the proper times for gamblers to play dice; Geoffrey Neve, once
storekeeper and quack doctor; Richard Delahay, alias Dr. Ardee, a disbarred
attorney; Captain Bubb, a convicted thief; and William Poole, gardener,
bricklayer, pickpocket, and judicial astrologer. Men of this order had
obviously sunk even beneath hypocrisy. ..... Those who respected astrology
could look only with grief and anger on the rising tide of quackery. As Elias
Ashmole wrote: 'Yet of this sort at present are start up divers Illiterate
Professors (and Women are of the Number) who even make Astrologie the
Bawd and Pander to all manner of Iniquity, prostituting Chast Urania to be
abus'd by every adulterate interest. And what will be the issue (I wish it may
prove no Prophesie ere long Astrologie shall be cried down as an Impostor,
because it is made use of as a Stale to all bad Practices, and a laudable
Faculty to bolster up the legerdimane of a Cheate.'" (Dick, loc. cit., p. 36-37;
the quotation by Ashmole is from Thomas Norton, The Ordinall of Alchemy ...
with annotations by Elias Ashmole, ed. E. J, Holmyard, 1931, p. 123.)
51. Dick concludes that for educated men in the early 17th century,
mistrust of astrology was widespread. Christian doctrine of the time opposed
it. The State passed laws against it. The spread of literacy told against it.
Philosophers wrote treatises against it. The unreliability of the astrologers
became notorious. Many astrologers were palpably rogues and charlatans.
Satirists wrote popular plays and essays ridiculing it.
52. The opinion of Hardin Craig lies somewhere between those of Derek
Parker and Hugh Dick (their dates of publication are: Craig, 1935; Dick,
1944; Parker, 1975). In the Enchanted Glass Craig says: "We may ask to

what extent astrological influences were believed in by scholars and learned
men in England in the sixteenth century. It is a typical question and
fortunately very easy to answer. Astrology was the interpretative part of
astronomy, was sanctioned by the writings of Ptolemy and by writings
attributed to Aristotle, and seems to have held a place in the curriculum of
the universities of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Astrology was
tolerated if not sanctioned by the Church and was, as regards its validity as a
science, believed in by all learned men. But there are qualifications of this
statement ....." (Hardin Craig, The Enchanted Glass, 1935, p. 33).
53. Craig discusses the poet Sir Philip Sidney and the mathematician
Robert Recorde as representative of learned and accomplished men who
looked favorably on astrology. He also speaks of the scorn of learned people,
believers in astrology or not, for ignorant and dishonest practitioners of the
art. A number of very popular superficial works on astrology attest to what
was considered abuse of astrology, especially by medical men for whom
astrology was a part of their professional technique. There was, for example,
The Shepherds Kalendar, possibly Alexander Barclay's translation of
Kalendrier des Bergers (Paris, 1503). A translation by R. Copland published
first in 1508 ran through 15 editions by 1631. There was The Compost of
Ptholomeus (first published by R. Wyer between about 1532 and 1540), "a
wretched English translation of what seems to have been a poor French
version of the Centiloquium, or hundred aphorisms, based on the Tetrabiblos
of Ptolemy and supposed to give the 'Fruit' of the Ptolemaic teachings as
applied to astrological ends." (ibid., p. 38.) There were numerous other items
of this inferior nature, including "one of the most celebrated books of
quackery in the world, the Secreta Secretorum". (ibid., p. 39.)
54. Craig concludes: "This ground is familiar, but the reader should
remember a distinction probably worth making in connexion with it,--that
between the honest, well-informed, and sincere practitioners of a false science
and the dishonest, ignorant, and pretentious quacks from whose knavery the
profession suffered disgrace. The matter was relative at any given time in
the sixteenth century. It was not only relative but changing rapidly. Many
works which were adequate expressions of the best learning of say 1550 had
become the vulgar knowledge of 1580 and 1590; truer learning had
meanwhile risen to higher planes. Quackery too underwent its changes. It
grew more mystical and bombastic; but the ancient cheap stuff, much of
which had troubled the Middle Ages, also lived on as it lives now more
remotely. Let it not be thought that quackery was then or is now usually
insincere; its insincerity was and is a variable factor. Dr. John Dee was a
frank thinker and something of a scholar; he was much misled. Dr. Robert
Fludd was one of the most learned, most sincere, most bombastic imposters
that ever lived. He fooled himself far more than Dr. Dee was fooled by
others." (ibid., p. 40.)
55. Among those scornful of astrology, Craig mentions Ben Jonson

(1572-1637), John Melton in his satire The Astrologaster (1620), Samuel
Butler with his portrayal of Sidrophel in Hudibras (1663-1678), John
Chamber in his Treatise against Iudicial Astrologie (1601), George Carleton
with The Madnesse ofAstrologers (1624), and the Judiciall Astrology
Judicially Condemned (1652) of William Rowland. But during the same time
there were plenty of books in favor of the subject, aside from the popular

items of low character. For example, there was Sir Christopher Heydon's
"learned and excellent" A Defence of Judiciall Astrologie (1603). And
dramatists like Marlowe and Shakespeare sometimes make their characters
refer to astrology with almost religious reverence.
56. Well into the 17th century, the learned Robert Burton, whose
Anatomy of Melancholy (1621-1638) can be considered a kind of medical
treatise in literary form on what we today call depression, says about
astrology: "Natural causes are either primary and universal, or secondary
and more particular. Primary causes are the heavens, planets, stars, etc., by
their influence (as our astrologers hold) producing this and such-like effects.
I will not here stand to discuss obiter, whether stars be causes, or signs; or to
apologize for judicial astrology. If either Sextus Empiricus, Picus Mirandula,
Sextus ab Hemings, Pererius, Erastus, Chambers, etc., have so far prevailed
with any man, that he will attribute no virtue at all to the heavens, or to sun,
or moon, more than he doth to their signs at an innkeeper's post, or
tradesman's shop, or generally condemn all such astrological aphorisms
approved by experience: I refer him to Bellantius, Pirovanus, Marascallerus,
Goclenius, Sir Christopher Heydon, etc. If thou shalt ask me what I think, I
must answer, nam et doctis hisce erroribus versatus sum [for I too am
conversant with these learned errors], they do incline, but not compel; no
necessity at all, agunt non cogunt [they impel but do not compel]: and so
gently incline, that a wise man may resist them; sapiens dominabitur astris
[a wise man will rule the stars]; they rule us, but God rules them."
57. "All this (methinks) Joh. de Indagine hath comprised in brief:

Quaeris a me quantum in nobis operantur astra, etc. 'Wilt thou know how far
the stars work upon us? I say they do, but incline, and that so gently, that if
we will be ruled by reason, they have no power over us; but if we follow our
own nature, and be led by sense, they do as much in us as in brute beasts,
and we are no better.' So that, I hope, I may justly conclude with Cajetan,
Coelum est vehiculum divinae virtutis, etc., that the heaven is God's
instrument, by mediation of which He governeth and disposeth these
elementary bodies; or a great book, whose letters are the stars (as one calls
it), wherein are written many strange things for such as can read, 'or an
excellent harp, made by an eminent workman, on which he that can but play
will make most admirable music.'" (The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621-1638),
edited by Holbrook Jackson (1932), Partition I, Section II, Member I,
Subsection IV, p. 206 of v. 1 of the 1932 edition.)
Chapter 4. From Babylon to Copernicus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Among the most famous of past astrologers have been the
Babylonians. The religion and science of the ancient Babylonians, especially
of their soothsayers, worshippers of Bel (Marduk), were bound to the stars.
There was much concern with the foretelling of human destiny. The notion
of a connection between astral bodies and human destinies appears to have
been part of a central concept that the cosmos contains nothing
fundamentally dead or inimical. The observations made by Babylonian
astronomer-priests reflect a longing to establish precisely the
interdependence between stars and earth and man. S. Giedion says: "In an
often retold dream of that great figure of the early period, Gudea of Lugash,
the goddess Nisibis appeared to him not only as the goddess of intelligence,
wisdom, mathematics, and writing; she also 'bore the tablet of the good star' -
- in other words, she was simultaneously goddess of astrology." (S. Giedion,
The Beginnings of Architecture, 1964, p. 9, 19, 138-139.)
2. Édouard Dhorme says of the early Mesopotamians: "For the

Sumerians and Akkadians, the sky was, in effect, a great map on which their
destiny was inscribed. Men called the constellations 'the writing of heaven'
or 'the writing of the firmament'." The experience of the night side of life, and
the feeling of being utterly at the mercy of destiny, permeated Mesopotamian
existence. Later, the Greeks took over the idea of destiny, without being led
into the deep pessimism already revealed in the depressing adventures of
Gilgamesh, around 2600 B.C. This interest in destiny was closely linked with
a desire to fathom in advance the will of the gods. The stars were identical
with the deities. They influenced all happenings and were thus guides to
man's fate. Everything depended on whether the initiate was able to read
the decisions of the gods from the movements of the stars. It has not been
clearly proven just when this sort of belief in the stars arose. But it must be
closely linked with an anthropomorphization of the universe, and thus it
must have found its form shortly before or at the beginnng of historical
times....." (Êdouard Dhorme, Les Religions de Babylonie et d'Assyrie, 2nd
edition, 1949, p. 282, p. 138-140.)
3. The Mesopotamians built awe -inspiring structures called ziggurats,

towers composed of series of terraces joined by steps, with temples on top,
probably containing places for making sacrifices. "Both ziggurat and
pyramid derive their existence," says Giedion, "from man's awakened urge
toward the vertical as a symbol of contact with the deity, contact with the
sky... The notion of a ladder between heaven and earth was marvelously
portrayed." (l.c., p. 219, 225.) The tower of Babel in the Bible is probably the
great ziggurat at Babylon. The word "Babel" means "gate of the God" in
Akkadian. There is a similar-sounding word in Hebrew which means
"confusion." Perhaps there is a pun in the Biblical story of the tower of Babel
concerning the confusion of tongues.
4. Relatively late in their history, certain Babylonians were also

pioneers in mathematical astronomy. However, they made accurate celestial
observations for a long time before they developed their mathematical
astronomy. Simplicius, for example, in his commentary on Aristotle's De
caelo (6th century A.D.) speaks of a sequence of observations sent by
Callisthenes to Aristotle (4th century B.C.) which had extended over 1903
years. (Referred to by Marguerite Rutten in La Science des Chaldéens, 1970,
p. 89-90). We may take with a grain of salt, Rutten says, the assertion of

Iamblichus (c. 250-330 A.D.) that the Babylonians had observed the stars for
72,000 years.
5. Did the Babylonians' astronomy grow out of their astrology, or vice

versa -- or did they grow up together? Otto Neugebauer says, comparing
astronomy and astrology: "It has often been said that astronomy originated
from astrology. I see no evidence for this theory..... The best description of
the true situation might be the statement that we know equally little about
the origin of astrology or astronomy and that the relative influence of these
two disciplines on one another is largely a matter of conjecture." (Otto
Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 1957, p. 168.)
6. Rutten quotes Strabo, the geographer (c. 60 B.C.-20 A.D.): "There is

in Babylonia a caste or colony of indigenous philosophers called "Chaldeans"
who concern themselves chiefly with astronomy. Some also specialize in
casting horoscopes, but they do not have the approval of the others." (Rutten,
ibid., p. 89). According to Rutten, this proves that alongside the astrologer-
diviners there were true astronomers, in the modern sense of the word.
Unfortunately, one can construe Strabo's statement to mean that some of the
philosophers frowned on personal astrology concerning individuals, as
contrasted with omen astrology, concerning nations or peoples, or natural
phenomena.
7. Neugebauer saw no evidence that astronomy grew out of astrology,

but Édouard Dhorme did. He says: "It was inevitable that a close
relationship be established between observation of the stars and the
calendar, which gives measurements of the celestial vault. The astrologers
were in this way led to study the lives of the gods not only in space, but also
in time. It was necessary for them to take note of the celestial phenomena
which gave to each day of the month and of the year its peculiar
physiognomy. The necessity of avoiding errors and giving a mathematical
precision to the results obtained quickly caused the synthesis of astrological
observations to be transformed into an exact science. In this way, astronomy
detached itself from astrology. The religious apparatus which surrounded
the calculations of the diviners ended by passing into the background. The
divination tables were only empirical findings, but they continued to answer
to the need of the human soul to probe into the darkness of the future.
Astrology acquired a new expansive force by separating itself from its
indigenous culture. It is in this way that it penetrated into Asia Minor, in
particular among the Hittites, and from there as far as Greece and Rome,
where the Chaldeans distinguished themselves as drawers of horoscopes and
fortune-tellers." (Dhorme, ibid., p. 288-289.)
8. Despite the fact that the Babylonian astrologer/ astronomers are

customarily said to have been priests (Herodotus called them this), some
Babylonians may have taken a relatively secular attitude toward the stars.
A. Laurent says: "In Egypt, most of the books which treated science were
considered sacred books, composed and revealed by the gods themselves. The
Chaldeans, and later their disciples the Assyrians, attributed a less elevated
origin to their similar books. For them, they were simply the fruit of the
experience of educated men and of generations of patient observers. In
particular, the treatises on divination (astrology, the science of omens,
haruspicy, etc.) appear to us, in fact, quite like the work of a number of

scholars who, through the centuries, have recorded from day to day the
relations which seemed to them to exist between the events of political or
private life and different sidereal or terrestrial phenomena. Neither the
Chaldeans nor the Assyrians did anything to obscure the human origins of
these treatises." (A. Laurent, La Magie et la Divination chez les Chaldeo-
Assyriens, 1894, p. 58.)
9. Observations of the stars have long been connected with

determination and maintenance of calendars. Dhorme, speaking of this
relation, attributes to the Babylonians a calendar having a year of 12 months
with 30 days each, plus a 5-day intercalary period. This calendar, however,
appears to have originated with the Egyptians. Plutarch (c. 46-120 A.D.)
says: "They say that the Sun, when he became aware of Rhea's intercourse
with Cronus, invoked a curse upon her that she should not give birth to a
child in any month or any year; but Hermes, being enamoured of the goddess,
consorted with her. Later, playing at draughts with the moon, he won from
her the seventieth part of her illumination, and from all the winnings he
composed five days, and intercalated them as an addition to the three
hundred and sixty days. The Egyptians even now call these five days
intercalated and celebrate them as the birthdays of the gods." (Plutarch, "Isis
and Osiris", in Plutarch's Moralia, translated by Frank Cole Babbitt, 1936, v.
5, p. 31.)
10. Neugebauer says of the Egyptian calendar of 12 30-day months plus

5 intercalated days that "this calendar is, indeed, the only intelligent
calendar which ever existed in human history." (Otto Neugebauer, Exact
Sciences in Antiquity, 1957, p. 81.) He thus goes further than Herodotus (c.
485-425 B.C.), who says that the priests of Egypt with whom he talked "all
agreed in saying that the Egyptians by their study of astronomy discovered
the solar year and were the first to divide it into twelve parts --and in my
opinion their method of calculation is better than the Greek; for the Greeks,
to make the seasons work out properly, intercalate a whole month every
other year, while the Egyptians make the year consist of twelve months of
thirty days each and every year intercalate five additional days, and so
complete the regular circle of the seasons." (Herodotus, The Histories, ii.4,
translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, 1954, p. 130.) It may be that Dhorme
confuses this Egyptian calendar with the Babylonian lunar calendar in which
some years have 12 months and others 13 months of 30 days each. This was
at first done irregularly, and later with 7 13-month years every 19 years
(Neugebauer, l.c., p. 102.) Such a 13th month of 30 days can be considered to
be an intercalation. Dhorme, indeed, speaks of intercalating a month of 30
days into a 12 month calendar of 30 days each.
11. Did the Sumerians already have astrology in early Mesopotamian

culture? O. R. Gurney says: "The only clear evidence that the Sumerians
already practised astrology comes from the cylinder of Gudea (c. 2143-2124
BC). In his first dream this ruler saw the goddess Nisaba studying 'a tablet
of the star (or stars) of heaven', which was interpreted to mean that she was
proclaiming 'the pure star for the building of the temple'. In what way the
star was thought to give such a sign is not explained. From Mari, of the time
of Hammurapi (c. 1780 BC), there is a letter from the barû [professional
omen inspector, a priest] Asqudum, which is very revealing. The diviner
reports an eclipse of the moon; he knows that this is a bad omen, but no

more, proceeds to check the findings by haruspicy, and declares that after all
the outlook is favourable. Evidently at this time haruspicy was the only
reliable form of divination..... It seems that it was not till much later that
astrology rose to prominence as a rival to haruspicy. That it eventually did
so is seen in some 600 reports on ominous events sent in to the Assyrian king
Esarhaddon (680-669 BC) from scholars posted in widely distributed centres
throughout the empire. The great majority of these are astrological in
character and are often in response to an enquiry from the king as to the
meaning of an ominous event. Like the extispicy reports, they quote the
relevant omens from the handbook, here complete with the prediction, and a
conclusion is drawn regarding the general significance of the omen for the
king, but never in relation to a particular matter of policy. Astrology could
not be used, as extispicy was, to answer specific questions. The officials who
write these reports are not barû priests but scholars with various
professional designations. One is called 'scribe of "When Anu and Enlil" '. A
special title which does not occur elsewhere is 'Chief of the team of ten'."
12. "Horoscopic astrology, the 12 signs of the zodiac, and the doctrine of
the hypsomata were a still later development. The earliest horoscope (now in
Oxford) dates from 410 BC. Two astrological manuals show drawings of the
hypsomata, or positions of greatest astrological influence: the moon in
Taurus, Jupiter in Cancer, Mercury in Virgo. They date from the Seleucid
period (after 300 BC). The texts attached to these drawings have by now
reached the refinement of dividing each sign of the zodiac into twelve
'microzodiacs' of 2 1/2 days each. This sophisticated astrology, for which the
'Chaldeans' were renowned in the Roman world, was only developed after the
fall of Babylon to the Persians in 539 BC." (O. R. Gurney, in Oracles and
Divination, 1981, edited by Michael Loewe and Carmen Blacker, p. 160-162.)
13. Samuel Angus makes the claim that astrology made the Greek and
Roman methods of inquiry into the future antiquated. Augury and haruspicy
were practically abandoned. Official oracles, like the one at Delphi, though
revived under the empire, had stiff competition, he says, from the Chaldaei
and mathematici, as well as from Christian and Gnostic apocalypses.
(Samuel Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity, A Study in the
Religious Background of Early Christianity, 1925, p. 167.)
14. Prominent Greek scientists such as the astronomer and

mathematician Eudoxus (c. 390-340 B.C.) and Theophrastus (c. 372-286
B.C.), student and successor of Aristotle, studied the star-worship and
astrological practices of the Babylonians. According to Proclus (c. 412-485
B.C.) in his commentary on Plato's Timaeus, Theophrastus, in his book On
Signs, credited the Chaldeans of his time with a theory with which they could
predict "every event, and the life and death of every person." (Pierre Duhem,
Le Système du Monde, 1913, v. 2, p. 275.) Near the end of the 3rd century
B.C., professional astrologers from Babylonia set up business among the
Greeks. Michael Grant tells us: "The first of these practitioners was said to
be the Babylonian priest Berossus, translator of The Eye of Bel, who moved to
Cos and founded an astrological school on the island (c. 280 [B.C.]). But it
was not until after 200 that the movement reached the proportions of a flood.
This was the time when Bolus of Mendes in Egypt (a country that had learnt
its astrology from Mesopotamia) compiled a treatise On Sympathies and
Antipathies which explained and justified the fictitious correspondence

between heavenly bodies and human beings. His book became one of the
most influential best-sellers of all time. Another successful work was an
astrological textbook, probably written c. 150-120, which went under the
probably fictitious Egyptian names of Nechepso and Petosiris." (Michael
Grant, From Alexander to Cleopatra, TheHellenistic World, 1982, p. 214-222).
15. These beliefs fit easily into Stoic doctrines, and the Stoics
maintained astrological doctrines from early on. It was, as we said earlier,
an understandable outgrowth of dismay at a world which seemed to be rules
by chance and fickle fortune. One of the leaders of the Stoic school, Diogenes
'the Babylonian' from Seleucia on the Tigris (d. 152 B.C.), maintained that
the souls of men and women contain a spark of the power that rules the
heavens. Grant says of this Diogenes: "Building on his forerunner
Cleanthes' veneration of the sun and the celestial bodies, [he] became the
traitor withing the gates who welcomed astrology for its apparently
convincing proof of this 'Sympathy of all Creation'." Another Stoic, Panaetius
of Rhodes (c. 185-109 B.C.) rejected the idea that the sun, moon and stars
causally affect the affairs of the world, although he was willing to accept the
validity of divination. But soon afterwards an influential Stoic, Posidonius of
Apamea in Syria (c. 135-50 B.C.), welcomed the basic astrological principles
as keys to the harmony of the universe.
16. Some believers in such principles allowed a limited scope for free
will, but nevertheless considered themselves to be ruled by the unchanging
and inescapable heavenly spheres, which predestine all that happens.
Others revolted against a pitiless mechanical inevitability and sought means
to circumvent or reduce the oppressiveness of the astral powers. This
required finding out what the powers had in store, and how to arrange one's
activities to avoid their most hostile intentions. For this, experts were
needed: professional astrologer/astronomers. These became an influential
group, who provided numberless believers with a principal interest,
consolation and excitement. They cast horoscopes, in which the future
destiny of a person was worked out from the positions of heavenly bodies at
the time of his or her birth. The astrologer/ astronomers not only prophesied
future destinies, but also counseled people on how to outwit what had been
destined. They mixed a kind of science with a kind of magic.
17. In science, as in religion, a kind of submission seems to be required

to some degree to what there is and must be, while with magic a there is
customarily intent to dominate, to manipulate the gods, or the way nature
works, or to interfere with fate. With technology, including applications of
science, we often try to manipulate nature. But with magic, we try to change
the will of the gods, or the laws of nature. Magic rests on the assumption
that we are not underlings in ways that science or religion profess. Not even
the sky is the limit. Belief in the power of magical manipulations was
widespread in Hellenistic times. There were some who investigated the laws
by which the stars move, without trying to alter either the laws or the stars,
but a man might be at the same time an astronomer and an astrologer, and
maybe a magician, too.
18. The Babylonians were known to the Greeks and Romans not only as
astrologers, astronomers and magicians, but as diviners by other methods.
Writing about 161 or 162 A.D., the satirist Lucian tells how Menippus makes

a descent into Hades to find out the right way to live. He finds that the good
life is not that of the rich and powerful, nor that of a philosopher, but the
ordinary life of one who lives in the present and laughs a lot. To make his
descent into Hades, Menippus says: "... I resolved to go to Babylon and
address myself to one of the Magi, the disciples and successors of Zoroaster,
as I had heard that with certain charms and ceremonials they could open the
gates of Hades, taking down in safety anyone they would and guiding him
back again..... Well, springing to my feet, I made straight for Babylon as fast
as I could go. On my arrival, I conversed with one of the Chaldeans, a wise
man of miraculous skill, with grey hair and a very majestic beard; his name
was Mithrobarzanes. By dint of supplications and entreaties, I secured his
reluctant consent to be my guide on the journey at whatever price he would.
So the man took me in charge, and first of all, for twenty-nine days
[approximately a lunar month], beginning with the new moon, he took me
down to the Euphrates in the early morning toward sunrise, and bathed me;
after which he would make a long address which I could not follow very well,
for like an incompetent announcer at the games, he spoke rapidly and
indistinctly. It is likely, however, that he was invoking certain spirits."
19. "Anyhow, after the incantation he would spit in my face thrice and
then go back again without looking at anyone whom he met. We ate nuts,
drank milk, mead, and the water of the Coaspes, and slept out of doors on the
grass. When he considered the preliminary course of dieting satisfactory,
taking me to the Tigris river at midnight he purged me, cleansed me, and
consecrated me with torches and squills and many other things, murmuring
his incantation as he did so. Then after he had be charmed me from head to
foot and walked all about me, that I might not be harmed by phantoms, he
took me home again, just as I was, walking backward. After that, we made
ready for the journey. He himself put on a magician's gown very like the
Median dress, and speedily costumed me in these things which you see -- the
cap, the lion's skin, and the lyre besides; and he urged me, if anyone should
ask my name, not to say Menippus, but Heracles or Odysseus or Orpheus."
(Lucian, Lucian, v. 4, "Menippus", translated by A. M. Harmon, 1925, p. 83-
87.)
20. The ancient Chinese, on the whole, seem not to have become as
secular-minded as the Babylonians about the stars. Edward Schafer says
that for most early Chinese, even for the most advanced authorities,
astronomy was indistinguishable from astrology. As understanding of stellar
motions was refined, and more and more aspects of the starry firmament
were removed from the realm of conjecture, doubt and fear into the realm of
the known and predictable, this identification remained. Comets, meteors
and supernovae remained terrible signals from the powers in space, and it
would be wrong to suppose that the inclusion of quite reliable ephemerides in
a medieval Chinese almanac means that movements of celestial objects had
become accepted as merely physical transits of the sky. Schafer says: "There
were certainly skeptics, but it appears that most men, even well-educated
men, continued to believe that a predictable Jupiter remained an awful
Jupiter." Moreover, the Chinese devoted little energy to making geometrical
models of the physical universe which would account for their observations
and arithmetical calculations. "Indeed," says Schafer, "cosmology languished
close to the borderlands of mythology, and for many, perhaps most people,
the two were identical." The obliquity of the ecliptic, the precession of the

equinoxes, and the true length of the tropical year were discovered quite
early, but this didn't put the diviners out of work. (Edward Schafer, Pacing
the Void, T'ang Approaches to the Stars, 1977, p. 9-10.)
21. According to Schafer, a remarkable feature of T'ang

astronomy/astrology was the extent of Indian influences on it. A similar
condition prevailed centuries later, Schafer remarks, during the Mongol
domination of China, when Islamic science prevailed in the office of the
Astronomer Royal at Peking. Schafer says: "The extent of western influences
on Chinese astronomical and cosmological thought in early antiquity is
uncertain. Speculation on the matter has in the past tended to resemble the
lush growth of the hot-house or the tropical forest: jungly tangles of colorful
lianes and rattans whose stems are confused and whose roots are doubtful. A
sober hypothesis by a professional Assyriologist of our own century [E.
Bezold] seems as fair as any other: native Chinese astronomy/astrology was
probably modified by the Babylonian by at least the sixth century B.C."
(Schafer, ibid.)
22. When did astronomy proper begin to develop, as we understand the

term? It depends on what you count as astronomy. People must have known
a fair bit about the repeating movements and appearances of sun, moon,
planets and stars long before they were able to leave written records. Very
likely they made use of observations of the skies to predict -- or try to predict
-- when the seasons would change, when was a good time to plant or harvest,
when floods and other natural catastrophes were liable to occur, where they
would land when they set out to sea, and so on.
23. On the antiquity of astronomy, Mircea Eliade says: "Alexander

Marshak [sic] has recently been able to demonstrate the existence, in the
Upper Paleolithic, of a symbolic system of temporal notations, based on
observations of the moon's phases. These notations, which the author terms
'time-factored', that is, accumulated over a long period, permit the
supposition that certain seasonal or periodic ceremonies were fixed long in
advance, as is the case in our day among Siberians and North American
Indians. This systems of notations remained in force for more than 25,000
years, from the early Aurignacians to the late Magdalenian. According to
Marshak, writing, arithmetic, and the calendar properly speaking, which
make their appearance in the first civilizations, are probably connected with
the symbolism with which the system of notations used during the Paleolithic
is impregnated. Whatever may be thought of Marshak's general theory
concerning the development of civilization, the fact remains that the lunar
cycle was analyzed, memorized, and used for practical purposes some 15,000
years before the discovery of agriculture. This makes more comprehensible
the considerable role of the moon in archaic mythology, and especially the
fact that lunar symbolism was integrated into a single system comprising
such different realities as woman, the waters, vegetation, the serpent,
fertility, death, "rebirth," etc." (Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas,
1978, French 1976, v. 1, p. 22-23; cf. Alexander Marshack, 1972, The Roots
of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man's First Art, Symbol, and
Notation, p. 81 ff.)

24. No one knows when gods first appeared among men. Nobody knows
when people began to try to find out their wills. Who knows which ideas
about gods were derived from ideas about the sun, moon and stars? Sextus
Empiricus says: "And Aristotle said that the conception of Gods arose
amongst mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which
concern the soul and from celestial phenomena. It arose from events which
concern the soul because of the inspired states of the soul which occur in
sleep and because of prophecies. For, says he, when the soul is by itself in
sleep, then it takes on its true nature and prophecies and predicts the future.
And it is in this state also when it is being separated from bodies at death.....
Moreover (they derived this conception) from celestial phenomena also; for
when they beheld the sun circling around in the day-time, and by night the
orderly motion of the other stars, they supposed some God to be the cause of
such motion and orderliness." (Sextus Empiricus, c. 200 A.D., Against the
Physicists, i.20-22, also known as Adversus Dogmaticos, iii, and Adversus
Mathematicos, ix.; translation by R. G. Bury, 1936, p. 11, 13).
25. Cicero reports that the Stoic Cleanthes (c. 300-220 B.C.) gave four
reasons to account for the formation in men's minds of their ideas of gods:
"He put first the argument ... arising from our foreknowledge of future
events; second, the one drawn from the magnitude of the benefits we derive
from our temperate climate, from the earth's fertility, and from a vast
abundance of other blessings; third, the awe inspired by lightning, storms,
rain, snow, hail, floods, pestilences, earthquakes, and occasionally
subterranean rumblings, showers of stones and raindrops the colour of blood,
also landslips and chasms suddenly opening in the ground, also unnatural
monstrosities human and animal, and also the appearance of meteoric lights
and what are called by the Greeks 'comets,' and in our language 'long-haired
stars,'..... all of which alarming portents have suggested to mankind the idea
of the existence of some celestial and divine power. And the fourth and most
potent cause of the belief he said was the uniform motion and revolution of
the heavens, and the varied groupings and ordered beauty of the sun, moon
and stars, the very sight of which was in itself enough to prove that these
things are not the mere effect of chance. When a man goes into a house, a
wrestling-school or a public assembly and observes in all that goes on
arrangement, regularity and system, he cannot possibly suppose that these
things come about without a cause: he realizes that there is someone who
presides and controls. Far more therefore with the vast movements and
phases of the heavenly bodies, and these ordered processes of a multitude of
enormous masses of matter, which throughout the countless ages of the
infinite past have never in the smallest degree played false, is he compelled
to infer that these mighty world-motions are regulated by some Mind."
(Cicero, De natura deorum, translated by H. Rackham, 1933, p. 137-139.)
26. It is, then, small wonder that celestial objects came to be regarded
as having power over our affairs. In omen or portent astrology, attempts are
made to use such objects to predict events of importance to a country and its
rulers. Omen astrology seems to have been indigenous to Babylonia,
although the Chinese may have developed their own version independently.
Bartel van der Waerden assigns the beginning of omen astrology to before the
reign of Hammurabi in Babylonia (about 1800 B.C.), and perhaps much
earlier. (Bartel van der Waerden, Science Awakening II, The Birth of
Astronomy, 1974, p. 49.)

27. Here's a sample: "When Scorpio approaches the front of the Moon
and stands, the reign of the king will be long; the enemy will come, but his
defeat will be accomplished." (R. Campbell Thompson, The Reports of the
Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon in the British Museum,
the original texts, printed in cuneiform characters, edited with translations,
notes, vocabulary, index and an introduction, 1900, v. 2, p. lxxi.) Another
example: "The month of Elul, 15th day, eclipse [of the moon]: the son of the
king kills his father and seizes the throne, and the enemy advances and
destroys the country. The 16th day, eclipse of the moon: the king of a foreign
country the same [i.e., is killed by his son], the king of the country of Hâti
advances and seizes the throne. Rains in the sky, abundance of water in the
canals." (A. Laurent, La Magie et la Divination chez les Chaldéo-Assyriens,
1894, p. 60.) Another: "If Mars is visible in the month of Tammuz (June-
July), the beds of the soldiers will be empty." That is, there will be a military
expedition. (Marguerite Rutten, La Science des Chaldéens, 1970, p. 95.)
28. Although there may have been secular attitudes among Chaldean
diviners, we may suppose they were to some degree influenced by the
prevailing religion. In ancient Babylonia, the sun deity Marduk, the greatest
of the Babylonian gods and successor to the moon deity of the Sumerians, set
the celestial beings to moving and determined their courses. Marduk
articulated time into units, and the regularity of celestial motions became a
model for the life of men in society, and a powerful force on the development
of their government, work and cities. The highest duty of the highest officials
of Babylon, the priests, was to observe and interpret the movements of the
sun, moon and other celestial objects. (Babylon, in the time of
Nebuchadnezzar (died 562 B.C.), was probably the greatest and most well
organized city in the world, estimated to support between 250,000 and
300,000 inhabitants. It was Nebuchadnezzar who is reputed to have built the
"tower of Babel", and to have destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. In
Greece, this was about the time of Anaximander, one of the pre-Socratic
philosophers, perhaps the first person to ever make a geometric model of the
universe, or at any rate this appears to be the earliest we know about.)
29. At the head of the Babylonian and Assyrian panoply of gods is Anu.
"Anu," we are told, "was the son of Anshar and Kishar. His name signified
'sky' and he reigned over the heavens... Aided by his companion, the goddess
Antu, he presided from above over the fates of the universe and hardly
occupied himself with human affairs. Thus, although he never ceased to be
universally venerated, other gods finally supplanted him and took over
certain of his prerogatives. But the great god's prestige remained such that
the power of these usurper gods was never firmly established until they, too,
assumed the name Anu..... The entire course of human life was ... regulated
by the sovereign will of the gods, whose chief attribute was deciding the fates
of men. We have already seen how highly the gods valued this privilege
which fell successively to Anu, Enlil, Ea and Marduk. Although it was the
supreme god who made the final decision, all could discuss it. At the
beginning of every year, while on earth the festival of Zagmuk was being
celebrated, the gods assembled in the Upshukina, the Sanctuary of Fates.
The king of the gods in the later Babylonian period, Bêl-Marduk, took his
place on the throne. The other gods knelt with fear and respect before him.
Removing from his bosom the Tablet of Fates, Bêl-Marduk confided it to his
son Nabu, who wrote down on it what the gods had decided. Thus the fate of

the country was fixed for the coming year." (Larousse Encyclopedia of
Mythology, 1959, p. 52-53, 63.)
30. If Anu is the chief god, what was the status of his parents Anshar
and Kishar? The Larousse has it that Apsu (sweet water) and Tiamat (salt
water) were the fount of all things. The first offspring of these were Lakhmu
and Lakhamu, "rather vague gods" who "seem to be a pair of monstrous
serpents. They gave birth to Anshar, the male principle, and to Kishar, the
female principle, who represented respectively, so some think, the celestial
and terrestrial worlds. In the same way the Greek gods were born of the
union of Uranus, the sky, and Gaea, the earth. But while in Greek
mythology Gaea played an important role, Kishar does not appear again in
the story." (ibid, p. 49-50.)
31. Thorkild Jacobsen tells the same story like this, based on Old
Babylonian copies of Sumerian texts from the third millenium B.C. "An
ranked highest among the gods. His name, borrowed by the Akkadians as
Anum, is the Sumerian word for "sky" and inherently An is the numinous
power in the sky, the source of rain and the basis for the calendar since it
heralds through its changing constellations the times of the year with their
different works and celebrations..... An's spouse was the earth, Ki, on whom
he engendered trees, reeds, and all other vegetation ..... There also seems to
have been a tradition that saw the power in the sky as both male and female
and distinguished the god An (Akkadian Anum) from the goddess An
(Akkadian Antum) to whom he
was married. According to that view the rains flowed from the sky goddess'
breasts, or (since she was usually envisaged in cow shape) her udder -- that is
from the clouds..... An had not only engendered vegetation, he was the father
and ancestor of all of the gods, and he likewise fathered innumerable demons
and evil spirits. Frequently he was envisaged as a huge bull..... The view of
An as a major source of fertility, the "father who makes the seed sprout,"
engenderer of vegetation, demons, and all the gods, led naturally to the
attribution of paternal authority to him..... With the developing of social
differentiation and the attitudes of growing respect and awe before the ruler,
a new sensitivity to the potential in the vast sky for inducing feelings of
numinous awe seems to have come into being. The sky can, at moments
when man is in a religiously receptive mood, act as vehicle for a profound
experience of numinous awe, as may be instanced in our own culture."
32. Jacobsen quotes a passage from William James's The Varieties of

Religious Experience: "I remember the night, and almost the very spot on the
hilltop, where my soul opened out, as it were, into the Infinite, and there was
a rushing together of the two worlds, the inner and the outer. It was deep
calling unto deep,-- the deep that my own struggle had opened up within
being answered by the unfathomable deep without, reaching beyond the
stars. I stood alone with Him who had made me, and all the beauty of the
world, and love, and sorrow, and even temptation."
33. Jacobsen continues: "To the ancient Mesopotamians what the sky
might reveal was An, its own inner essence of absolute authority and majesty
-- might reveal, but would not necessarily reveal, for in everyday moods the
sky would be experienced apart from the numinous power in it and would

recede into the category of mere things..... Since human society is not the
only structure based on authority and command (the natural world is as
well), all things and forces in the polity that is the universe conform to An's
will. He is the power that lifts existence out of chaos and anarchy and makes
it an organized whole. As a building is supported by and reveals in its
structure the lines of its foundation, so the ancient Mesopotamian universe
was upheld by and reflected An's ordering will. His command is "the
foundation of heaven and earth."..... As the ultimate source of all authority
An was closely associated with the highest authority on earth, that of
kingship. The royal insignia lie before An in heaven for him to bestow, and
with them he conveys not only the general powers of kingship but duties
linked to his own cosmic functions: responsibility for the calendar and for
carrying out his calendric rites. For example, his new moon festivals ... were
celebrated in all temples, and the New Year festival at which the year seems
to have been named from one of the king's accomplishments. Through this
mandate, accordingly, the king becomes An's instrument for seeing to it that
the times do not get out of joint." (Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of
Darkness, A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976, p. 95-97.) Thus the
source and model of authority and order was the heavens.
34. Since the seasons and other important events are to some degree
related to movements of the moon, sun and stars, it's reasonable to try to
correlate as many events as we can with these movements. For example, the
approximate time for the flooding of the Nile in ancient Egypt was correlated
with movements of the sun and stars. Certain kinds of weather are
correlated with the appearances of constellations, including not only their
positions but also atmospheric effects. Martin Nilsson says that the most
widely read of all Hellenistic poems was the Phainomena of Aratus, which
was a book containing rules for predicting the weather in this way. (Martin
Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, 1950, v. 2, p. 56.)
35. The process goes on today. Here is an excerpt, entitled "Weather

Prognosticator, from the Hagers-town Town and Country Almanack for the
year of our Lord 1989, p. 9: "This table and the accompanying remarks are
the result of many years' actual observation; the whole being constructed on a
due consideration of the Sun and Moon, in their several positions respecting
the earth; and will, by simple inspection, show the observer what kind of
weather will most probably follow the entrance of the Moon into any of her
quarters, and that so near the truth as to be seldom or never found to fail."
36. Beliefs that our father is in heaven, and that it is on earth as it is in

the heavens, are widespread. Claude Lévi-Strauss argues that among
Indians of central Brazil, certain myths which on the surface may seem to
have no connection with astronomy, are in fact concerned with the
alternation of seasons, and therefore a kind of year. In particular, he
considers the story of Asare, told among the Sherente people, concerning the
rape of a mother by her own sons (the youngest of whom is Asare), thrashing
of the sons by their father, the sons setting fire to their parents who escape
by turning into falcons, a journey by the sons which includes the digging of a
well which gushes so much water that it forms the sea, and three or so
escapes from an alligator with the help of woodpeckers, partridges, fruit rinds
and a skunk. The myth concludes: "When the sea was formed, Asare's
brothers had at once tried to bathe. Even today, toward the close of the rainy

season, one hears in the west the sound of their splashing in the water. Then
they appear in the heavens, new and clean, as Sururu, the Seven Stars (the
Pleiades)." (Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked, 1969, translation
by P. and D. Weightman of Le cru et le cuit, 1964, p. 199-200, v. 1 of
Mythologiques (Introduction to a Science of Mythology)). Lévi-Strauss quotes
J. F. Oliveira to the effect that among the Sherente, the year begins with the
appearance of the Pleiades, which coincides roughly with the beginning of the
dry season. (p. 217.).
37. According to Lévi-Strauss: "Classical antiquity associated Orion

with rain and storms. Now we have seen that in central Brazil, Orion is also
associated with water -- but terrestrial, not celestial water. In Greek and
Roman mythology Orion caused rain to fall. As Asare, the thirsty hero, Orion
makes water rise up from the depths of the earth. It is easy to understand,
since it is an obvious cosmographical fact, that the same constellation that
casues rain to fall in the northern hemisphere should be a harbinger of
drought in the southern hemisphere: in the inland areas between the equator
and the Tropic of Capricorn, the rainy season corresponds approximately to
our autumn and winter, the dry season to our spring and summer. The Asare
myth faithfully presents the "southern" version of this factual truth, since the
Pleiades and Orion which follows closely in their wake, are said to herald the
beginning of the dry season." (p. 226-227).
38. There is a problem here, since in "in one hemisphere Orion is

associated with celestial water in accordance with meteorological experience,
while in the other hemisphere, without there being any possibility of
establishing a connection with experience, symmetry is preserved by means
of an apparently incomprehensible link between Orion and water which is
chthonic in origin -- that is, celestial water conceived of, as it were, upside
down." (p. 227) Lévi-Strauss traces this opposition by way of a
transformation of a key myth of the Bororo people. He says: "It is therefore
clear that the two myths, the one belonging to the Ancient World [of
European classical antiquity] and the other to the New [Bororo of central
Brazil], are, as I postulated, reflections of each other. The apparent
inversions arise simply from the fact that while both are concerned with the
dry season, one myth refers to the beginning (after the rains) and the other to
the end (before the rains)." (ibid., p. 239).
39. The point is that myths which superficially are about incest, rape,
arduous and dangerous journeys, people turning into birds or other creatures,
and the like, may turn out to be descriptions of astronomical and associated
seasonal phenomena. However, in the view of Lévi-Strauss: "In granting
that myths have an astronomical significance, I do not propose to revert in
any way to the mistaken ideas characteristic of the solar mythography of the
nineteenth century. In my view, the astronomical context does not provide
any absolute point of reference; we cannot claim to have interpreted the
myths simply by relating them to this context. The truth of the myth does
not lie in any special content. It consists in logical relations which are devoid
of content or, more precisely, whose invariant properties exhaust their
operative value, since comparable relations can be established among the
elements of a large number of different contents."

40. "For instance, I have shown that one particular theme, such as the
origin of man's mortality, occurs in myths that appear quite different from
each other in subject matter, but that in the last analysis these differences
can be reduced to a variety of codes, evolved on the basis of the different
sense categories -- taste, hearing, smell, feel, and sight ..... In the preceding
pages, I have been solely concerned [in interpeting the myths astronomically]
to establish the existence of a different code, also a visual one, but whose
lexical material consists of contrasted pairs drawn from a stable periodicity of
the year and, on the other, of the synchronic arrangement of the stars in the
sky. This cosmographic code is no truer than any other; and it is no better,
except from the methodological point of view, as far as its operations can be
checked from without. But it is not impossible that advances in biochemistry
may one day provide objective references of the same degree of accuracy as a
check on the precision and coherence of the codes formulated in the language
of the senses. Myths are constructed on the basis of a certain logicality of
tangible qualities which makes no clear-cut distinction between subjective
states and the properties of the cosmos." (p. 240.) Thus different "codes" are
different realizations of structures of human physiology, and Lévi-Strauss
weights the different codes equally.
41. We can wonder, however, whether or not an astronomical code has

a kind of priority. According to many cosmologies, the stars and their ways
precede the living and their ways. To what extent have we developed in
consonance with celestial objects and movements? To what extent are our
physiology and thoughts tied to the stars? As described by Lévi-Strauss,
among Indians of Brazil, fire for cooking food is related to the sun: "The
mediatory function of cooking fire therefore operates between the sun and
humanity in two ways. By its presence, cooking fire averts total disjunction,
since it unites the sun and the earth and saves man from the world of
rottenness in which he would find himself if the sun really disappeared; but
its presence is also interposed; that is to say, it obviates the risk of a total
conjunction, which would would result in a burned world (p. 293.) Incest and
cannibalism in the myths are linked with eclipses, and the origin of diseases.
(p. 297.)
42. "Starting from the problem of the mythic origin of cooking," says
Lévi-Strauss, "I have been led to verify my interpretation of domestic fire as a
mediatory agent between sky and earth by reference to the myth describing
incest between blood relatives as the origin of the eclipse...... A myth about
the origin of storms and rain [the one Lévi-Strauss started with] led me to
myths about the origin of fire and the cooking of foodstuffs... I was able to
establish that all these myths belong to one and the same set ....." (p. 298,
300.) Which explains which? Do analogous actions of sun, moon and other
stars explain or describe the origin of cooking fires? Or does the analogy of
the origin of cooking fires explain or describe actions of the sun, moon and
stars? Are these interchangeable? If not, which takes precedence? Recall
Seneca on the Etruscans: "Since they attribute everything to divine agency,
they are of the opinion that things do not reveal the future because they have
occurred, but that they occur because they are meant to reveal the future."
43. Besides some roughly correct season and even (at times) weather
forecasting, there were no doubt successes in predicting such events as
attacks by enemies, since, for example, rulers probably tended to attack after

harvests, when their troops were well-supplied with food, and harvests are
correlated with the seasons. However, prediction by consulting objects in the
sky of such things as who would be victorious in a war was likely to have
been more chancy, unless, of course, the objects were arrows and spears.
Isaiah, it seems, spoke sarcastically when he said
"Come down and sit in the dust,

O virgin daughter of Babylon.....
You are wearied with your many counsels;

let them stand forth and save you,
those who divide the heavens,
who gaze at the stars,
who at the new moons predict
what shall befall you.....
they cannot deliver themselves

from the power of the flame."
(Chapter 47, The Bible, Revised Standard Version)
44. The mathematical astronomy of the Babylonians underwent a

considerable development between about 539 B.C. and 331 B.C., during the
reign of the Persians in Babylonia. It is during this period, perhaps about
450 B.C., that personal astrology, the casting of horoscopes according to birth
dates, developed. There is an old tradition that horoscopy was introduced to
the Greeks by Berossos, a Babylonian priest who founded the first Greek
school of astrology on the island of Kos about 300 B.C. However, it appears
that we have Greek horoscopes from about 150 years earlier. On the task of
personal astrology, Auguste Bouché-Leclercq, says: "The calculation of the
length of life, with an indication of the kind of death pre-assigned by the
stars, is the great work of astrology, the operation judged the most difficult
by its adepts, the most dangerous and damnable by its enemies." (Auguste
Bouché-Leclerq, L'Astrologie grecque, 1899, p. 404.)
45. Van der Waerden summarizes the development of astrology in this

part of the world in the 6th century B.C. as follows: "We have seen that,
after the fall of the Assyrian empire (- 611) the old polytheism was being
pushed aside by a new religious movement which flooded in two mighty
waves from Iran to the West. The first wave was that of Zervanism, which
reached Greece about - 550. The second was the worship of Ahura Mazda,
which was proclaimed around - 500 B.C. as the official religion of the Persian
empire. Connected with this was the doctrine of the celestial origin and
immortality of the soul. We have also seen that the old Omen astrology was
replaced, about the same time or somewhat later, by a new zodiacal
astrology, within which we have to distinguish two further stages: primitive
zodiacal astrology and horoscopy. The first is connected in the sources with
Orphism, which in its turn is most closely tied up with Zervanism. On the
other hand, horoscopy is closely connected with the doctrine of the celestial
origin of the soul; its existence can be demonstrated in Babylon about - 450

and in Greece about - 440." (ibid., p. 183.) The name of the god Zervan
Akarana means "boundless time." The Zervanists, whose sect appears to
have been formed about the 4th century B.C., were astral fatalists who
believed that "all fortune, good and ill, that befalls man, comes from the
twelve [zodiacal signs] and the seven [planets]". This quotation is given by
van der Waerden (p. 162) from a Persian book called Mainog-i Khirad or
Menok i Khrat, written sometime between 220 and 650 A.D.
46. By about 300 B.C., the Babylonians had constructed tables, based
on centuries of observations, with which they could successfully predict lunar
eclipses, and with which they could at times rule out solar eclipses. A basic
underlying problem they were trying to solve is a form of one which haunts
mathematical astronomy to this day. From one point of view, this is the
problem of predicting the day on which a new moon will occur. The days are
determined by the movement of Earth with respect to the sun (or vice versa),
while new moons are determined by the movement of the moon with respect
to Earth. Thus the combined motions of sun, moon, and Earth are involved.
The problem of predicting the movements of the sun, moon and Earth with
respect to one another, starting from Newton's laws of mechanics and
gravitation, is known today as the 3-body problem. In some important
respects, the 3-body problem is still unsolved, although a great deal is known
about some basic special cases, and there are elaborate techniques for
approximating solutions. The Babylonian methods were a kind of
approximation technique, based on interpolation, inserting calculated values
between observed values in systematic ways. As far as seems to be known at
present, the first attempts to use geometry to model the movements of
celestial objects and relations between them were made by the ancient
Greeks in the 6th century B.C. The Babylonians seem not to have made
geometrical models for this purpose, or at least none have been found.
47. We have fragments of a geometric cosmology put forward by the

philosopher Anaximander in the 6th century B.C. Anaximander may have
been the first to undertake a project of this kind. He appears to have
pictured the sky as a complete sphere rather than an inverted bowl or
hemisphere. Spheres were to become the basis of geometric cosmology for
many centuries. However, for some unknown reason, if we can trust the
fragment we have from so long ago, Anaximander seems to have proposed
that the earth is a right circular cylinder with the greatest curvature in the
north-south direction. Aside: "It was Henry Ibsen who said that the value of
a truth lasted about fifteen years, then it rotted into error." (James Huneker,
Old Fogy, 1913, quoted in A New Dictionary of Quotations, 1942, edited by H.
L. Mencken, p. 1226.)
48. The arithmetical predictions of the Babylonians and the geometric

construction of the heavens by the classical Greek philosophers contrast in a
startling way with other cosmologies of that era in the Near East, and with
other ancient Greek cosmologies, in which the heavens are peopled with gods
who often act unpredictably and capriciously. Geometric cosmologies were
developed extensively by astronomers and philosophers of nature during the
next several centuries after the time of Anaximander. Plato and Aristotle, in
the 4th century B.C., made use of the work of these pre-Socratic thinkers in
developing their own cosmologies. We find in the works of Plato and Aristotle
the first extended and detailed reports, which we still have today, of

cosmologies based on geometry, as developed by Eudoxus of Cnidus and other
mathematical astronomers of the time. They had enormous influence on the
development of Western cosmologies from the time they were composed. The
special kind of certainty which geometric models seem to reveal about the
movements of the heavens, blended with an older personification and
deification of heavenly objects, were, it appears, instrumental in the
development of astrology.
49. Geometric models in astronomy developed hand in hand with

geometry itself. Eudoxus of Cnidus (4th century B.C.) is said to have been a
student of Plato. He was one of the great astronomers, and also one of the
great geometers, of his time. Besides being the source of the mathematical
astronomy of Aristotle, he was, as we mentioned earlier, a possible supporter
of astrology. In astronomy, he developed an elaborate cosmology based on
spheres moving on spheres. In geometry, he developed a theoretical and
logically satisfying theory of magnitudes corresponding to our real numbers.
This theory, which has been preserved in Euclid's geometry book, the
Elements (c. 300 B.C.) is much like one developed by the German
mathematician Richard Dedekind about the middle of the 19th century (as
Dedekind himself stated). This system is in use today. Eudoxus seems also
to have invented the method of exhaustion for finding areas and volumes, a
method which is much like an application of the definite integrals of calculus
we use today for this purpose, although not formulated as generally. With
this method, he found an equivalent of our formulas for the area of a circle,
and the volumes of a right circular cylinder, sphere and cone.
50. The Elements of Euclid was (or were) the principal introduction to
geometry for over 2000 years, and the geometry it contained has had, and
continues to have, many terrestrial as well as celestial applications. More
than that, the Elements has served as a model of a kind of attainment of
certainty -–given the initial assumptions, the axioms and postulates -- which
people have often tried to extend to other domains besides geometry. Euclid's
method, commonly known today as the axiomatic method, was described, in
one form, by Aristotle in his works on logic, especially in the Posterior
Analytics. It appears that Eudoxus originated the self-conscious and explicit
use of this method, and so was one of the founders of a philosophical tradition
of thinking about thinking, and reasoning about reasoning. The science of
deductive logic founded by Plato, and even more Aristotle, was based in
important respects on extrapolation from this method of the
mathematicians.
51. It is curious, and rather sobering, to notice that versions of Euclid's

Elements quite faithful to the original, or at least to parts of it, were used in
elementary instruction for over 2000 years, but that this practice has been
discontinued in the course of the past two centuries. The change began after
the French Revolution of 1789, and was part of a general rejection of learning
of the past. Some distance into the 20th century, textbooks in the United
States still bore considerable resemblance to Euclid's Elements, despite the
alleged reforms of the previous century, but today this is no longer so. It
appears that Euclid's Elements, in forms faithful to the originals, have gone
the way of Newton's Principia in forms faithful to the originals. They are
structures of the past, antiques, no longer functional except indirectly, by
way of their influences. And yet, it's not a bad idea, at any rate in the case of

Euclid, than to study a translation of Euclid into a modern language as part
of one’s mathematical education, especially if one is training to be a
mathematician or natural scientist.
52. There are modern versions of Euclid's Elements in which certain

logical deficiencies of Euclid's _Elements have been removed. A central one
has been the Grundlagen der Geometrie (Foundations of Geometry) of David
Hilbert (1st edition, 1899; last edition during Hilbert's lifetime, 1930; there
have been two translations into English). However, the spirit of Euclid
maintained by Hilbert has given way to a large extent to the use of numerical
coordinates, based on the analytic (or algebraic) geometry associated with the
name of Descartes. We no longer make children associate how they see with
how they reason in the direct way Euclid did, but rather with how they count,
and this is usually presented in books in colorful language and with colorful
pictures. Stephen Leacock may have had an explanation for the way
elementary geometry books in schools look today, when he said: "To make
education attractive! There it is! To call in the help of poetry, of music, of
grand opera, if need be, to aid in the teaching of the dry subjects of the college
class room..... Here, for example, you have Euclid writing in a perfectly
prosaic way all in small type such an item as the following: "A perpendicular
is let fall on a line BC so as to bisect it at the point C, etc., etc.," just as if it
were the most ordinary occurrence in the world. Every newspaper man will
see at once that it ought to be set up thus:
"AWFUL CATASTROPHE
PERPENDICULAR FALLS HEADLONG
ON A GIVEN POINT
The Line at C said to be completely bisected
President of the Line makes Statement
etc., etc., etc."
(Stephen Leacock, "Education Made Agreeable", from Moonbeams from

the Larger Lunacy_ 1915, p. 155, 159.) The best translation into English of
Euclid's Elements is by Thomas Heath (1925, reprinted by Dover, 1956 and
later). Heath provides copious notes to guide one in studying the work.)
53. To apply the axiomatic method found in Euclid's geometry, one

starts from basic statements usually called axioms or postulates (although
hypotheses or assumptions would amount to about the same), taken as true
for purposes of reasoning (though in some applications, they may not be true,
or true enough), and using some rules of logic, derives chains of statements
linking the axioms to other statements, called theorems, which are then also
taken to be true, and then may be regarded, if one chooses, as axioms
themselves. These chains of statements make up proofs of the theorems.
Sometimes the term propositions is used instead of theorems, but often
propositions are taken to be statements to be proved, if possible, rather than
statements already proved. Thus a proposition may turn out to be true or
false or undecided or even undecidable in a certain sense, depending on
whether or not a proof or counterexample or neither has been found, and on
whether or not a proof or counterexample can be found within the given
axiomatic system. Since axioms are not proved, but taken as a basis for
application of the method, problems arise of deciding on the validity of the

axioms and their theorems when making applications. If the axioms or
theorems are meant to be applied to the movements of physical objects, on
Earth or in the heavens, one way to test their validity is by using them to
make predictions about the places and shapes of physical objects, and seeing
whether or not the predictions come true, at least to within some margin of
error taken to be allowable. From this point of view, geometry is an empirical
science, perhaps the earliest such science. However, some philosophers have
held that the axioms of geometry are statements about the way people, or
their minds or brains, are constituted, and especially about the way we are
constrained to see the wo rld with our eyes. It is from this, one may maintain,
that many of the axioms of geometry get the peculiar certainty they have.
54. From another point of view, the Elements of Euclid is a treatise on

the five regular solids: the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and
icosahedron. The last "book" or chapter of the Elements treats these solids,
and a good deal of what went before in the Elements is used in this last
chapter. The regular solids are solids in which all of the faces of any one of
them are congruent plane figures with equal sides and angles. The 4 faces of
the tetrahedron, the 8 faces of the octahedron and the 20 faces of the
icosahedron are equilateral triangles, the 6 faces of a cube are squares, and
the 12 faces of a dodecahedron are regular pentagons. In the _Elements_,
Euclid shows how to construct these solids, establishing along the way
theorems which have many other applications. He also shows that these five
are the only regular solids which can be theoretically constructed in a way
consistent with his axioms and postulates. These regular solids were
discovered before the time of Euclid, and even before the time of Plato. Plato
used them as an important component of his cosmology in his dialogue
Timaeus. Kepler used them in a vital way later, near the end of the 16th
century A.D., in his cosmology of our solar system.
55. Another famous astronomer and geometer of ancient Greece was

Apollonius, who worked in the early part of the 3rd century B.C. Apollonius
had a major influence on the development of astronomy by virtue of his
mathematical model of the solar system based on eccentric and epicyclic
motions. An eccentric motion is one which takes place with a constant speed
on a circle, but is referred to a point inside the circle other than the center of
the circle. An epicyclic motion is one which takes place on a circle rotating at
a constant speed about its center, with this center on another circle also
rotating at a constant speed. Among other things, Apollonius seems to have
shown that any eccentric motion can be interpreted as an epicyclic motion,
and conversely. The major mathematical work of Apollonius concerned the
mathematical figures known as conic sections, which had been discovered by
earlier mathematicians. The conic sections are cut out when a plane is
passed through a complete right circular cone. Aside from certain special
cases, known as degenerate conics, the conic sections comprise the ellipses
(including the circles), the parabolas, and the hyperbolas. One of the songs of
Gilbert and Sullivan is about the practicality of conic sections:
"I am the very model of a modern Major-General;.....
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,

About the binomial theorem, I'm teeming with a lot of news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.....
I quote, in Elegiacs, all the crimes of Heliogabalus!

In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous."
(W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance, 1880, Act 1.)
An easy way to generate ellipses is to shine a flashlight on a flat surface like

a desk or table, and tilt the flashlight back and forth. The cone in this case is
the light generated by the flashlight, and the plane being passed through the
cone is the desk top. The lighted spot is then in the form of an ellipse (to a
good approximation), though sometimes just the boundary of the lighted spot
is called an ellipse. You can also generate the beginnings of an hyperbola by
holding a flashlight lengthways on a wall.
To see one way conic sections could have been used by the ancient Greeks,
consider a person looking with one eye at the sun (but only very briefly). A
cone can be formed with its apex at the person's eye, using as generators rays
from the eye to points on the circumference of a circular disk representing the
sun. An imaginary plane through this part of the cone, which meets all thexd
generators of the cone, but doesn't go through the eye, will have an ellipse in
common with the cone. Here one should take ellipse to mean a curve, like the
boundary of the flashlight spot. If one takes the generators to be rays from an
eye to all the points on the circumference and inside of a circular disk
reprenting the sun, then one would get an ellipse in the sense of a flat region,
like the entire flashlight spot. If the plane is imagined to contain the center
of the moon, we have the beginning of a mathematical model for representing
a lunar eclipse. It is likely that a primary motive and use for study of conic
sections by the ancient Greeks was to provide models for such astronomical
phenomena as eclipses.
56. Kepler, in developing his cosmology of the solar system in the late
1500's and early 1600's, used the mathematics of conic sections as developed
by Apollonius in deriving his three planetary laws, which became part of the
basis for Newton's law of gravity and its application to our solar system.
Newton, in the latter 1600's, showed that if two bodies in the universe are
sufficiently isolated from other bodies, then the paths they will follow because
of the gravitational attraction between them will be conic sections. The
simplest case is when one body is much smaller than the other, e.g. a comet
moving around the sun. The theory of Newton predicts that if we ignore the
influence of the moon, other planets, etc., and regard the sun as fixed, then
the orbit of the earth around the sun is an ellipse with the sun at one focus.
This had already been projected and verified by Kepler for Mars and the sun,
as the simplest curve consistent with the observations of Tycho Brahe and
Kepler's own planetary laws. Thus an essential part of our modern view of
the solar system rests, by way of Kepler, on the regular solids, discovered
some 2400 or 2500 years ago by members of a tradition of mathematics
founded by the classical Greeks, and on the geometry subsequently developed
or formulated by such mathematicians and astronomers as Eudoxus, Euclid,
and Apollonius.

57. Kepler's contemporary Galileo, also very influential on Newton,
made much of the mathematics of Archimedes, one of the other great
mathematicians of antiquity, who worked somewhat later than Apollonius in
the 3rd century B.C. Galileo often referred to Archimedes using such phrases
as "the divine Archimedes" or the "superhuman Archimedes" (in Italisn).
Archimedes extended the work of Eudoxus on volumes of spheres, right
circular cylinders and right circular cones, and found a very accurate
approximation to the number which is the ratio of the circumference of a
circle to its diameter, the number we call ð. He also described a method of
expressing larger and larger whole numbers, formulated and proved laws of
equilibrium for levers and floating bodies, and a method of finding the area of
a parabolic segment. He seems to have been the first to introduce
mathematical methods into the study of forces in the universe, although
there is a precedent in Aristotle's works.
58. In astronomy, Archimedes attempted to calculate the volume of the

universe. He used two proposals for the radius of the universe. One which
was conventionally accepted in the time of Archimedes was that the radius of
the universe is the radius of our solar system. The other was based on the
proposal by Aristarchus, an astronomer roughly contemporaneous with
Archimedes, some 1800 years before Copernicus, that the sun is the center
about which the earth revolves , and that the radius of Earth's orbit is
negligible compared with the radius of the spherical surface on which the
fixed stars lie. In this spirit, Archimedes assumed that the ratio of the radius
of our solar system is to the radius of the universe as the ratio of the radius of
Earth's orbit is to the radius of our solar system. Archimedes calculated that
with this assumption, the universe would have room for no more than 1063
grains of sand, whereas with the conventional radius it would have room for
no more than 1053 grains of sand (Otto Neugebauer, A History of Ancient
Astronomy, 1975, Part Two, p. 646).
59. Another great Greek astronomer was Hipparchus, who lived in the
2nd century B.C. Building on the earlier work of Eudoxus and other
astronomers, he developed an elaborate cosmology using spheres moving on
spheres, but the system of Hipparchus was simpler and at the same time
more comprehensive than the one which had grown out of the work of
Eudoxus. Hipparchus also accumulated quite accurate observations of the
relative positions and motions of the main celestial objects visible without
magnification. By virtue of some tables of ratios which he used in his work,
he is often regarded as the originator of trigonometry. He also extended the
work of Aristarchus on calculating the distances of our moon and sun from
Earth.
60. Even before the decline of Greek political power in the 3rd century
B.C., a school of Greek astronomers had arisen in Alexandria, Egypt, in the
midst of a culture much older than that of the Greeks. It was in Alexandria,
about 140 A.D., that Ptolemy wrote his Megale mathematike syntaxis or
"Great mathematical treatise", later known as the Almagest, from an Arabic
form of a Greek word meaning "the greatest". This work was a synthesis and
extension of the whole astronomical tradition which had been initiated by the
Greeks some 750 years before, and the Babylonians even earlier than that.
To feel how long 750 years is, we have 2000 - 750 = 1250, so working
backward about 750 years from our own time, we come to the year 1250,

some 300 years before the time of Copernicus, who may be regarded in part
as a continuer of the Greek astronomy, and in part as the introducer of a
revolutionary new view in astronomy. In the year 1250, European scholars
were still trying to come to terms with the Greek geometry and cosmologies
with which they had lost contact for a long period (perhaps itself about 750
years), during which European scholarship in matters we now consider to be
subjects of the sciences had slowed down for various economic, religious and
other reasons.
61. In Ptolemy's treatise on the heavens, Earth is taken as the center of

the physical universe. Ptolemy offers a number of arguments based on the
physics of his time that this is so. For example, Ptolemy says: "... the
revolving motion of the earth must be the most violent of all motions
associated with it, seeing that it makes one revolution in such a short time [a
day]; the results would be that all objects not actually standing on the earth
would appear to have the same motion, opposite to that of the earth; neither
clouds nor or other flying or thrown objects would ever be seen moving
toward the east, since the earth's motion toward the east would always
outrun and overtake them, so that all other objects would seem to move in
the direction of the west and the rear. But if they said that the air is carried
around in the same direction and with the same speed as the earth, the
compound objects in the air would none the less always seem to be left behind
by the motion of both [earth and air]; or if those objects too were carried
around, fused, as it were, to the air, then they would never appear to have
any motion either in advance or rearwards: they would always appear still,
neither wandering or changing position, whether they were flying or thrown
objects. Yet we quite plainly see that they do undergo all these kinds of
motion, in such a way that they are not even slowed down or speeded up at
all by any motion of the earth." (_Ptolemy's Almagest, translated and
annotated by G. J. Toomer, 1984, p.45.) This argument by Ptolemy comes
after a number of arguments in favor of a spherical movement of the heavens,
as the only motion consistent with the phenomena, i.e. observations. He
argues also that the earth is spherical, and in the middle of the heavens.
These arguments are largely based on geometric relations which are
consistent with what is observed. Ptolemy's theories were usually based on
as accurate observations as were then available.
62. According to Ptolemy, the moon, sun and then-known planets are
observed to revolve about Earth in the order Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The stars are taken to be at a great distance from
Earth -- even at an "infinite distance" from Earth, whatever that might be
taken to mean. Still, Ptolemy held that they revolved around Earth every
day. They certainly appear to do this. Most of Ptolemy's treatise, about 600
of the approximately 650 pages in the translation by Toomer, is dedicated to
elaborate mathematical procedures, calculations and tables which made it
possible to predict, at any time, the future positions of the sun, moon and
planets relative to Earth and the stars. On the whole, the accuracy was
within the limits imposed by using measurements made with human eyes
alone. Ptolemy started with relatively crude approximations using
periodically repeating motions. Then he improved on the approximations by
"perturbing" the basic motions with corrective periodic motions of greater and
greater frequency, successively added to the basic motion. Modern

mathematicians will recognize the spirit of approximation using Fourier
series and perturbation techniques.
63. Ptolemy argues "that the earth has the ratio of a point to the
heavens" (ibid., p. 43). The most telling argument here is that "the sizes and
distances of of the stars, at any given time, appear equal and the same from
all parts of the earth everywhere, as observations of the same [celestial]
objects from different latitudes are found to have not the least discrepancy
from each other" (ibid.). In modern terms, no stellar parallax is observed.
Indeed, this is impossible except with very refined instruments, and Ptolemy
was relying on naked eye observations. Ptolemy uses this property of Earth,
that it is a mere point as compared to the heavens, to explain why the great
weight of the earth doesn't cause it to move, even though it isn't supported by
anything. "For when one looks at it that way, it will seem quite possible that
that which is relatively smallest should be overpowered and pressed in
equally from all directions to a position of equilibrium by that which is the
greatest of all and of uniform nature." (ibid., p. 44) Ptolemy gave a program
for predicting the future, based on observational astronomy. Given initial
positions at some time, it became possible to say where the sun, moon and
planets would be for times in the future, very nearly. And it became possible
to say where these bodies were at times past. Ptolemy's methods and results
were not improved on in essentials for some 14 centuries.
64. In medieval Europe, the systems of Ptolemy and Aristotle were

integrated into Christian theological doctrine, and a kind of official consensus
about the structure of the universe was formed. There were numerous
variations and many details, but the elegant description by Andrew White
gives the general ideas: "The earth is no longer a flat plain inclosed by four
walls and solidly vaulted above, as theologians of previous centuries had
believed it, under the inspiration of Cosmas [6th century A.D.]; it is no longer
a mere flat disk, with sun, moon, and stars hung up to give it light, as the
earlier cathedral sculpture had figured it; it has become a globe at the centre
of the universe. Encompassing it are successive transparent spheres, rotated
by angels about the earth, and each carrying one or more of the heavenly
bodies with it: that nearest the earth carrying the moon; the next, Mercury;
the next, Venus; the next, the sun; the next three, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn;
the eighth carrying the fixed stars. The ninth was the primum mobile, and
inclosing all was the tenth heaven -- the Empyrean. This was immovable --
the boundary between creation and the great outer void; and here, in a light
which no one can enter, the Triune God sat enthroned, the 'music of the
spheres' rising to Him as they moved. Thus was the old heathen doctrine of
the spheres made Christian." (Andrew D. White, A History of the Warfare of
Science with Theology in Christendom, 1896, v. 1, p. 118-120.)
65. White continues: "In attendance upon the Divine Majesty, thus
enthroned, are vast hosts of angels, who are divided into three hierarchies,
one serving in the empyrean, one in the heavens, between the empyrean and
the earth, and one on the earth. Each of these hierarchies is divided into
three choirs, or orders; the first, into the orders of Seraphim, Cherubim, and
Thrones; and the main occupation of these is to chant incessantly -- to
'continually cry' the divine praises. The order of Thrones conveys God's will
to the second hierarchy, which serves in the movable heavens. This second
hierarchy is also made up of three orders. The first of these, the order of

Dominions, receives the divine commands; the second, the order of Powers,
moves the heavens, sun, moon, planets, and stars, opens and shits the
'windows of heaven', and brings to pass all other celestial phenomena; the
third, the order of Empire, guards the others. The third and lowest hierarchy
is also made up of three orders. First of these are the Principalities, the
guardian spirits of nations and kingdoms. Next come Archangels; these
protect religion, and bear the prayers of the saints to the foot of God's throne.
Finally come the Angels; these care for earthly affairs in general, one being
appointed to each mortal, and others taking charge of the qualities of plants,
metals, stones, and the like. Throughout the whole system, from the great
Triune God to the lowest group of angels, we see at work the mystic power
attached to the triangle and sacred number three -- the same which gave the
triune idea to ancient Hindu theology, which developed the triune deities in
Egypt, and which transmitted this theological gift to the Christian world,
especially through the Egyptian Athanasius." (White, ibid.)
66. "Below the earth is hell. This is tenanted by the angels who
rebelled under the lead of Lucifer, prince of seraphim -- the former favourite
of the Trinity; but, of these rebellious angels, some still rove among the
planetary spheres, and give trouble to the good angels; others pervade the
atmosphere about the earth, carrying lightning, storm, drought, and hail;
others infest earthly society, tempting men to sin; but Peter Lombard and St.
Thomas Aquinas take pains to show that the work of these devils is, after all,
but to discipline man or to mete out deserved punishment. All this vast
scheme had been so riveted into the Ptolemaic view by use of biblical texts
and theological reasonings that the resultant system of the universe was
considered impregnable and final. To attack it was blasphemy. It stood for
centuries. Great theological men of science, like Vincent of Beauvais and
Cardinal d'Ailly, devoted themselves to showing not only that it was
supported by Scripture, but that it supported Scripture. Thus was the
geocentric theory embedded in the beliefs and aspirations, in the hopes and
fears, of Christendom down to the middle of the sixteenth century." (White,
ibid.)
67. White's description, however, doesn't do justice to the amount of

disagreement among medieval scholars. Edward Grant describes the popular
view of the world among Aristotelian scholastics in the late Middle Ages, with
a minimum of explicit reference to theological and astrological questions:
"The cosmos was an enormous, finite, unique material sphere filled
everywhere with matter. It was divided into two basic parts, celestial and
terrestrial. Beginning with the lunar sphere and extending all the way to the
sphere of the fixed stars, and even beyond to the empyrean sphere, the
celestial region was conceived as filled with a perfect, incorruptible ether
which moved with a perfect, uniform circular motion and from which the
celestial spheres were formed."
68. "In contrast with the heavens, where the only activity was the
uniform, circular motion of the spheres, the terrestrial region, lying below the
concavity of the lunar sphere and descending to the geometric centre of the
universe, was characterized by incessant change as the bodies within it came
into being and passed away. These terrestrial bodies were compounded of
four elements, earth, water, air and fire, each of which had its own natural
place and the innate capacity for natural motion toward that place. The

dominant element in any body determined the direction of its natural motion,
which was always toward the natural place of the dominant element. When
unimpeded earthy bodies always fell naturally toward the centre of the
universe and fiery bodies rose toward the lunar concavity. Watery bodies
would rise in the natural place of earth and fall in the natural place of fire
while airy bodies rose in the natural places of earth and water and fell when
located in the region of fire. Since the celestial region was judged more noble
than the terrestrial, the former regularly influenced the behaviour of organic
and inorganic bodies in the latter. Despite the contact of the convex surface
of the sphere of fire, which was the outermost surface of the terrestrial
region, with the concave surface of the lunar sphere, which was the
innermost surface of the celestial region, the influences were all
unidirectional, from the celestial to the terrestrial." (Edward Grant, "The
longevity of Aristotelianism", p. 94-95, in History of Science, June 1978, v.
16, p. 93-106).
69. Grant observes: "The basic, skeletal frame described here was
probably instrumental in the longevity of the Aristotelian world view [in the
Middle Ages]. In the judgment of C. S. Lewis, 'The human imagination has
seldom had before it an object so sublimely ordered as the medieval cosmos.'
By the magnificent simplicity of its fundamental structure, it satisfied the
European mind, psychologically and intellectually, for some 450 years. It
was this physical frame on which, and in which, the Christian God of the
Middle Ages had exercised His wisdom and distributed angels and powers."
(Grant, ibid., p. 95.)
70. But, says Grant, although the Aristotelian scholars of western

Europe largely agreed on the fundamental structure of the world, they by no
means agreed on the details of cosmic operations. Discussions of the way
things work were characterized by a diversity of opinion and lack of
agreement. For example, says Grant: "We have seen that all were agreed
that the celestial region, composed of a near-perfect fifth element, or ether,
was conceived as a region of incorruptibility and the ultimate source of all
physical influence on that part of the world lying below the moon. It was the
locale of the planets and fixed stars moving around the earth as centre. But
what was that celestial region really like? Was it, as St. Bonaventure
argued, a fluid mass, or was it subdivided into a series of solid, and perhaps
hollow, spheres, as Themon Judaeus would have it? Those who decided on
spheres had then to determine their number. Based on a variety of
circumstances and requirements, estimates varied from eight to eleven, with
some accepting an outermost Empyrean sphere, and others denying its
existence."
71. "And what of the relationship between these orbs? Were they
contiguous -- that is, distinct and separate, as indicated by their diverse and
contrary motions -- as MIchael Scot and Albert of Saxony gelieved; or did
they form a continuous whole, sharing common surfaces by virtue of their
identical, homogeneous composition, as Thomas Aquinas and others believed?
What, or who, could be identified as the movers of celestial spheres? Angels,
intelligences, souls, natural inclinations, and impressed forces were all
suggested and partisans for each could be found. And what about
relationships between celestial motions? Were they commensurable or
incommensurable? Although all were agreed that no material body existed

beyond the last mobile sphere to serve as its physical container or place, the
question of the place of the last sphere was a persistent one. In his
discussion of the problem, Averroes included five separate solutions of which
he was aware. Four of them found supporters in the Latin Middle Ages, to
which one must add a fifth developed in the sixteenth century." (Grant, ibid.,
p. 96.)
72. As to things below: "Multiple solutions were also proposed for a

wide range of problems concerned with the terrestrial region of perpetual
generation and corruption, For example, scholastic could not agree on the
cause by which an element moved to its natural place; nor could they agree
whether the cause of violent motion was external or internal, or whether a
resistant medium was required for finite, temporal motion. There were in
disagreement as to whether an element in a compound retained its elemental
form. Some were of the opinion that, as geologic changes caused the earth's
centre of gravity to shift, the entire earth moved as its new centre of gracity
sought to coincide with the geometruc centre of the universe." (Grant, ibid.,
p. 96). For many of the problems considered by the medieval natural
philosophers, a strong consensus emerged for some one solution, but for some
problems there were two or more strong contenders for solutions, and the
problems stayed unresolved. How, Grant asks, with the means at their
disposal, could they have determined whether or not the celestial region was
a fluid mass or a system of hard spheres? Or what really moved the spheres?
Or how many spheres really existed? (Grant, ibid., p. 96-97.)
73. In considering the changes in astronomy brought about by

Copernicus (1473-1543), it is well to keep in mind the evaluation of his work
made by N. M. Smerdlow and Otto Neugebauer in their detailed study of the
major work of Copernicus, the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543).
They say: "Copernicus made one fundamental innovation in planetary theory
[making the sun as center of coordinates], the consequences of which only
became evident in the work of Kepler and Newton. In the remainder of his
astronomy, he was one of the last representatives of a tradition extending
from Hipparchus, or better Ptolemy, to his most direct predecessor,
Regiomontanus [1436-1476], whose Epitome of the Almagest was his guide to
the astronomy of Ptolemy, and may have provided the crucial step to the
heliocentric theory."
74. "The tradition of Ptolemaic astronomy received, in the course of

nearly fourteen centuries, many additions and modifications, of non-
Ptolemaic Greek, Indian, Arabic, and last of all, European origin. Copernicus
was heir to some fraction of these, but fundamentally his astronomy, in
common with the most sophisticated astronomy of the intervening period,
rests upon the work of Ptolemy. And even the principal ways in which he
differs from Ptolemy -- except for the heliocentric theory -- are part of an
Arabic tradition concerned more with internal problems in Ptolemy's work
than with new descriptions of the motions of the planets, something that did
not occur until the observational and theoretical innovations of Tycho and
Kepler. The background to Copernicus's astronomy is of course the entire
accumulation of observations, procedures, models, and parameters since the
time of Ptolemy, in so far as they were transmitted to Copernicus. But out of
this large and diverse body of material, what is the most important to
consider here are the general ptinciples of Ptolemy's mathematical and

physical astronomy, the interesting modifications in the latter made by the
astronomers of Maragha in the thirteenth and fourteenth centureies, and the
rebirth of a true understanding of Ptolemaic astronomy in Europe through
the work of Regiomontanus." (N. M. Smerdlow and Otto Neugebauer,
Mathematical Astronomy in Copernicus's De Revolutionibus, 1984, v. 1, p.
33).
75. "Copernicus," said Kepler, "ignorant of his own riches, took it upon
himself for the most part to represent Ptolemy, not nature, to which he had
nevertheless come the closest of all." This is cited by Smerdlow and
Neugebauer as a famous and just assessment of Copernicus (ibid., p. 483.)
76. It has often been said that the Copernican heliocentric theory was
superior to the Ptolemaic theory because it was simpler. However, Smerdlow
and Neugebauer observe: "Anyone who thinks that Copernican theory is
"simpler" than Ptolemaic theory has never looked at Book III of De
revolutionibus. In a geocentric system the earth is at rest -- as indeed it
appears to be -- and any apparent motions in the heavens that we know to
result from its motions are distributed among a number of objects, i.e. the
sun, the individual planets, the sphere of the fixed stars, everything in its
proper place as it actually appears. But when Copernicus worked through
the consequences of his own theory, he had to attribute to the earth no less
than three fundamental motions and a number of secondary motions. That
all these compounded motions forced upon a single and, to all appearances,
quiescent body seemed implausible to his contemporaries is not to be
wondered at, especially because the end result was nothing other than
reproducing the same apparent motions in the heavens that had been
accounted for all along (and without making assumptions that contradicted
contemporary natural philosophy, common sense, and the most casual or
most meticulous observations then possible of the behavior of the earth and
of objects on or near its surface)." (Smerdlow and Neugebauer, ibid., p. 127.)
77. Copernicus's belief in the superiority of his own theory was based
on such facts as these: In his system, the order and distances of the planets
could be unambiguously determined, and shown to form a single harmonious
whole. In the geocentric theory, only relative radii of eccentrics and epicycles
were known, and for one planet at a time -- there were no relations between
radii for different planets. Using the heliocentric theory, it was possible to
explain a number of other puzzling features of the Ptolemaic theory, such as
why the centers of the epicycles of the inferior planets (Mercury and Venus)
lie in the direction of the sun, why the radii of the epicycles of the superior
planets (the other known planets) stay parallel to the direction from the
earth to the sun, and so on.
78. In connection with why Copernicus chose to adopt a heliocentric

system for the planets, Smerdlow and Neugebauer remark: "Some rather far-
fetched answers have been given, with a lot of hand-waving in the direction of
Neoplatonism, Hermes Trismegistus, and ... sun-worshipping. Although one
could perhaps say that anyone in 1510 who was capable of believing that the
earth moved was capable of believing anything -- and there is no telling what
strange things Copernicus believed -- it seems to us that there is no
foundation for these claims. Among other reasons, they are based on the
highly anachronistic belief that the heliocentric theory and the motion of the

earth were entirely obvious and there for the taking if only one had the
correct metaphysical or mystical faith. But this is simply untrue. Copernicus
arrived at the heliocentric theory by a careful analysis of planetary models --
and as far as is known, he was the only person of his age to do so -- and if he
chose to adopt it, he did so one the basis of an equally careful analysis."
(Smerdlow and Neugebauer, ibid., p. 59.)
79. As to why Copernicus was so reluctant to publish his results,

Smerdlow and Neugebauer observe that Copernicus undoubtedly realized
"that he had not been able to prove the motion of the earth, but only argue
with greater or lesser persuasiveness for its plausibility, a distinction that is
crucial to understanding his difficulty. Copernicus was no fool. He knew
what he could and could not do, and little service has been done to his
reputation by the common biographical tradition that he had thoroughly
proved his case and merely feared that the rest of the rold would be too
stupid to understand. He was in the situation -- not infrequent in the
sciences, in scholarship, in law -- of being certain that he was right, but
lacking conclusive proof. And to make matters worse, he believed he was
right about something so unusual that others would find it, not merely
uncertain or doubtful, but impossible and even absurd, This was the
difficulty for his reluctance to publish, and for the controversial solution that
accompanied the published book." (Smerdlow and Neugebauer, ibid., p. 20.)
80. The "controversial solution" is a reference to a preface by a

Lutheran minister, Andreas Osiander (1498-1552) to the first edition of the
De revolutionibus, in which Osiander "pretty much said that astronomy is
filled with absurdities, that it is essentially impossible for astronomical
hypotheses to reach true causes -- unless they are divinely revealed -- and
that anyone who takes them as true will depart from astronomy a greater
fool than when he entered." (ibid., p. 29.) It is of some interest to note that
Georg Rheticus (1514-1574), who seems to have been Copernicus's only
disciple and the person who finally convinced Copernicus to publish his
principal work, was an ardent astrologer. (cf. Smerdlow and Neugebauer,
ibid., p. 23.)
81. Many conclusions about the reception and effects of Copernican's

heliocentric theory have been made by people comfortably ignorant of the
vast mathematical and observational difficulties involved in it, and its close
connection, as far as astronomers were concerned, with the geocentric
theories of Ptolemy and later astronomers. It may be argued that it is not
necessary to understand or even be aware of these complexities in order to
gauge the effect of the theory on non-astronomers of the time, who
themselves were unaware of these complexities. Still, it is easy to
misevaluate the influence of a theory if one doesn't understand very much of
the theory.
82. For example, it is often said that one effect of the placing of the sun
at the center of the solar system by Copernicus in the 16th century caused
men to stop thinking of themselves as being the most important of creatures
since they no longer could think of themselves as the center of the universe.
However, while Ptolemy placed Earth at the center of the universe, he made
Earth a mere point at the center, in comparison with the immensity of the
heavens. This, together with widespread beliefs about the corruptibility of

Earth, as compared with the incorruptibility of the heavens, didn't leave
Earth in a very enviable position.
83. An example from as late as Renaissance England of how the place

of Earth was viewed before heliocentrism is given by Francis Johnson: "In
preparing English minds for the rejection of Aristotle's scientific doctrines,
the _Zodiacus vitae_ of Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus played a very
significant part..... this extremely popular little book [was] first printed at
Venice about 1531. In England no other Latin poem of the Renaissance,
except perhaps the eclogues of Mantuan, was so well known or so universally
admired..... As early as 1560 an English translation, by Barnaby Googe, of
the first three books was published ... and in 1565 Googe's translation of the
entire poem was published ... under the title of The Zodiake of life..... The
many references to Palingenius in Elizabethan literature, together with the
fact that most schoolboys had been required to study it and that many
unlearned Englishmen had read it in Googe's popular translation, prove that
his influence on contemporary thought must have been very great. Like most
long poems of the Renaissance, the Zodiacus vitae was intended by its author
as a summary of all learning, and a wide variety of philosophic and scientific
ideas of the past were introduced and discussed .... Palingenius, although
conceiving the stars to be attached to the eighth sphere, maintains that they
are innumerable, that they are not of the same size (many of them being too
small to be seen), and that the stars are many times the size of the earth. He
also mentions, in passing, the idea of certain early Greek philosophers,
especially Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Leucippus, that every star was a
world, and our earth merely one of the stars, and states:
"... some have thought yt euery starre a worlde we well may call, _
The earth they count a darkened starre, whereas the least of all."_
(Francis Johnson, Astronomical Thought in Renaissance England, 1968, p.

145-147.)
84. Along these lines, S. K. Heninger, Jr., remarks that in the

Somnium Scipionis (Dream of Scipio), Cicero (105-43 B.C.)) reports how
Scipio, looking down from heaven, is struck by the triviality of the earth
compared to the vastness of the panorama spread beneath him. When
Macrobius (c. 400 A.D.) came to this passage in his commentary on the
Somnium, he confirmed this sentiment that denigrated man and his
habitation. This is the same image presented by Ptolemy in a more scientific
context. J. D. North refers to the remarks of Cicero and Macrobius as being
possibly the source of a similar comment by Boethius (c. 475-524) in his De
consolatione philosophiae (On the Consolations of Philosophy), which in turn
has an echo in some lines from the poem The Parliament of Fowls [Fools]_ of
Chaucer (c. 1345-1400): "Thanne shewede he hym the lytel Erthe, that here
is, / At regard of the hevenes quantite ....." And there are theselines from
Chaucers's Troilus and Criseyde:
And down from thennes faste he gan avyse

This litel spot of erthe, that with the see
Embraced us, and fully gan despise
This wretched world, and held al vanite

To respect of the pleyn felicite
That is in hevene above ...
(J. D. North, Chaucer's Universe (1988), p. 11-12.)
85. The view of Earth as infinitesimal and wretched (so different from
the view from the moon relayed by astronauts) continued to be a
commonplace in the Renaissance. It was solemnly cited by the English
educator Robert Recorde, in his address in 1556 to students encouraging
them to be diligent. For Recorde, Henninger says, the study of cosmography -
- which Recorde took to include astronomy, astrology and geography -- is a
kind of moral choice. "We may grovel as groundlings among the brutes, or we
may turn our attention up the scale of being and aspire after angels in the
empyrean." (S. K. Henninger, Jr., The Cosmographical Glass, Renaissance
Diagrams of the Universe, 1977, p. 11-12.)
86. Montaigne (1533-1592) wrote his essays (published 1580-1595) in

the years in which the impact of Copernicanism was just beginning to be felt,
and Montaigne appears to have had little interest in it, except to implicitly
resist its implications. In the "Apology For Raimond Sebond", he quotes
Manilius: "And, what is more, God himself does not begrudge the world the
shape of the heavens; he shows his face and body always revolving; and he
impresses and presents himself so he can be better known, and teach us by
seeing what he is, and teach us to attend to his laws." (Manilius,
Astronomica (1st century A.D.), IV, 907; text on p. 1806 of A Handbook to the
Essays of Michel de Montaigne containing notes by George Ives to his
translation of the essays, and comments by Grace Norton on the essays; the
quotation by Montaigne is on p. 591-592 of v. 1 of Ives's translation (1925) as
republished in 1946; the handbook is v. 3 of this edition; this is my
translation of the passage by Manilius, not Ives's.)
87. Montaigne goes on: "Now, our human reasonings and arguments
are [like] lumpish and sterile matter; the grace of God is [what fashions
them]; it is that which gives them shape and value..... Let us, then, consider
now man by himself, without external aid, armed only with his own weapons,
and deprived of divine favour and recognition..... Let us see how much
support he has in that fine equipment..... What has made him believe that
the wonderful motions of the celestial vault, the eternal light of those
luminaries revolving so proudly above his head, and the terrifying motions of
the infinite sea were established and continued for many ages for his
pleasure and for his service? Is it possible to imagine any thing so ridiculous
as this wretched, paltry creature, who, being not even his own master,
exposed to the offences of all things, declares himself master and ruler of the
universe of which it is not in his power to understand the smallest fragment,
far less to govern it? And this prerogative that he attributes to himself, of
being the only creature in this great structure who has the ability to
recognize beauty and its part, the only one who can render thanks to the
architect, and keep account of the income and outlay of the world -- who has
set the seal of this prerogative upon him?." (Montaigne, Ives's translation,
loc. cit., p. 592, 595-6.)
88. "But, poor wretch, what has he in himself worthy of such a

privilege? When we consider the incorruptible life of the heavenly bodies,

their beauty, their grandeur, their continual motion by so exact a rule;
'when we gaze up at the celestial expanse of the great heaven, at the aether
above us set with twinkling stars, and when we remember the courses of the
sun and moon' [Lucretius, de rerum natura, V, 1204; translated by Russel
Geer (1965)], when we consider the domination and power that those bodies
have, not only over our lives and the conditions of our fortunes, -- 'For the
actions and the lives of men depend on the stars' [Manilius, ibid, III, 58} but
even over our inclinations, our judgments, our wills, which they govern,
impel, and stir, at the mercy of their influences, as our reason teaches us and
discovers, -- 'and perceives that the stars, beheld from afar, govern us by their
silent commanding laws, and the whole universe to be moved by changing
relations, and successive destinies run through fixed signs' [Manilius, ibid. I,
60]; when we see that only a man, not only a king, but monarchies, empires,
and this lower world move with the changes of the slightest celestial motion;
'And what great changes are made by small movements ... so great is this
power that rules even kings' [Manilius, ibid., I, 55 and IV, 93] .... if we hold
from the disposition of heaven such share of reason as we have, how can
reason make us equal to that? ..... Presumption is our natural and original
malady. The most unfortunate and frail of all creatures is man, and at the
same time the most vain-glorious, this creature feels and sees that it is
lodged here amid the mire and filth of the world, fast bound and riveted to
the worst, the most lifeless and debased part of the universe, on the lowest
story of the lodging and the farthest removed from the celestial vault, with
these other living beings of the worst condition of the three [among those who
crawl, rather than swim or fly]; and it establishes itself in imagination above
the circle of the moon, and brings heaven under its feet." (Montaigne, loc.
cit., p. 596-599.)
89. So we see the post-Copernican Montaigne securely imbedded in a

pre-Copernican universe, and complaining of the vain-glorious pride of men
who presume to understand the ways of the heavens. "How limited are our
minds," he says (his emphasis). "Are not these fancies of human vanity, to
make of the moon a celestial earth, to dream, like Anaxagoras, of mountains
and valleys there, and to plant colonies there for our convenience, as Plato
does, and Plutarch?" (loc. cit., p. 598.) What is more -- and quite remarkably -
- he asks us to mitigate our pride on the grounds of a rigorous astrological
interpretation of the influence of the heavens. We are at the mercy of the
motions of the stars, he says, and this should make us humble. Men, it
appears, are not over-proud when they attribute such powers to celestial
objects -- this is an act of pious acquiescence. Of the heavenly bodies, he says:
"Why do we deprive them of soul and of life and of reason? Have we
perceived in them some settled and senseless stupidity, we who have no
commerce with them except that of obedience?" (Montaigne, ibid., p. 598.)
90. In the face of views like those reflected in the works of Palingenius
and Montaigne, it appears that the more likely effect of Copernicanism on
some was not to make men humble because they had been displaced from the
center of the universe, but to make them proud that Copernicus and his
adherents -- Kepler, Galileo, and the rest -- had revealed a part of God's
handiwork, and proud of the handiwork itself. Too proud says Montaigne.
But why not a little pride? Speaking of his system, Copernicus himself said:
"So we find in this admirable arrangement a harmony of the Universe, as
well as a certain relationship between the motion and the size of the spheres,

such as can be discovered in no other way..... Verily, so perfect is this divine
work of the Great and Supreme Architect." (Quoted from the _De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium_ (1543) of Copernicus by Alexandre Koyré
in The Astronomical Revolution, Copernicus - Kepler – Borelli, 1973, p. 53-54;
translation of La révolution astronomique 1961.)
91. Koyré comments that the great advantage of the system from the
point of view of Copernicus lies in its revelation of the systematic structure of
the Universe, and not in its providing the best agreement with observational
data and ease of computation. "History has proved him to be right", says
Koyré. (Koyré. ibid., p. 108.)
92. Whatever its effect on human pride, the work of Copernicus

inaugurated a new era in astronomy, to be worked out by people like Kepler
and Newton, which was to bring Ptolemy's supremacy to an end. For some,
the Copernican system remains upsetting. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke
describes in a fanciful way one such person: "Later, Nikolai Kuzmitch always
used to give his word of honor that, although he was understandably in a
very depressed mood that Sunday evening, he hadn't had a thing to drink.
He was therefore perfectly sober when the following incident occurred, as far
as one can tell what actually happened..... I have been meddling with
numbers, he said to himself. All right, I don't understand the first thing
about numbers. But it's obvious they shouldn't be granted too much
importance; they are, after all, just a kind of arrangement created by the
government for the sake of public order. No one had every seen them
anywhere but on paper. It was impossible, for example, to meet a Seven or a
Twenty-five at a party. There simply weren't any there ....."
93. "'Let it nevertheless...,' he was just about to think, when something

bizarre happened. He suddenly felt a breath on his face; it moved past his
ears; it was on his hands now. And as he sat there in the dark, with eyes
wide open, he began to realize that what he was feeling now was real time,
as it passed by. He recognized, with absolute clarity, all these tiny seconds,
all equally tepid, each one exactly like the others, but fast, but fast..... He
jumped up, but the surprises were not yet over. Beneath his feet too there
was something moving; not just one emotion, but several, which strangely
shook in and against one another. He stiffened with terror: could that be the
earth? Of course it was. The earth did, after all, move. He had heard about
that in school; but it was passed over rather quickly, and later on was
completely hushed up; it was considered not a proper subject for discussion.
But now that he had become more sensitive, he was able to feel this too ....."
94. "Unfortunately he then remembered something else, about the

oblique position of the earth's axis. No, he couldn't endure all these motions.
He felt sick. Lying down and keeping quiet were the best remedy, he had
once read somewhere. And since that day Nikolai Kuzmitsch had been lying
in bed. He lay there and kept his eyes closed. And there were times, during
the less shaken days, so to speak, when it was quite bearable. And then he
had devised this routine with the poems. It was unbelievable how much that
helped. When you recited a poem slowly, with a regular emphasis on the
rhyme words, then something more or less stable existed, which you could
keep a steady gaze on, inwardly of course. It was lucky he knew all these
poems by heart..... He didn't complain about his situation... But in the

course of time an exaggerated admiration had developed in him for those
who, like the student, managed to walk around and endured the motion of
the earth." (from Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, 1910,
translation from German to English, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge,
1982, by Stephen Mitchell, p. 172-175.)
95. In the novel Ratner's Star by Don DeLillo (1976), there is a

astronomer and speculative scientist named Endor who lives in a hole.
Endor has become exasperated. "Science requires us to deny the evidence of
the senses," he says. "We see the sun moving across the sky, and we say no,
no, no, the sun is not moving, it's we who move, we move, we. Science
teaches us this. The earth moves around the sun, we say. Nevertheless
every morning we open our eyes and there's the sun moving across the sky,
east to west, every single day. It moves. We see it. I'm tired of denying such
evidence. The earth doesn't move. It's the sun that moves around the
earth..... It's the wind that causes tides. If the earth moved we'd get dizzy
and fall off. If the moon and sun cause tides in oceans, why don't they cause
tides in swimming pools and glasses of water? There's no variation in the
microwave backgrounds. Why is this? Because we're at the center of the
universe, that's why this is." (Don DeLillo, Ratner's Star, 1976, p. 87-88.)
96. In their humorous ways, the characters created by Rilke and

DeLillo illustrate the reluctance of people to give up their belief, based solidly
on the evidence of their senses, that the earth is at rest. The matter was not
so humorous to some of the natural philosophers of the early 17th century
who were concerned that the Copernicam theory be accepted. The most
notorious ecclesiatical condemnation of a promoter of the Copernican theory
was that of Galileo in 1633, when Galileo was 70 and one of the most
accomplished and renowned scientists in the world. The sentence followed
the publication in 1632 of his dialogue on the "two chief world systems", that
is, the Ptolemaic and Copernican.
97. The story has been exhaustively studied on all sides ever since, but
the essence of it has remained the same. Galileo was forced by the
Inquisition to publicly renounce, on his knees, his opinions on the validity
and superiority of the Copernican system. The official sentence reads: "We
say, pronounce, sentence, declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the
matters adduced in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered
yourself in the judgment of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy,
namely of having believed and held the doctrine -- which is false and contrary
to the sacred and divine Scriptures -- that the Sun is the center of the world
and does not move from east to west, and that the Earth moves and is not the
center of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as
probable after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to Holy
Scripture; and that consequently you have incurred all the censures and
penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other
constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. From which
we are content that you be absolved, provided that first, with a sincere heart,
and unfeigned faith, you abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and
heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and
Apostolic Roman Church in the form to be prescribed by us." (quoted by
Giorgio de Santillana on p. xlvii-xlviii of the preface to his version, Dialogue
on the Great World Systems, 1953, of the Thomas Salusbury translation

(1661) of Galileo's Dialogo dei Massimi Sistemi, 1632.) Galileo duly recanted,
and was placed under a kind of benign house arrest for the rest of his life.
The Index of the Church was subsequently made to forbid "all writings which
affirm the motion of the earth." (Andrew White, ibid., p. 144.)
98. White says: "Doubtless many will exclaim against the Roman
Catholic Church for this: but the simple truth is that Protestantism was no
less zealous against the new scientific doctrine. All branches of the
Protestant Church -- Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican -- vied with each other in
denouncing the Copernican doctrine as contrary to Scripture; and, at a later
period, the Puritans showed the same tendency. Said Martin Luther [for
example]: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that
the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon.
Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all
systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire
science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded
the sun to stand still, and not the earth." (White, ibid., p. 126.)
99. White concludes that such consequences are to be expected when

"the Church alone is empowered to promulgate scientific truth or direct
university instruction." (ibid., p. 133.) Andrew White assisted Ezra Cornell
in founding Cornell University, and as White explains in his preface to his A
History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 1896: "We
had especially determined that the institution should be under the control of
no political party and of no single religious sect, and with Mr. Cornell's
approval I embodied stringent provisions to this effect in the charter." (ibid.,
p. vi.) In this day of widespread non-sectarian colleges and universities, it is
largely forgotten now many of our institutions of higher learning formerly
were denominational, and how closely others were tied to their state
legislatures. The plan of Cornell and White led to a bitter struggle with
numerous ecclesiastical authorities and members of the State Legislature of
New York, some of whom accused White and Cornell of atheism, thenof
infidelity, then (backing off) of "indifferentism". It was this struggle which
impelled White to compose his work on the warfare of science with theology.
White was himself a Christian, and attributed the conflict between science
and theology to the ineptitude of theologians in scientific matters, rather
than to some deficiency in the Christian religion. We have seen and are still
seeing in our own day in some places in the U.S.A. similar conflicts over the
teaching of Darwinian evolutionary theory in public schools and in some
denominational colleges.
100.Ptolemy, who believed that the earth stands still at the center of
the universe on physical rather than theological grounds, wrote on geography
as well as astronomy. His Geographia was very influential in antiquity.
Ptolemy also wrote on astrology. In the European Middle Ages, Ptolemy was
perhaps most widely known for his work on astrology called Mathematikes
tetrabiblou syntaxeos, or simply the Tetrabiblos or Quadripartitum; that is,
The four-book mathematical treatise, or The Four Books. In Book II, Ptolemy
says that astronomical prediction (meaning what we would call astrological
prediction) is divided into two great parts, and: "... since the first and more
universal is that which relates to whole races, countries, and cities, which is
called general, and the second is that which relates to individual men, which
is called genethlialogical, we believe it fitting to treat first of the general

division, because such matters are naturally swayed by greater and more
powerful causes than are particular events. And since weaker natures
always yield to the stronger, and the particular always falls under the
general, it would by all means be necessary for those who purpose an inquiry
about a single individual long before to have comprehended the more general
considerations." (Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos (c. 150 A.D.), translated by F. H.
Robbins (1940), p. 117, 119). Thus Ptolemy held what we have called omen
astrology, and what he calls general astrology, to be primary. This kind of
astrology was old in his own time. On the other hand, he may be regarded as
the first great systematizer of individual or personal astrology. He was, as it
were, the Newton of horoscopic astrology.
101. It is hard for many modern astronomers to understand how

Ptolemy could write a work on astronomy which even by modern standards is
a tremendous scientific achievement, and also, later, a book on personal
astrology which elaborates on the influence of the positions of the planets,
moon and sun at the birth of a person on the person's character and fate, as
well as the astrologically based Harmonica, which had a great influence on
Kepler's work. Here, chosen not quite at random (based on horoscopes of
myself), is a sample from Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos: "Jupiter allied with Mercury
in honourable positions makes his subjects learned, fond of discussion,
geometricians, mathematicians, poets, orators, gifted, sober, of good intellect,
good in counsel, statesmen, benefactors, managers, good-natured, generous,
lovers of the mob, shrewd, successful, leaders, reverent, religious, skillful in
business, affectionate, lovers of their own kin, well brought up, philosophical,
dignified. In the opposite positions he makes them simple, garrulous, prone
to make mistakes, contemptible, fanatical, religious enthusiasts, speakers of
folly, inclined to bitterness, pretenders to wisdom, fools, boasters, students,
magicians, somewhat deranged, but well informed, of good memory, teachers,
and pure in their desires." (Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, translated by F.úE.
Robbins, 1940, Loeb Classics, p. 351, 353.)
102. On the question of free will, Ptolemy says: "... we should not
believe that separate events attend mankind as the result of the heavenly
cause as if they had been originally ordained for each person by some
irrevocable divine command and destined to take place by necessity without
the possibility of any other cause whatever interfering. Rather is it true that
the movement of the heavenly bodies, to be sure, is eternally performed in
accordance with divine, unchangeable destiny, while the change of earthly
things is subject to a natural and mutable fate, and in drawing its first
causes from above it is governed by chance and natural sequence." (ibid., p.
23.) Lynn Thorndike, evidently commenting on this passage, observes that
for Ptolemy, "not all predictions are inevitable and immutable; this is true
only of the motion of the sky itself and events in which it is exclusively
concerned." (Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science,
1923-1958, v. 1, 1923, p. 112.) Ptolemy is quite precise about it: what is
strictly deterministic in astrology is the motions of celestial objects.
Predictions about anything else are not infallibly correct, but nevertheless
may be very useful. He says: "I think, just as with prognostication, even if it
be not entirely infallible, at least its possibilities have appeared worthy of the
highest regard, so too in the case of defensive practice [acts meant to
contravene predictions], even though it does not furnish a remedy for
everything, its authority in some instances at least, however few or

unimportant, should be welcomed and prized and regarded as profitable in no
ordinary sense." (Ptolemy, ibid., p. 31.)
103. Neugebauer notes that Ptolemy used the older Babylonian

methods of interpolation for computing positions of the planets, sun and
moon in the Tetrabiblos_, rather than the better trigonometric methods
which he had already given in the Almagest. About judicial astrology in
general, Neugebauer observes that after the time of Ptolemy: "While the
scientific astronomical literature became increasingly sterile the astrological
interest remained as active as ever. For astronomy proper this had no
beneficial effect. Astrology is a dogmatic discipline, following a strict ritual in
combining certain data without worrying how reliable these data were. This
attitude is reflected in the fact that astrologers for centuries used
arithmetical methods, e.g. for planetary positions or for determining the
length of daylight, which were long superseded by more accurate procedures.
No astrologer cared about the reliability of the basic parameters of his
planetary tables. ... Hence one may well say that at no stage in the
development of astronomy did astrology have any direct influence, beneficial
or otherwise, on astronomy beyond the fact that it provided a secure market
for treatises and tables and this contributed to the survival of works which
otherwise would hardly have reached us." (Otto Neugebauer, A History of
Ancient Astronomy, 1975, Part Two, p. 942-943.) This may be true of
astrology in the narrow sense, horoscopic astrology, but it has been one of our
principal contentions that in the larger sense of astrology, as we have more or
less defined it earlier, astrology did influence astronomy, and indeed one
must exert caution in speaking of the two as separate before the 17th
century. For example, it would be difficult, I think, to support contentions
that Ptolemy did astrology just for the money, or that he wasn't very bright in
dealing with planets and stars, or that he was merely superstitious, or for
some other such summary reasons.
Chapter 5. Stoics, Kepler, and Evaluations <![endif]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Even Kepler, who lived from 1571 to 1630, and indisputably was one
of the founders of modern astronomy and physics, even he cast horoscopes,
although he was opposed to much of the astrology of his time. He called
popular astrology "a dreadful superstition" and "a sortilegous monkey-play".
(Sortilege is prophesying by randomly casting or drawing "lots", using
pebbles, dice, etc., and interpreting the results.) Many have tried to apologize
for Kepler's astrology. For example, Arthur Koestler, the novelist and
essayist, claims that Kepler "started his career with the publication of
astrological calendars and ended it as Court Astrologer to the Duke of
Wallenstein. He did it for a living, with his tongue in his cheek." "In a
typical outburst," Koestler says, "he wrote: 'A mind accustomed to
mathematical deduction, when confronted with the faulty foundations [of
astrology] resists a long, long time, like an obstinate mule, until compelled by

beating and curses to put its foot into that dirty puddle.'" (Arthur Koestler,
The Sleepwalkers, 1959, p. 243.) Still, as Koestler continues, while Kepler
"despised these crude practices, and despised himself for having to resort to
them, he at the same time believed in the possibility of a new and true
astrology as an exact empirical science".
2. Kepler wanted not to abolish astrology, but to reform it. He wrote

several short treatises specifically on astrology, and referred to it, sometimes
extensively, in his large major works. As Grard Simon emphasizes, Kepler
regarded astrology -- a reformed astrology -- as a legitimate branch of his
science. Simon says: "Kepler did not consider his astrological theories as less
important or less true than those which he announced in optics, astronomy or
cosmology: in his eyes, each of these are dedicated to the investigation of a
perfectly homogeneous field of reality, that of the secrets of nature." (Gerard
Simon, Kepler astronome astrologue, 1979, p. 33.) Judith V. Field, in her
evaluation of Kepler's astrology says: "Astrological harmony is ... an integral
part of Kepler's work as it is of Ptolemy's .... Kepler's concern with astrology
is not peripheral to his cosmological theories, and there can be no doubt that
it grossly misrepresents his attitude to astrology to suggest that he saw it
primarily as a way of making money." (J.V.Field, "A Lutheran Astrologer:
Johannes Kepler", Archive for History of Exact Sciences, v. 31, no. 3, p. 189-
272.) One of Kepler's treatises on astrology carries the motto "A warning to
certain Theologians, Physicians and Philosophers ... that, while justly
rejecting the stargazers' superstitions, they should not throw out the child
with the bathwater". Elsewhere Kepler says: "That the sky does something
to man is obvious enough; but what it does specifically remains hidden."
3. An outline of Kepler's reformed astrology has been given by the

physicist Wolfgang Pauli. According to Kepler, individual souls have the
ability to react to certain harmonious proportions which correspond to
specific rational divisions of a circle. In music, this ability is revealed in our
perception of euphony or consonance in certain musical intervals. Our souls
are said to be able to react similarly to harmonious proportions of angles
which rays of stellar light make with each other when they strike the earth.
In the case of planets, these are the aspects of traditional astrology,
considered already by Ptolemy. In Kepler's view, these are what astrology
should be based on. For Kepler, the effective angles between two rays coming
from different planets are those that are found in the regular polygons, such
as equilateral triangles, squares or hexagons, with which a plane surface can
be covered without gaps ("tilings"), or in the "star" polygons developed by him
in his Harmonice mundi.
4. Kepler holds that it is the light which comes from the other planets
which produce certain effects in our souls, and therefore in our bodies. (The
doctrine that light is a kind of force is an old idea, found, for example, among
the neo-Platonists of antiquity.) Furthermore, the earth itself has a soul, and
the planets act on this soul as well. The earth, for Kepler, is a living thing.
Pauli describes Kepler's analogies: "As living bodies have hair, so does the
earth have grass and trees, the cicadas being its dandruff; as living creatures
secrete urine in a bladder, so do the mountains make springs; sulphur and
volcanic products correspond to excrement, metals and rainwater to blood
and sweat; the sea water is the earth's nourishment ... At the same time the
anima terrae [soul of the earth] is also a formative power (facultas formatrix)

in the earth's interior and expresses, for example, the five regular bodies in
precious stones and fossils ..... It is important that in Kepler's view the anima
terrae is responsible for the weather and also for meteoric phenomena. Too
much rain, for instance, is an illness of the earth." (Wolfgang Pauli, "The
Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler", especially
p. 176 and p. 179-190, in The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955,
by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, translation by Priscilla Silz of
Naturerklrung und Psyche, 1952.)
5. Field reports that Kepler believed that the theory that the weather
was affected by planetary aspects was amply confirmed by observation. He
himself made many observations to this effect. Field says: "Kepler's success
in obtaining observational confirmation of his belief in the efficacy of Aspects
may be partly due to the subjectivity of the data, but another explanation
also presents itself: Aspects are so numerous that for any given change one
could almost certainly find an appropriate recent Aspect. This objection in
fact occurred to one of Kepler's regular correspondents, the physician Johann
Georg Brengger, who mentioned it in a letter to Kepler dated 7 March 1608."
(J. V. Field, Kepler's Geometrical Cosmology, 1988, p. 128-129.)
6. As Pauli says, Kepler offers light as a physical cause for the effects of
the planets on human beings, and indeed on other living creatures.
Furthermore, he argues that properly speaking we should not say that the
planets cause the effects they have on us, but rather that it is the
constitution of our souls, in their ability to respond to the planetary light,
which causes these effects. Pauli notices a serious objection to Kepler's
astrological theory, that artificial light ought to produce astrological effects.
(Pauli, ibid., p. 190.) But of course one can think up reasons for
distinguishing between artificial and planetary light. Or maybe artificial
light can produce astrological effects.
7. Simon observes that according to Kepler, it is possible to predict the

future from what takes place in the sky for three different reasons, one
physical, another psychological, and a third metaphysical. The physical
reason concerns the effect of light. Simon says these are for the most part
meteorological according to Kepler, whereas Pauli emphasizes Kepler's belief
in the effect of light on living beings. The psychological reason results from
emotions stirred in the souls of living beings by the aspects and in the soul of
the Earth by the planetary aspects. This also has an effect on weather
changes, but also on the actions of nations and their leaders, and on the
destinies of individuals. Finally, the metaphysical reason, which Kepler
allows is much more conjectural, arises from the value of certain rare
celestial phenomena as signs -- not as causes. Appearance of a comet, or
above all of a new star, are phenomena of this kind. In the case of a new star,
one may be in the presence of an indication of a mutation in universal
history.
8. Kepler takes the psychological reason, based on planetary aspects, to

be in the realm of nature to the same degree as the physical reason is. The
physical and psychological reasons authorize forecasting much more than
prophecy, Simon says, and although Kepler reshaped the foundations of such
prediction, he never seems to have doubted the fundamental soundness of his
technique based on aspects. On the other hand, he wondered about the

possibility of interpreting signs which, if they are sent by God, can be
understood only by prophets. Kepler doesn't exclude the possibility that
there are providential signs in they heavens. Indeed, he observes that they
are attested to in the Bible and other ancient writers. But he is skeptical
about men being able to interpret these signs correctly unless they are
divinely inspired prophets. Kepler wanted to substitute, as far as he could,
an astrology of causes for an astrology of signs. Astrology would then become,
he hoped, what it should never have ceased being, an applied branch of
natural science. The astrological aspects result from the normal periodic
motions of the planets. From time to time, however, events occur in the
heavens which are not periodic, and which therefore appear to be
unpredictable. If they can be considered as signs addressed to mankind, then
an astrologer who undertakes to interpret them can no longer limit himself to
describing their physical and psychological effects, but is led to trying to
decipher their meaning. Thus the physical problem becomes metaphysical or
theological. With the metaphysical problem, Kepler proceeds with caution,
but proceeds nevertheless. (Gérard Simon, ibid., p. 35, 52-55, 79-80.)
9. In his work on the "new star" of 1604, De stella nova (1606), Kepler
speculates on whether or not the occurrence of a new star can be assigned to
chance. Furthermore, in the same year, there was a "fiery trigon", that is, a
conjunction of the three superior planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Was it
also a matter of chance that the new star appeared in the same year as this
"grand conjunction"? For those of an Epicurean turn of mind, this was so. It
was like a throw of two dice, one of which had the aggregation of the atoms of
the new star on a face, and the other of which had the grand conjunction on a
face. Throw the dice enough times, and this pair of faces will come up. The
Aristotelians had a similar view. The formation of the atoms into a new star
was not a matter of chance for them, but the causes of the star and the causes
of the grand conjunction had no connection with each other. The two causal
series leading to these events were considered to be independent. But then
they coincided by chance. Kepler opposed both of these views. He argues
that neither the individual events nor their coincidence were the result of
chance. This would be unworthy of God. (Simon, ibid., p. 52-80.)
10. Kepler could not abide chance events. He says: "What then is
chance? It is the most detestable idol, which is nothing else than mistrust of
the supreme and omnipotent God, and also of what he has created, the
absolutely perfect World, in which in place of a soul one takes a blind and
unconsidered motion, and in place of a body an infinite chaos. It is impious to
attribute to chance what belongs to God." (Johannes Kepler, De stella nova,
quoted by Simon, ibid., p. 62.) Kepler will not admit a cosmology founded on
chance, in which the creation would have no goal or beauty, and would lose
all meaning. Here is a source of Kepler's concern for astrology. To radically
separate what happens in the heavens from what happens on earth is to
forget the perfection of the work of God and his solicitude for people. It is to
make the world silent, and to prevent us from witnessing its source. (Simon,
ibid., p. 61-63.)
11. Kepler never stopped believing that the Earth has a Soul. Still,
Ernst Cassirer recalls Kepler's debate with Patrizzi over the motions of the
planets: "[Patrizzi] declared that any attempt on the part of mathematical
astronomy to determine the course of the planets by interlocking orbits,

cycles, and epicycles was vain because in reality the planets were nothing
other than animate beings, endowed with reason, who, just as appearance
indicates, describe the most diverse, strangely tortuous paths through the
liquid ether. It is characteristic of Kepler's manner of thinking that he
countered this conception primarily by a methodological argument -- an
argument he himself characterized as 'philosophical.' To resolve all seeming
disorder into order, in every irregularity to seek the hidden rule: precisely
this -- he stressed in opposing Patrizzi -- is the basic principle of
'philosophical astronomy.'" (Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic
Forms, 1953-1957, translation by Ralph Manheim of Die Philosophie der
Symbolischen Formen, 1923-1929, v. 2 (1955, 1925), p. 139-140.)
12. Cassirer quotes Kepler: "Among the adherents of a sound

philosophy there is none who is not of this opinion, who would not
congratulate himself and astronomy if he succeeded in disclosing the causes
of error and distinguishing the true movements of the planets from their
accidental orbits which rest only on sensory illusion, and in thus proving the
simplicity and ordered regularity of their orbits." Cassirer concludes: In
these simple and profound words from Kepler's pamphlet in defense of Tycho
Brahe, and in the concrete confirmation they soon received through Kepler's
treatise on the movements of Mars, the planets were dethroned as the
ancient gods of time and fate, and the general view of time and of the
temporal process was transferred from the image-world of the mythical-
religious imagination to the exact conceptual world of scientific cognition."
(ibid.) Nevertheless, Kepler believed that the planets, including the sun and
earth, have souls, and are alive. A dissolution of this apparent discrepancy
between Cassirer's analysis and Kepler's belief follows from the doctrine,
espoused by Kepler, that the souls of planets are guided not by caprice or will
or chance, but by laws or "hidden rules".
13. Simon admirably and enthusiastically summarizes the outlook of

Kepler: "Nothing is left to chance in this world which forms a perfectly
coherent system. It is through and through crossed by a tightly woven
network of proportions which are the mark of the worker on his work; which
are thus the enchantment by which he gives to himself the spectacle of his
own glory. The cosmic harmonies make up the true hymn which the psalmist
in his prescience lent to the universe, and which one beautiful day an
inspired mathematician deciphered in the course of his astronomical
contemplation..... Mathematical ratios are then the privileged and universal
language which the stars, people and God simultaneously speak and
understand. This is not astonishing since 'geometry before the birth of things
was co-eternal with the divine spirit ..... '" (Harmonice mundi, IV, 1)
14. "An immense play of mirrors thus exists in an immemorial way

between the macrocosm and the microcosm, the creation and the creature,
the creation and the Creator, the creature and the Creator; and it is made
possible by mathematics, because this is at the same time their common
essence and their common reason. It is the only natural language, because it
is the only one in which Nature expresses itself. And it is necessary to take
literally this idea of expression: Nature is not only full of meaning, but full of
a meaning which is not hidden, which on the contrary announces itself openly
in the spectacle of the heavens each hour, each day, provided one knows the
language in which it manifests itself. Far from being contingent like the

languages of man, mathematics conceals and reveals the secret necessity of
things. Because of this, it is a sacred although natural language, or rather
sacred because natural; perhaps even the only truly sacred language, because
it is the only one which escapes from the cultural arbitrariness of the sign."
15. "Thus the heavens," Simon continues, "by the equilibrium of their
proportions and the harmony of their motions, write a revelation as
important and as worthy of confidence as that of the Bible. God speaks there
his own language rather than putting himself within reach of man; and
whoever knows how to understand it, has no need of any interpretation or
any tradition to penetrate their [the heavens'] secret perfection. Far from
being a profane curiosity, the desire to probe the Mystery of the World arises
from religious concern and religious quest; and when little by little its secrets
reveal themselves, the meditation which they inspire led to prayer and the
actions of grace. Nothing is more foreign to the spirit of Kepler than to place,
as we do today, astronomy among the positive sciences stripped of all
mystical connotation; on the contrary, it is for him a science of the sacred."
16. One understands better by means of this, as Simon observes,

Kepler's attitude with regard to astrology. Simon says: "For its status had
nothing in common with what we confer on it today, we who have a tendency
to place it rather in the sphere of magico-religious productions. What he
reproaches the popular astrology of his time for is its lending to Nature, and
therefore to God, one of the arbitrary languages with which people express
their passions, their interests and their anxieties; that is why he criticizes at
length the traditional encodings, dominations of the planets, divisions of the
zodiac, and above all domifications of the themes by which one has sought to
make the world speak according to artificial and naively anthropomorphic
symbols. To this art of the charlatan, he opposes the science which results
from mathematical knowledge of the harmonies and of the effect of the
celestial configurations on terrestrial faculties and human souls, both in their
immediate activities and their later developments. It is not in projecting into
the world the cares and words of people, but in grasping the causal relations
which are established between the sublunary and the supralunary that one
can understand the effects of stars on earthly things." (Gérard Simon, ibid.,
p. 440-442.)
17. Simon goes on to describe Kepler's aversion to applying astrology to

profane activities -- harvests expected, projects under way, ambitions
thwarted -- rather than for contemplating the work of the Creator. This was
one of Kepler's objections to judicial astrology, that it was a utilitarian and
basely positivistic science, which usurped the place of a higher and purer
discipline which concerned the sacred.
18. Kepler never gave up hope that astrology could be reformed and
made into a genuine science. "No man," he says, "should hold it to be
incredible that out of the astrologers' foolishness and blasphemies some
useful and sacred knowledge may come, that out of the unclean slime may
come a little snail or mussel or oyster or eel, all useful nourishments; that out
of a big heap of lowly worms may come a silk worm, and lastly that in the
evil-smelling dung, a busy hen may find a decent corn, nay, a pearl or a
golden corn, if she but searches and scratches long enough." (quoted by
Koestler, ibid., p. 245.)

19. Simon says: "We can in no way compare Kepler's intellectual
reactions with our own. Unlike us, Kepler could not but take astrology
seriously, because if it is the mirror image of astronomy it consequently has
the same level of plausibility. Far from being completely resolved, the
question of whether astrology was valid was then still quite a pertinent one.
Again, unlike us, who would be inclined to associate astrology with magico-
religious thought, and astronomy with positivism, for Kepler it is astrology
that is the profane utilitarian activity, while astronomy is the science of the
sacred, the science of Creation..... the idea of a language of the World, of a
book of Nature, is, as we see, found in all the systems of thought of the time,
and reveal a very archaic type of reasoning. With a Kepler, with a Galileo,
this language is transformed and becomes mathematical: nothing seems to be
changed, but nevertheless everything is about to change." (Gérard Simon,
"Kepler's Astrology: The Direction of a Reform", in Kepler, Four Hundred
Years, 1975, edited by Arthur Beer and Peter Beer, p. 447-448.)
20. The less mystical Francis Bacon also thought that astrology was
reclaimable. In the De augmentis scientarum (The Advancement of Learning)
(1623), he says: "As for Astrology, it is so full of superstition, that scarce
anything sound can be discovered in it. Notwithstanding, I would rather
have it purified than altogether rejected." He goes on to speak of a "Sane
Astrology", with which one will be able to predict with a great degree of
accuracy "floods, droughts, heats, frosts, earthquakes, irruptions of water,
eruptions of fire, great winds and rains, the various seasons of the year,
plagues, epidemics, diseases, plenty and dearth of grain, wars, seditions,
schisms, transmigrations of peoples, and in short of all commotions or
greater revolutions of things, natural as well as evil." (quoted from Bacon's
De augmentis scientarum, 1623, by Don Allen Cameron in The Star-Crossed
Renaissance, 1941, p. 152.) Cameron goes on to observe that Bacon
announces that once the foundations of "Sane Astrology" are established, one
will be able to predict such things as what seasons will be especially
dangerous for monks and courtiers, or more ominous for scholars than
soldiers. The idea of reforming astrology is not new: "So it is with all
astrologers (says the Talmud): they see something but do not understand
what they see." (Rashi, Commentaries on the Pentateuch, Numbers, quoted in
Leo Rosten's Treasury of Jewish Quotations, 1971, p. 106.)
21. The physicist Paul Davies says (1980): "Practical science proceeds
apace, on the basis that the influence of, say, Jupiter on the motion of a motor
car is less than any instrument could conceivably measure. However, when it
comes to making observations, it is precisely these minute forces which play
the vital role. If it were not for the fact that some influence from Jupiter had
a detectable effect we could never know of its existence. The inescapable
conclusion is that all observation requires interaction, of some sort. When we
see Jupiter, photons of sunlight reflected from atoms in the Jovian
atmosphere traverse the Earth's atmosphere and impinge on cells in the
retina where they dislodge electrons from the atoms therein. This merest
brush of a disturbance sets up a tiny electric signal which, when amplified
and propagated to the brain, delivers the sensation 'Jupiter'. It follows that,
through this chain, our brain cells are linked by electromagnetic forces to the
atmosphere of Jupiter. If the chain of interaction is extended by
incorporating telescopes, our brains can couple to the surfaces of stars
billions of light years away." Interactions are not one-way.

22. Davies continues: "An important feature of all types of interaction is
that if one system disturbs another, thereby registering its existence, then
there will be an inevitable reaction back on the first system, which in turn
disturbs it..... in order to get any information at all [about a physical system],
some sort of influence must pass from object to observer, though its reaction
may be utterly negligible for practical purposes. In the case of Jupiter, it
would be invisible if it were not for its illumination by sunlight. This same
sunlight which, when reflected, stimulates our retinas, also reacts on Jupiter
by exerting a tiny pressure on its surface. (Sunlight pressure leads to a
noticeable and spectacular effect by producing the tails of comets.) Thus, we
do not, strictly, see the 'real' Jupiter, but one disturbed by light pressure.
Similar reasoning can be applied to all our observations of the world about
us. We can never, even in principle, observe things, only the interaction
between things. Nothing can be seen in isolation, for the very act of
observation must involve coupling of some sort." (Paul Davies, Other Worlds,
1980, p. 56-7). As far as I know, astrologers do not cast horoscopes for the
planets themselves.
23. But what about Kepler's belief that the planets (including the sun
and moon) have souls? This too is ancient idea, as is the idea that the
universe itself has a soul. In the third section of the second of his Enneads,
the philosopher Plotinus (205-270 A.D.) begins by ridiculing the idea that the
stars _cause_ events to come to pass. Countless myriads of living beings
continue to be born, he says. How can one think that the stars can minister
to every single one of these people -- to make them famous or obscure, rich or
poor, lascivious or chaste? "What kind of life is this for the stars," he says,
"how could they possibly handle a task so huge?"
24. Still, Plotinus says, stars do announce the future, evidently taking
this to be a fact attested to by experience. How can this happen? Plotinus's
answer is that the stars are signs, by virtue of the fact that everything is
related to everything else. He says: "We may think of the stars as letters
perpetually being inscribed on the heavens or inscribed once for all and yet
moving as they pursue the other tasks allotted to them: upon these main
tasks will follow the quality of signifying, just as the one principle underlying
any living unit enables us to reason from member to member, so that for
example we may judge of character and even of perils and safeguards by
indications in the eyes or in some other part of the body. If these parts of us
are members of a whole, so are we: in different ways the one law applies. All
teems with symbol; the wise man is the one who in any one thing can read
another, a process familiar to all of us in not a few examples of everyday
experience. But what is the comprehensive principle of co-ordination?
Establish this and we have a reasonable basis for the divination, not only by
stars but also by birds and other animals, from which we derive guidance in
our varied concerns." (Plotinus, The Six Enneads, translated by Stephen
MacKenna, 1921-1930, reprinted 1952, p. 44.)
25. Plotinus describes "the comprehensive principle of coordination" as

follows: "All things must be joined to one another, not only must there be in
each individual part what is well called a single united breath of life but
before them, and still more, in the All. One principle must make the universe
a single complex living creature, one from all; and just as in individual
organisms each member undertakes its own particular task, so the members

of the All, each individual one of them, have their individual work to do; this
applies even more to the All than to particular organisms, in so far as the
members of it are not merely members but wholes, and more important than
the members of particular things. Each one goes forth from one single
principle and does its own work, but they also co-operate one with another;
for they are not cut off from the whole. They act on and are affected by
others; one comes up to another, bringing it pain or pleasure. Their going out
has nothing random or casual about it. Something else proceeds again from
these; and something else in succession from that, according to the order of
nature." (Plotinus, translation by A. H. Armstrong of the Enneads, 1966, v. 2,
p. 71). E. R. Dodds reports of this passage: "Plotinus wrote an essay to show
that while in virtue of the universal _sympatheia_ the stars may _indicate_
the future, they cannot _determine_ it -- and when shortly afterwards he died
of an unpleasant disease, the astrologers saw in it the vengeance of the
offended star-demons." (E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of
Anxiety, Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to
Constantine, 1968, p. 15.)
26 James Lovelock expounds a theory of Earth as a living being,

regulated by the lives on it, in his book Ages of Gaia, A Biography of Our
Living Earth, 1988. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, in their book Micro-
cosmos, Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors, 1986,
say (p. 265): "Gaia, the superorganismic system of all life on Earth,
hypothetically maintains the composition of the air and the temperature of
the planet's surface, regulating conditions for the continuation of life..... On
earth the environment has been made and monitored by life as much as life
has been made and influenced by the environment." We see that for
Plotinus, as for others in antiquity, the whole universe is a living being,
although, to be sure, the number of scientific details of certain kinds
encompassed in their theories was much smaller than nowadays.
27. Earlier than Plotinus, Plato had said in his Timaeus: "All this, then,
was the plan of the god who is for ever [the Demiurge, the Creator] for the
god who was sometime to be [the Universe]. According to this plan he made
it smooth and uniform, everywhere equidistant from its centre, a body whole
and complete, with complete bodies for its parts. And in the centre he set a
soul and caused it to extend throughout the whole and further wrapped the
body round with soul on the outseide; and so he established one world alone,
round and revolving in a circle, solitary but able by means of reason of its
excellence to bear itself company, needing no other acquaintance or friend but
sufficient to itself. On all these accounts the world which he brought into
being was a blessed god." (Plato, Timaeus, translated by Francis Cornford in
Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 58 of reprint of 1957.)
28. On the basis of the Timaeus, the Laws and other writings of Plato,
Cornford comments: "The visible universe is a living creature, having soul
(psyche) in body and reason (nous) in soul. It is called a god in the same
sense in which the term is applied to the stars, planets, and Earth -- the
'heavenly gods'. All these gods are everlasting, coeval with time itself; though
theoretically dissoluble, because composite of reason, soul, and body, they will
never actually be dissolved. Man is also composed of reason, soul, and body;
but his soul will be dissolved back into the elements, and the two lower parts
of his soul are also mortal. Only the divine reason in him is imperishable.

Thus there is a contrast between macrocosm and microcosm, but also an
analogy, which runs all though the discourse. The world itself, like the
heavenly gods and man, is divine because it contains the divine element,
reason..... There is, then, in the soul and body of the universe a divine
Reason analogous to man's; and we shall find that the unchanging movement
of its thought is symbolised, or even visibly embodies, in the circular
revolutions of the heavenly gods and of the universe as a whole." (Francis
Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 38-39 of the reprint of 1957.)
29. Thus according to Plato, not only is the whole universe alive, but so
are Earth, Sun, Moon and the other planets. However, this doctrine is also
older than Plato, probably much older. Still, according to Pliny, "Hipparchus
can never be sufficiently praised for having better than anyone else proved
the kinship of the stars with man and that our souls are part of the heavens."
Hipparchus flourished about 160-125 B.C. He was one of the great
astronomers of antiquity. He is credited, among other things, with having
discovered the precession of the equinoxes; with having compiled the first
catalog of stars using a system of coordinates; with having compiled a table of
chords of circles (not the musical kind), thus advancing trigonometry; and
with having established a system of latitude and longitude for locating
positions on earth.
30. The Stoics too believed that the universe is a living being. They
extrapolated their biological theories to the whole cosmos. David Hahm
comments: "This procedure rests on the deep conviction that the cosmos is a
living animal. This idea cannot be traced to a specific philosophical
predecessor, but was a conviction rooted in the consciousness of the Greek
people, as well as of other ancient peoples. Though philosophy, especially in
the late fourth century, shunned this idea in its literal sense, it could not, or
would not, uproot this fundamental outlook from the Greek mind." (David
Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology, 1977, p. 210.) Plato develops the
idea in the Timaeus, but treats it as an explanatory myth rather than a
scientific theory in the sense, say, of Aristotle. Aristotle himself treats such
ideas as kinds of analogy, or metaphor. Some of the Stoics, it appears, took
the conception for literal truth: the universe is alive, sensitive, intelligent,
and has a material soul.
31. Samuel Angus says: "Because [for Stoics] one spirit pulsated in the
whole life of the universe there obtained a mysterious 'sympatheia of the
whole,' by means of which man could enter into fellowship with the cosmic
process. The soul was a fragment of the celestial fires with which it
maintained its kinship and to which it would return. Men are not merely
members of one another, but of the whole cosmic order. The world is the
image of God and man the image of the world. Man as part of the cosmos is
sympathetic with it as a whole..... This cosmic harmony and universal
sympathy were dear to the adherents of astral religion..... It takes an effort
of the imagination fully to realize how this science-religion evoked such
exalted feeling and moulded to virtue and beauty the lives of its adherents ....
Cosmic emotion was not a torrent picturesquely rolling over precipices of
ecstasy and exaltation: it was harnessed to moral life. 'The love of heaven
makes us heavenly,' was its credo." (Samuel Angus, The Religious Quests of
the Graeco-Roman World, A Study in the Historical Background of Early
Christianity, 1929, p. 263-264, 270.)

32.The Stoics were apt to identify the soul of the universe with God.
The Stoic Cornutus says: "Just as we ourselves are controlled by a soul, so
the world possesses a soul holding it together, and the soul is designated God,
primordially and ever-living and the source of all life." According to the Stoic
Marcus Aurelius: "The world is one living organism with one substance and
one soul." Cleanthes maintains "there is one soul interpenetrating the whole
cosmos, by participation in which we too become endowed with soul." Angus
reports that the modern Platonist T. Taylor says: "I confess that I am wholly
at a loss to conceive what could induce the moderns to controvert the dogma
that the stars and the whole world are animated, as it is an opinion of infinite
antiquity, and is friendly to the most unperverted, spontaneous, and accurate
conceptions of the human mind. Indeed the rejection of it appears to me to be
just as absurd as it would be in a maggot, if it were capable of syllogizing, to
infer that man is a machine impelled by some external force when he walks,
because it never saw any animated reptile so large." (Angus, ibid., p. 264-
266.)
33. Cicero presents arguments of the Stoics for the divinity of the
universe, hence for the universe being alive and having a rational soul. This
divinity is extended to the stars. Cicero says: "Having thus perceived the
divinity of the world, we must also assign the same divinity to the stars,
which are formed from the most mobile and the purest part of the aether, and
are not compounded of any other element besides; they are of a fiery heat and
translucent throughout. Hence they too have the fullest right to be
pronounced to be living beings endowed with sensation and intelligence ....
Again the consciousness and intelligence of the stars is most clearly evinced
by their order and regularity; for regular and rhythmic motion is impossible
without design, which contains no trace of causal or accidental variation; now
the order and eternal regularity of the constellations indicates neither a
process of nature, for it is highly rational, nor chance, for chance loves
variation and abhors regularity; it follows therefore that the stars move of
their own free-will and because of their intelligence and divinity .... The
regularity therefore in the stars, this exact punctuality throughout all
eternity notwithstanding the great variety of their courses, is to me
incomprehensible without rational intelligence and purpose. And if we
observe these attributes in the planets, we cannot fail to enroll even them
among the number of gods." (Cicero, De natura deorum, translated by H.
Rackham, 1933, p. 161, 163, 175.)
34. Earlier, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) put it this way: "On all these
grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something
beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from
them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance
from this world of ours..... The reasons why the primary body is eternal and
not subject to increase or diminution, but unaging and unalterable and
unmodified, will be clear from what has been said to any one who believes in
our assumptions. Our theory seems to confirm the phenomena and to be
confirmed by them. For all men have some conception of the nature of the
gods, and all who believe in the existence of gods at all, whether barbarian or
Greek, agree in allotting the highest place to the deity, surely because they
suppose that immortal is linked with immortal and regard any other
supposition as impossible. If then there is, as there certainly is, anything
divine, what we have just said about the primary bodily substance was well

said. The mere evidence of the senses is enough to convince us of this, at
least with human certainty. For in the whole range of time past, so far as our
inherited records reach, no change appears to have taken place either in the
whole scheme of the outermost heaven or in any of its proper parts. The
name, too, of that body seems to have been handed down right to our own day
from our distant ancestors who conceived of it in the fashion we have been
expressing. The same ideas, one must believe, recur in men's minds not once
or twice but again and again. And so, implying that the primary body is
something else beyond earth, fire, air, and water, they gave the highest place
the name of aether, derived from the fact that it 'runs always' for an eternity
of time." (Aristotle, De caelo (Peri ouranos, On the Heavens), translated by J.
L. Stocks, 269b12-16, 270b1-23.)
35. Richard Lemay tells us: "The notion that the whole Universe was
one single body animated with a living soul was an essential part of the
Platonic tradition of early medieval times, and still received much attention
during William of Conches' lifetime." (Richard Lemay, Abu Ma'shar and
Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century, The Recovery of Aristotle's
Natural Philosophy through Arabic Astrology, 1962, p. 188.) Among the 12th
century writers who accepted this theory in some form, besides William of
Conches, were Adelard of Bath, Ablard, Thierry of Chartres, Bernard
Silvester amd Raymond of Marseilles. Some went so far as to identify the
World-Soul with the Holy Ghost. This was one of the opinions which Adelard
and William of Conches were forced to recant, as being sacrilegious and
heretical, although evidently Raymond of Marseilles and Bernard Silvester
held the view unscathed. "Theologians and mystics," Lemay says, are always
opposed in principle to any non-theological or non-mystical Weltanschauung",
and William of Thierry's attacks on William of Conches are said by Lemay to
have "opened an important phase of the conflict of Natural Philosophy
against Theology which raged during the entire course of Scholasticism in the
next three or four centuries." (Lemay, l.c., p. 193-194.) Lemay recommends
for a good account of this conflict the work of Andrew D. White, _A History of
the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 1896, whom we quoted
earlier.
36. All of these authors were strongly influenced by a work of the

Arabian astrologer Abu Ma'shar (Albumasar) written in the 9th century A.D.
in Baghdad, and translated into Latin in the 12th century by European
scholars. For Abu Ma'shar, the sky and planets are alive and govern the
world below. Abu Ma'shar, in turn, based his theory of animation of the
planets and the existence on certain works of Aristotle. For William of
Conches, the animation of the sky and planets is explained as a result of an
act of God's Intelligence and Will, but for Abu Ma'shar, it is a consequence of
observed fact. Raymond of Marseilles, in the spirit of Aristotle, argued that
the planets move by themselves, what moves by itself must be alive, hence
the planets are alive. Even in William of Conches' work, there is a tendency
toward a more physical and astrological interpretation of the World-Soul,
even an identification of it with our Sun, although William of Conches
himself didn't accept this identification. More radical was the view of
Raymond of Marseilles. Lemay says: "To him the divine vigor infused in the
World-Soul and animating the whole Universe resided principally in the
heavenly bodies. Astrology thus received a divine sanction and an edifying

character on which Raymond of Marseilles tarries with confidence and a
sense of satisfaction." (Lemay, ibid., p. 149-157, 188-195.)
37. Such ideas were also prevalent among certain writers during the
European Renaissance, who had been inspired by the works of Plato, the
Stoics, Plotinus, the Hermeticists, the Kabbalists, and such medieval writers
as Abu Ma'shar and Raymond of Marseilles. For example, speaking of the De
vita coelitus comparanda (Guiding One's Life by the Stars, or perhaps On
Obtaining Life from the Heavens) (1489) by Marsilio Ficino, Wayne Shumaker
says that for Ficino, "the whole world is in fact alive and filled with soul."
Also, the Hermeticists tell us again and again that the whole world is alive.
From the Hermetic work Asclepius: "If therefore the world is always a living
animal -- was, and is, and will be -- nothing in the world is mortal. Since
every single part, such as it is, is always living and is in a world which is
always one and always a living animal, there is no place in the world for
death." (Wayne Shumaker, The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, A Study
in Intellectual Patterns, 1972, p. 122 and 225.)
38. Today, of course, the stars are considered by physicists and

astronomers to be no more alive than, say, hydrogen atoms or electrons
(however alive they may be). Correspondingly, while there is no lack today of
astrologers and people who consult them, few astronomers now believe there
is anything worthwhile in astrology. Here are the concluding words of a book
on astrology called The Gemini Syndrome, Star Wars of the Oldest Kind, by
two astronomers (not astrologers!) Roger B. Culver and Philip A. Ianna,
published in 1979: "We suspect the reasons for the current return to
astrology, as well as other occult systems, range from simple curiosity to a
desperate groping for miracle solutions so the real problems of life and society
may be avoided. Any such massive rejection of rationality stemming from
ignorance of the facts, however, should be a matter of grave concern. A scan
of human history reveals that when a society begins to embrace such
irrational and fatalistic views, the end is close at hand. ... [We] propose that
the rise of astrology in a culture does not cause that culture's undoing, but
rather is a sign or symptom of the conditions in a culture which betrays its
inner weakness at that moment in history. So it was with classical Greece,
imperial Rome, and medieval Christianity. Ironically, it is perhaps the
ultimate astrological synchronicity of all, and, in light of the current
astrological renaissance in the West, represents a most chilling
correspondence indeed. There was once a time in the younger and more
carefree days of human history when we could afford the luxury of an
astrological dalliance. But now, faced with the awesome powers and
problems of our technological adulthood, we can afford it no longer." (Roger B.
Culver and Philip A. Ianna, The Gemini Syndrome, Star Wars of the Oldest
Kind, 1979, p. 207.)
39. Nancy Reagan, wife of President Reagan, says in her memoirs,

concerning her attachment to astrology: "I should say, too, that the idea of
consulting an astrologer never struck me as particularly strange. I used to
look at my horoscope every morning as I read the paper, although fifteen
minutes later I usually forgot what it said. And although I'm far from a true
believer, I do think there are certain characteristics that tend to be true of
individuals born under a particular sign ..... I was born on July 6, which
makes me a Cancer. It is often said that people born under the sign of

Cancer are above all homemakers and nesters, which is exactly how I would
define myself. Cancers also tend to be intuitive, vulnerable, sensitive, and
fearful of ridicule -- all, of which, like it or not, I am. The Cancer symbol is
the crab shell! Cancers often present a hard exterior to the world. When
they're hurt, Cancers respond by withdrawing into themselves. That's me, all
right." (Nancy Reagan, My Turn, The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan, 1989, with
William Novak, p. 50.) But of course, all of these are common human
characteristics, not confined to people born under a particular sign of the
zodiac.
40. We may compare this with the description given by E. R. Dodds:

"The real vogue of astrology appears to have begun in the second century
B.C...... Why did it occur then and not sooner? The idea was by then no
novelty, and the intellectual ground for its reception had long been prepared
in the astral theology which was taught alike by Platonists, Aristotelians,
and Stoics, though Epicurus warned the world of its dangers. One may guess
that its spread was favoured by political conditions: in the troubled half-
century that preceded the Roman conquest of Greece it was particularly
important to know what was going to happen. One may guess also that the
Babylonian Greek who at this time occupied the Chair of Zeno [the Stoic]
encouraged a sort of "trahison des clercs" (the Stoa had already used its
influence to kill the heliocentric hypothesis of Aristarchus which, if accepted,
would have upset the foundations of astrology and of Stoic religion). But
behind such immediate causes we may perhaps suspect something deeper
and less conscious: for a century of more the individual had been face to face
with his own intellectual freedom, and not he turned tail and bolted from the
horrid prospect -- better the rigid determinism of the astrological Fate than
that terrifying burden of daily responsibility. Rational men like Panaetius
and Cicero tried to check the retreat by argument, as Plotinus was to do
later, but without perceptible effect; certain motives are beyond the reach of
argument." (E. R. Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 1951, p. 245-246). This
brings to mind the remark reported by John Paulos in his book Innumeracy
(1988, p. 49): "When asked why he doesn't believe in astrology, the logician
Raymond Smullyan responds that he's a Gemini, and Geminis never believe
in astrology."
41. Of course, we still have defenders of astrology. For example, Rupert

Gleadow says: "Usually astrology is thought by astronomers to be a delusion,
but obviously it is not possible to recount the history of a subject while
affecting towards it an attitude of superior disbelief. It will be necessary
therefore to assume that the claims of both astronomy and astrology deserve
to be taken seriously..... The study of the future is a perfectly normal human
practice, and has been almost universal on earth. Only the current fashion
for materialism has decreed that predictions of the future must be
impossible..... It is argued that a man cannot 'know' the future because it has
not yet happened. This may appear to be good logic, yet the trend of the
future is often regrettably plain. It is sometimes quite easy to foresee the
future, without needing to call on any special faculties..... [A] possible
explanation of how there could be a correspondence between events in the
zodiac and events on earth might be 'synchronicity'. By this word, coined by
C. G. Jung, is meant that every event -- in so far as it is produced not by one
urgently over-riding force, but by various approximately equal but not quite
constant or calculable forces -- is characteristic of the moment at which it

occurs and of the interacting forces then in play." (Rupert Gleadow, Origin
of the Zodiac, 1969, p. 15, 21, 24.)
42. Underlying a rejection of astrology, there is a fundamental historical

question we have already touched on. If astrology is a farrago of mistakes
and nonsense, how is that some people of considerable intelligence (along
with many not so gifted) have believed in it for more than 2000 years (or
4000, starting from omen astrology), or at least thought there's something in
it if we could only find out what that something is? Pico della Mirandola,
writing in 1495, offered the following explanation: "How many people are
immersed in a theory, are used to reducing everything to it, and not because
of a desire to explain everything by it, but because things really seem like
that to them. What happens to them is like someone who walks immersed in
snow and to whom everything ends up appearing white..... like someone who
loves in vain and sees the face of his beloved in everything..... So he who is a
theologian, and nothing but a theologian, takes everything back to divine
causes; he who is a doctor takes everything back to corporal states, the
physician [physicist?] to the natural principles of things, the mathematician
to numbers and figures, like the Pythagoreans. In the same way, as the
Chaldeans were entirely occupied with the measurement of celestial
movements and the observation of the positions of the stars ... all things were
stars to them, and they willilngly took everything back to the stars." (Quoted
by Eugenio Garin in _Astrology in the Renaissance_, 1983, p. 89, translation
of Lo Zodiaco della Vita, 1976.)
43. Part of the force behind astrology stems from the astral religion
which developed in antiquity, especially on the basis of works of Plato.
Walter Burkert maintains that in Plato's later work, after the Republic, a
double change can be detected. There is a strain of logical self-criticism
which shakes the foundations of the theory of ideas. There is also a turning
toward nature and natural philosophy. From this change there developed a
formative force in the history of religion. The religion of transcendence finds
a complement in the perceivable world, in visible gods. This holds for the
cosmos as a whole, and especially for the stars. The cosmos, according to the
later Plato, obeys unchangeable intelligible laws that are mathematically
formulated.
44. Two bold conclusions resulted, says Burkert. First, the cosmos is
eternal, since in many centuries of observation no change has been detected.
Nor do the mathematical laws admit change. The old cosmogonic hypothesis
that the cosmos arose at some time and will decay at some time in the future
must be false. Secondly, mathematically exact movements are rational,
hence the cosmos is rational. In the _Laws_ the Athenian who speaks for
Plato himself asserts that he learned this "not as a young man nor a long
time ago." Plato had earlier criticized the system of Anaxagoras on the
grounds that although Anaxagoras introduced nous intelligence) as an agent
which moves the cosmos, he embraced a mindless materialism in all the
details. But later natural philosophy gained an intellectual, mathematical
dimension in Plato's work. Thus natural philosophy enters into a surprising
alliance with piety. The concept of the soul which had previously been
confined to the individual, as the subject of knowledge and moral decisions,
received a new, cosmic status. The movement of the cosmos became of a
psychic nature. Soul is defined in a general way as that which moves itself.

The living are distinguished by their ability to move themselves, in contrast
to what is dead and without souls. Soul as that which moves itself is primary
in relation to all bodies which are moved by something else. This holds for
the whole cosmos as well as for an individual's mortal body.
45. Plato in the Laws repeatedly emphasizes this important turn in the
history of philosophy, says Burkert. Plato says: "The situation has been
entirely reversed since the days when thinkers thought of the stars as
without souls. Wonder, though, was awakened even then, and what now
really holds was suspected by those who embarked on exactness: that in no
way could the stars as soulless things keep so precisely to marvellous
calculations, if they did not possess intelligence. Some even then were bold
enough to venture this very proposition and they said that it was nous that
had ordained everything in the sky. But these very men were deceived about
the nature of the soul, namely that it is older than the bodies; they imagined
it as younger and thus so to speak ruined everything, nay even more
themselves. But now, as we have said, the situation is entirely reversed. It
is no longer possible that any single mortal man will be god-fearing for long if
he has not grasped these two principles mentioned, that the soul is the oldest
of everything which participates in coming-to-be (and that it is immortal, and
that it rules over all bodies), and moreover (secondly) he must grasp, as has
now been said many times, the intelligence of being which is in the stars, as
mentioned, and in addition also the necessary preliminary mathematical
sciences."
46. Thus, says Burkert, astronomy became the foundation of religion

(shades of Charles Dupuis!). The Epinomis of Philippos of Opus (often
attributed to Plato) expounded this even more energetically. It takes
seriously what is already hinted at in the Laws, the stars have claim to a real
cult with sacrifices, prayers, and festivals. The most powerful account of the
new philosophical world view, fundamental to all subsequent cosmos piety,
had been presented earlier by Plato in his Timaeus. This dialogue concerning
the Universe, in which the spokesman is no longer Socrates but a fictitious
Pythagorean from southern Italy, develops into a hymn on the animated,
divine cosmos. Burkert says that for the later Plato: "The cosmos created
after the model of the 'perfect living being' is itself a living being with soul
and mind. Its soul, the 'world soul', is a harmony of mathematical
proportions which are manifested in the movements of the stars. The stars
are 'instruments of time'. Time itself, chronos, arose with the heavens in the
image of ungenerated, timeless eternity, aion. The visible cosmos is perfect
insofar as something corporeal can attain perfection. A second principle of
necessity, the 'nurse of coming-to-be', also called space, is a determining
agent in all that is corporeal .... Within this comprehensive god further
visible gods are created in accordance with the perfect model, the stars in the
heavens. The fixed stars are divine living beings which move for ever in the
same way in the same place .... The earth around which they revolve is 'the
first and oldest goddess within the heaven'..... In man himself Nous, the
power of intellectual comprehension, is planted as something divine, a
daimon in man .... The daimon's purpose is 'to direct us upward from earth
to kinship with heaven': the upright posture distinguishes man, pointing him
upwards; man is rooted in heaven, a 'plant of heaven' on earth."

47. "Returning to metempsychosis," Burkert continues, "it is said that
each soul has its own star from which it has come and to which it will
return." In the Timaeus, Plato says that the Demiurge created human souls
"equal in number to the stars and assigned each soul to a star." The number
of all souls remains constant. The Nous in the world stands against
necessity, ananke; it can rationally persuade necessity but not annihilate it.
In the Laws, however, an evil world soul appears which is engaged in an
eternal struggle with the good world soul. "Since then," Burkert says,
"monistic and dualistic tendencies have been competing with each other in
Platonism. For all this, the Platonic project offers so much that is evident
and intuitive that its enormous impact is not surprising. Never before had
gods been presented in such manifest clarity .... Man is at home in a world
which is the best possible; rigorous science and religious exaltation are the
same. Cosmic religion and star religion are henceforth, especially in the
Hellenistic Age, the dominant form of enlightened piety..... The Stoics in
particular were responsible for carrying this out in a detailed way; many of
their equations became the common property of all educated people down to
the age of the Baroque: Zeus is the sky, Apollo the sun, Artemis the moon,
Demeter the earth. The planets, which are less obvious to the layman, failed
to attain a similar popularity; yet astrology, based on the calculation of their
periods, became from the Late Hellenistic period onwards, a dominant
spiritual force as a new kind of divination with scientific appeal. What was
truly problematic about the success of cosmic religion, its connection with a
specific stage of natural science that would later be superseded, led to an
explosion only some two thousnad years after Plato." (Walter Burkert, Greek
Religion, 1985, p. 325-329, translation by John Raffan of Griechische Religion
der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, 1977.)
48. Franz Strunz has written eloquently of the place of astrology and
alchemy in human culture. Their activities are grounded in a religiously
mystic attitude, and in them are hidden "the desire for a better world and the
child's dream of the happiness of all mankind." (Franz Strunz, Astrologie,
Alchemie, Mystik, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, 1928,
p. 11.) In former times, especially in the Hellenistic era, astrology was astral
or cosmic religion, and it encompassed what we now call astronomy,
astrophysics, meteorology and geophysics. "It rules astronomy, it is not its
maidservant." (ibid., p. 21.) It permeated the forerunners of anthropology,
medicine and chemistry, as well as many religious views. In those times,
Strunk maintains, astrology, alchemy and mysticism were bound together
and can only be understood as an organic whole. "Empirical astrology and
alchemy are mysticism become practice and technology, although each
imagines for itself world pictures or philosophical myths... " (ibid., p. 12.)
49. Mysticism is not a religion in itself, but a mode of religious life. It is

characteristic of mystic feeling that it flows into the measurelessness and
boundlessness of the irrational and incomprehensible, where language and
concepts become unsayable and ungraspable. Mystics consider with
repugnance their earthly existence and their connections with the world and
its reality. They consider our times on earth to consist of difficult,
burdensome passages to the heights, journeys through death in order to
arrive at life. Every mystic harbors a denial of the reality of this world,
which is apt to foster a disconsolate skepticism and pessimism about it. It is
in a mystic mode, says Strunk, that astrologers and alchemists customarily

worked. "They do not work dispassionately toward pure knowledge, but
obtain for themselves spiritual stability and irrationally established
categories for making judgments such as thrive only in the atmosphere of the
mystic .... Astrologers and alchemists want a supernatural world which does
not exist." (Strunz, ibid., p. 321, 322, and generally, p. 287-328.) In a similar
way, throughout the history of the natural sciences, up to our own day, we
find an alternation of mythologizing with rational criticism, and an
antagonism between revelation and experience permeating the natural
sciences. "This is the key," Strunz says, "to an understanding of the history
of human error. The spiritual power of sham miracles has always been
greater than the dispassionate art of conceptual thought and proof, that leads
men to a knowledge of things." (ibid., p. 14.)
50. The historian Franz Cumont states beautifully how astrology came
to enchant so many people in later antiquity: "Astral divination was often a
visionary's discipline. The theology on which it rests has as a fundamental
doctrine the idea of a kinship of a soul which warms and vivifies our mortal
bodies with the eternal fires which illuminate the heavens. This conception,
which, in all probability, was already held by the "Chaldeans," became that of
their successors and, in the 2nd century B.C., found in Hipparchus a
convinced defender. Only this affinity with the stars permits the human
spirit, an ignited essence descended from the ether, to know the nature of the
radiant beings from which he has issued. The contemplation of the heavens
becomes therefore a communion. Leaving its material envelope, reason
raises itself to the choir of the sidereal gods and receives from them a
revelation of their character and the causes of their harmonious movements.
It becomes the confidant of the stellar powers, who teach him the cosmic
phenomena, the course and duration of their revolutions, which rule with
numbers endowed with a suitable power .... But, above all, these mystics of
the astral religion, who have divined the secrets of the celestial spheres,
acquire the power to dissipate the obscurity of the future; they arrive at "the
science of future things," they prophesy events to come, as if they were gods.
Astrology flatters itself that it can foresee the phenomena of nature and the
careers of humans with the same certainty as the recurrence of eclipses. This
learned divination is for its adepts the queen of the sciences ....." (Franz
Cumont, L'Égypt des Astrologues, 1937, p.156-8.)
51. This doesn't mean that Cumont thinks that the astrologers' theories
were verified, or verifiable. In another of his books, he says: "There is
something tragic in this ceaseless attempt of man to penetrate the mysteries
of the future, in this obstinate struggle of his faculties to lay hold on
knowledge which evades his probe, and to satisfy his insatiable desire to
foresee his destiny. The birth and evolution of astrology, that desperate error
on which the intellectual labors of countless generations were spent, seems
like the bitterest of disillusions. By establishing the unchangeable character
of the celestial revolutions the Chaldeans imagined that they understood the
mechanism of the universe, and had discovered the actual laws of life. The
ancient beliefs in the influence of the stars upon the earth were concentrated
into dogmas of absolute rigidity. But these dogmas were frequently
contradicted by experience, which ought to have confirmed them. Unable to
bring themselves to deny the influence of the divine stars on the affairs of
this world, they invented new methods for the better determination of this
influence, they complicated by irrelevant data the problem, of which the

solution had proved false, and thus there was piled up, little by little in the
course of ages a monstrous collection of complicated and often contradictory
doctrines, which perplex the reason, and whose audacious unsubstantiality
will remain a perpetual subject of astonishment. We should be confounded at
the spectacle of the human mind losing itself so long in the maze of these
errors, did we not know how medicine, physics, and chemistry have slowly
groped their way before becoming experimental sciences, and what prolonged
exertions they have had to make in order to free themselves from the
tenacious grasp of old superstitions". (Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion
among the Greeks and Romans, 1912, reprinted 1960, p. xiv.)
52. Cumont speaks of our souls as ignited essences which have

descended from the ether, and of this beautiful tradition (which was casually
passed on to me by my mother when I was a child, on an occasion of her
sweeping the living room rug): "The Pythagoreans already believed that the
glittering particles of dust which danced ceaselessly in a sunbeam, were souls
descending from the ether, borne on the wings of light. They added that this
beam, passing though the air and through water down to its depths, gave life
to all things on earth. This idea persisted under the Empire in the theology
of the mysteries. Souls descended upon the earth, and reascended after
death toward the sky, thanks to the rays of the sun which served as the
means of transport." (ibid., p. 103.) And in his Lux Perpetua (1949) Cumont
says (p. 79): "... according to the popular ideas of the ancients, man lives
constantly surrounded by legions of spirits moving around him, tenuous
demons or aerial souls, whose favor he can win over and whose enmity he
should dread. One finds similar beliefs among all the Aryan people, in
particular among the Hindus and Persians, and even among those of other
races, such as the Semites. In our day still, the desert Bedouins consider that
a host of djinns swarm and prowl around them, which intervene in the
smallest incidents of their daily life and whose malignity must be disarmed
by means of offerings." Cumont closes his book L'Égypt des Astrologues (p.
206) by quoting an epigram often attributed to Ptolemy himself. It is said by
Neugebauer (ibid., 1975, p. 835) to have followed the table of contents of
copies of the Almagest from at least the 3rd century A.D. on. It can also be
found in the collection of ancient Greek poems, sayings, and anecdotes known
as the Greek Anthology. Neugebauer's translation from the Greek runs:
"Well do I know that I am mortal, a creature of one

day.
But if my mind follows the winding paths of the

stars
Then my feet no longer rest on earth, but standing by
Zeus himself I take my fill of ambrosia, the divine dish."

Chapter 6. Earlier Christians and Astrology
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Where do we go when we die? Wilhelm Gundel remarks in a chapter

called "The Firmament as the Eternal Home of Mankind" that numerous
myths about the stars support the idea that stars once were persons, and that
everyone will someday go to heaven -- to an astronomical, not a metaphorical
or theological heaven. He relates, for example, a myth of an unspecified
African group. Once upon a time God forbid people to go up to heaven.
Nevertheless some people again climbed up to heaven from a high mountain.
Thereupon God made the mountain sink so they couldn't return. Now they
lead eternal lives as star people. Thus the heavens are filled with former
people, or creatures like people, but for later persons the way up to heaven is
forever cut off. Gundel remarks also on the German folk belief that when a
child dies, God makes a new star, and observes that Hellenistic astrologers
repeatedly said that those who believed in their teachings wholeheartedly
would become immortal after their earthly deaths, and live among the star
gods. (Wilhelm Gundel, Sternglaube, Sternreligion und Sternorakel, 1959, p.
25-26.) <![endif]>
2. And where did the angels come from? In the New Bible Dictionary
(1982, edited by J. D. Douglas et al), under the entry "Angel" we find the
blunt statement that man's early thinking associated angels with stars. St.
Thomas Aquinas dealt at length with doctrines about the motions and nature
of the planets, and "throughout his many writings on these topics (Litt gives
more than a hundred and thirty passages on celestial influence alone) his
angelology is there, waiting in the wings, directing his thoughts, it seems to
me." (J. D. North, "Medieval Concepts of Celestial Influence: A Survey", in
Astrology, Science and Society, Historical Essays, 1987, edited by Patrick
Curry, p. 13; the work by T. Litt is Les Corps célestes dans l'univers de
Thomas d'Aquin (1963).) North remarks that while Aquinas's theories were
rational and systematic, they were not, to some, in the best tradition of
natural philosophy. "But this," North says, "is just another way of saying
that one prefers light rays to angels." (North, ibid., p. 14.)
3. The notion of angels was for some associated with the idea that all
stars are of the same kind, and for some Jews and Christians, the stars are
"angels of light" (Lichtengel), or, if the stars are not themselves angels, they
are governed by angels. (Gundel, ibid., p. 48.). Angels appear in the vision of
Enoch, in which Enoch sees "the sons of angels step into flames of fire", their
robes white and shining like snow. We read in the New Bible Dictionary that
Enoch was the son of Jared and father of Methuselah, and a man of
outstanding sanctity who enjoyed close fellowship with God. He became a
popular figure in the period between the end of Old Testament prophecy and
the coming of Jesus. It appears that the legend of Enoch was elaborated in
the Babylonian diaspora as a counterpart to the antediluvian sages of
Mesopotamian legend. "So Enoch became the initiator of the art of writing
[why is writing so often associated with the stars in ancient times?], and the
first wise man, who received heavenly revelations of the secrets of the
universe and transmitted them in writing to later generations. In the earlier

tradition his scientific wisdom is prominent, acquired on journeys through
the heavens with angelic guides, and including astronomical, cosmographical
and meteorological lore, as well as the solar calendar used at Qumran. He
was also God's prophet against the fallen angels. Later tradition (2nd
century BC) emphasizes his ethical teaching and especially his apocalyptic
revelations of the course of world history, down to the last judgment. In the
Similitudes (1 Enoch 37-71) he is identified with the Messianic Son of Man
(71:14-17), and some later Jewish traditions identified him with the nearly
divine figure Metatron... Early Christian apocalyptic writings frequently
expect his return with Elijah before the End." (New Bible Dictionary, 1982,
under "Enoch").
4. In the apocryphal scripture Ecclesiasticus, Enoch is mentioned in

Chapter 44, the one which begins "Let us now praise famous men, and our
fathers that begat us." This may be displaced from Chapter 49, and the
Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible (1971, edited by Charles
M. Laymon) gives a conjectural reconstruction: "Few like Enoch have been
created on earth, an example of knowledge to all generations. He walked
with the Lord, and also he was taken up from the earth." (p. 575, slightly
altered). In the New Testament, in Hebrews 11:5, we have: "By faith Enoch
was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because
God had taken him." (Revised Standard Version.) Genesis 5:21-24 has:
"When Enoch had lived sixty-five years he became the father of Methuselah.
Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years,
and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three
hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for
God took him." 365 days = 1 year, 365 years = ?
5. Gundel, in describing the structure of the Paradiso of Dante's Divine

Comedy (Gundel, ibid., p. 39), remarks that in the European Middle Ages,
Dante (1265-1321) above all made use of the residence of men's souls in the
stars. Each of Dante's planets is a paradise of its own. The souls in each
planet praise God and sing songs honoring the Virgin Mary. Pure light and
flawless brilliance make up the nature of the souls dwelling in the stars.
Their substance is described as being like shining cloud, but it is much
thicker than cloud, and hard and polished like diamond. The souls are
clothed in brilliant raiment, their faces shine radiantly, with the colors of the
planets. Thus the souls on the Sun are like burning suns, and on Mars like
rubies in which flaming sunbeams glow. In the Paradiso, Dante travels to
the Empyrean realm through 9 spheres or heavens: the 7 planetary heavens,
the heaven of the fixed stars containing the souls of the saints, and the
primum mobile, the first moving heaven, containing the angels.
6. Gundel observes that prayers to the sun, moon and stars are found in
the pyramid texts of the 3rd millenium before Christ, and are found in coffin
and temple texts through the following millenia up to the end of antiquity.
(Gundel, ibid., p. 55.) Probably prayers to heaven -- physical heaven, to start
with -- were among the earliest of prayers, and they are, of course, still to be
found among Christians, as well as the members of many other religions.
Moreover, the boundary between prayers and appeals for intercession to
deities, on the one hand, and magical charms or incantations to spirits, on
the other, is sometimes indistinct.

7. In these and other ways Christianity shows aspects of astral religion.
Still, many Christians have been opposed to astrolatry and astrology from
early on. One reason for this is that it can be considered to be forbidden by
Scripture. In Genesis 1.14-18, we find: "And God said, 'Let there be lights in
the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let
them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be
lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.' And it
was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set
them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule
over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness."
(Revised Standard Version.)
8. In the New Oxford Annotated Bible (1973), a commentator, Bernhard

Anderson, remarks on this passage (p. 2): "The sun, moon, and stars are not
divine powers that control man's destiny as was believed in antiquity, but are
only _lights_. Implicitly worship of the heavenly host is forbidden." Indeed,
we find explicit condemnation of this practice in Deuteronomy 4, 2, Kings 23,
Jeremiah 8, and Zephaniah 1. In Deuteronomy 4.19, we read: "And beware
lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon
and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and worship them
and serve them, things which the Lord your God has allotted to all the
peoples under the whole heaven." This might be interpreted as forbidding
both astrology and astronomy, in the modern senses of these words. Strictly
speaking, it appears to forbid worship of celestial objects. One might use
them for navigation, or to predict seasonal changes or individual destinies,
for example, without worshiping them, unless one considers an intense
devotion to the study of heavenly bodies for any purpose whatever a form of
worship.
9. In the Bible, host of heaven may refer to celestial bodies, or to angelic

beings. M. T. Fermer writes: "This phrase ... occurs about 15 times, in most
cases implying the object of heathen worship (Dt. 4:19, etc.). The two
meanings 'celestial bodies' and 'angelic beings' are inextricably
intertwined..... No doubt to the Hebrew mind the distinction was superficial,
and the celestial bodies were thought to be closely associated with heavenly
beings..... The Bible certainly suggests that angels of different ranks have
charge of individuals, and of nations; no doubt in the light of modern
cosmology this concept, if retained at all (as biblically it must be), ought
properly to be extended, as the dual sense of the phrase 'host of heaven'
suggests, to the oversight of the elements of the physical universe -- planets,
stars and nebulae." (M. T. Fermer, article "host, host of heaven" in New Bible
Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1982, edited by J. D. Douglas, et al.) Fermer goes on
to say that the phrase Lord of hosts_ is used nearly 300 times: "It is a title of
might and power, used frequently in a military or apocalyptic context .... It is
thought by some to have arisen as a title of God associated with his lordship
over the 'host' of Israel; but its usage, especially in the prophets, clearly
implies a relationship to the 'host of heaven' in its angelic sense, and this
could well be the original connotation." (ibid.)
10. The reason given for not worshiping the stars in Deuteronomy 4.19
is that they aren't particular enough. One must worship the god of Israel,
and not objects which belong to everyone. The next verse in Deuteronomy

(4.20) reads: "But the Lord has taken you, and brought you forth out of the
iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own possession, as at this
day." Deuteronomy 17.2-5 prescribes strong punishment for sun, moon and
star worship: "If there is found among you, within any of your towns which
the Lord your God gives you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the
sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, and has gone and
served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the
host of heaven, which I have forbidden, and it is told you and you hear of it;
then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an
abominable thing has been done in Israel, then you shall bring forth to your
gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone
that man or woman to death with stones."
11. In 2 Kings 21:1-3, we are told about a phase in the struggle of the
Jews to replace earlier religions and to resist imposition of alien religions.
Manasseh became king of Judah when he was 12 and reigned for 55 years:
"And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the
abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the
people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father
had destroyed; and he erected altars for Ba'al, and made an Asherah, as
Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and
served them." At which the Lord said by way of his prophets: "I am bringing
upon Jerusalem and Judah such evil that the ears of every one who hears of
it will tingle ... and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and
turning it upside down." (2 Kings 21:12-13). 2 Chronicles 33:12-13 adds that
Manasseh prayed to the Lord, "and humbled himself greatly before the God of
his fathers." God received his plea, and restored him to Jerusalem after a
captivity in Babylon. "Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God." But
Amon, the son of Manasseh, did the same as his father, and was killed by his
servants. (2 Kings 21:19-26, 22:1-22; Chronicles 33:21-25, 34:1-2). The
people of Judah killed the conspirators, and made Josiah, the son of Amon,
king. Josiah "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord", and turned back to
Yahweh.
12. In 2 Kings 23.4-5, we read that Josiah burned "all the vessels made
for Ba'al, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven" and "deposed the
idolatrous priests "who burned incense to Ba'al, to the sun, and the moon,
and the constellations, and all the host of heavens." Jeremiah 8.1-2 has: "At
that time, says the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its
princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of
the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs; and they
shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which
they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and they have
sought and worshiped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be
as dung on the surface of the ground." In the book of the prophet
_Zephaniah_, doom is proclaimed for Judah, and in _Zephaniah_ 1.2,5, we
read: "I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth," says
the Lord", and among the priests to be destroyed are "those who bow down on
the roofs to the host of the heavens." These condemnations of astral religion
seem to be made chiefly on behalf of eliminating competing gods, or at any
rate competing priests and kings.

13. It appears that there was a migration of Hebrews from the north,
perhaps from Palestine or the Syrian desert, to southern Arabia in the first
millenium B.C. or maybe much earlier. This is the region now called Yemen,
of which there are at present two separate political entities. During the first
millenium, this region maintained a considerable trade in incense and spices.
According to one tradition, the Queen of Sheba came from a section of this
region called Saba. The people of this civilization were known as the
Sabaeans, Minaeans, Qatabaneans and Hadramauteans.
14. "The evidence goes to prove," says James Montgomery, "that the
ruling classes which made the South-Arabian civilization came from the
north. There the Semitic genius produced in a land of unique natural
possibilities an artificial civilization that compares with the civilization of
Babylonia, only far more wholly Semitic, for in Babylonia the Semites built
upon the alien Sumerian civilization." The religion of this pre-Islamic culture
was polytheistic. The gods, or els, were similar to the baals of Canaan. Pre-
eminent among the gods was "a definite astral triad of highest deities",
consisting of "Moon, Sun, and Morning (or Evening) Star, a family group of
Father, Mother, and Son corresponding to the Babylonian trinity, Shamash,
Sin, Ishtar." (James Montgomery, Arabia and the Bible, 1934, p. 151-2.)
15. What this "pure" Semitic religion of southern Arabia has do with
religions further north is hard to say. There has been much progress in
archeological research in this region since Montgomery wrote in 1934, but
this hasn't resulted in much light being shed on the religious practices of this
culture. The southern religion may have been related to that of the
Canaanites of the Bible, who preceded the Israelites in Palestine. It may be
that in some ways the Canaanite religion was a forerunner of the Hebrew
religion. John Romer observes: "Just as the faith of biblical Israel was
housed inside the traditional architecture of [Bronze Age] Canaan so some of
the Old Testaments's oldest passages, its liturgy and Psalms are also rooted
in Canaanite literature." (John Romer, Testament, 1988, p. 78.) We may
speculate that the astral component of Canaanite religion to which the
Hebrews were so opposed was similar to that of the Semites of southern
Arabia. Again, the correspondence of the the south Arabian trinity with that
of the Babylonians suggests a link with ancient Mesopotamian religions. For
our purposes, we need not involve ourselves in the intricate and frustrating
history and pre-history of Palestine and Arabia. It is sufficient to know that
there was a potent astral religion throughout the "Old Testament"regions
before Israel became a nation.
16. Theodore Wedel characterizes early and medieval Christian

attitudes toward prediction by natural means in this way: "The Christians
maintained, in general, that all divinatory arts, and, above all, astrology,
were inventions of the devil, and could be carried on only by the aid of
demons. This theory arose early, and remained throughout the Middle Ages
the argument of last resort .... It was an easy saving of argument, therefore,
to admit at the outset the possibility of astrological prediction, and, at the
same time, to prohibit its use by asserting that it could only be accomplished
through diabolic aid. But danger lurked in pushing this theory too far; for
how could even demons read the future in the stars unless it was written
there? (Theodore Otto Wedel, The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology,
Particularly in England, 1920, p. 16-17.)

17. The early Christian theologian Origen was opposed to the art of
casting horoscopes, and to the theory of the magnus annus, according to
which, when the celestial bodies all return to their original positions after
the lapse of some thousands of years, history will begin to repeat itself and
the same events will occur and the same persons live over again. Both of
these views were attributed to Celsus by Origen in his Contra Celsum (1st
half of 3rd century A.D.). Origen rejects them on the grounds that to admit
their truth is to annihilate free will. But, as Thorndike says, Origen is far
from having freed himself from astrological attitudes toward the stars, and
still shows vestiges of the pagan tendency to worship them as divinities. He
grants reasoning faculties and a certain amount of prophetic powerr to the
stars, but refuse to permit worship of them. Rather he believes that "the sun
himself and moon and stars pray to the supreme God through his only
begotten Son" (quoted by Thorndike). Elsewhere Origen says that stars can
even sin. In a fragment of a commentay on Genesis, he holds like Philo
Judaeus that men were instructed in the meaning of the stars by the fallen
angels. He argues at length that divine foreknowledge does not imply
necessity. Nevertheless, God instituted the stars as signs of the future, but
he only intended for angels to read them, and considered it best that people
remain ignorant of their futures. Evil spirits, however, taught men the art of
astrology. However, Origen believes that the art is so difficult and requires
such superhuman accuracy that the predictions of astrologers are more likely
to be wrong than right, "for it is a much greater task," he says, "than lies
within human power to learn truly from the motion of the stars what each
person will do and suffer." (Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and
Experimental Science, 1923-1958), v. 1, 1923, p. 456-458.)
18. Tamsyn Barton in her description of the the position of Origen says:
"Origen (185/86 – 254/55), who remained immensely influential despite his
later condemnation, illustrates the nature of the struggle between the
astrologers and the church in his Commentary on Genesis. In his uneasy
compromises he shows that astrology was a serious rival. Origen
summarizes his arguments as follows: '1) How our freedom is safeguarded
when God knows in advance for all eternity the acts that each man is judged
to have accomplished. 2) How the stars are not agents, but signs. 3) That
humans cannot have accurate knowledge of these signs, but that they are
revealed for the sake of powers greater than humans. 4) The reason for
which God has created these signs is in order to obtain knowledge for the
powers will be examined. ' (23.6.20-30) He elaborates a Christian version of
astral fatalism with his notion of the divine writing. This moving writing,
formed of letters and characters traced by God’s hand in the sky so that the
dynameis theiae (divine powers) can read them, prefigures all cosmic events
from creation to consummation. This is done to instruct the celestial powers
and make them happy, in uncovering for them all dicine mysteries and all
kind of knowledge and in some cases to intimate to them their precise orders
for the missions entrusted to them (20.29-39). Interestingly, he also allows
evil powers access to this knowledge, remarking explicitly that, if demons
execute actions prefigured by the stars, they do not do so because they read
the 'writing' to discover the will of God but only because they act maliciously
of their own volition, as the good powers act freely when they follow orders
(21.1-12). He also seems to admit that stars are not inert objects
manipulated by the divine but, rather, animated, intelligent entities. Saint

Pamphilus, in his work In Defense of Origen, affirms that this doctrine was
not yet heretical."
19. Among the ancient Greeks, Carneades (c. 213-129 B.C.), founder of a
school of philosophy called the New Academy, argued against fatalistic
astrology on a number of grounds. Although Carneades, like Socrates, wrote
nothing, his oral arguments have been preserved by others. He used the
familiar argument that twins, although born under the same signs, need not
have the same destiny. It was noted early that the stars move very quickly
around the earth, and twins are not in fact born under quite the same
planetary influences. Howe ver, Carneades might have replied to this with
another of his criticisms, that it is humanly impossible to fix the exact time of
birth or conception. Carneades' argument based on the destruction of
morality had an especially forceful and lasting influence on neo-Platonists
and Christian theologians. He held that astrological fatalism must be wrong,
since if it were right, it would be the ruin of morality and piety, of
responsibility as well as irresponsibility, of laws and justice and punishment,
of virtue as well as vice, of praise as well as blame, of modesty as well as
shame. Since these exist, fatalism fails. One might reply to this with the
argument of Zeno the Stoic: moral as well as immoral acts are preordained,
and so are responsibility and irresponsibility, the passing and obeying and
breaking of laws, justice and punishment, virtue and vice, praise and blame,
modesty and shame. Nevertheless, Carneades' arguments against astrology
were repeated by a legion of Christian theologians, as has been traced by
David Amand (David Amand, _Fatalisme et libert dans l'antiquit grecque,
Recherches sur la survivance de l'argumentation morale antifataliste de
Carnéade chez les philosophes grecs et les théologiens chrétiens des quatres
premiers siêcles, 1945).
20. In the early centuries of the Christian era, Amand says, following
the blossoming of Stoicism, the heart-breaking nightmare of the heimarmene
-- the absolutely necessary and indissoluble succession of causes and effects
in the past, present and future -- terrified masses of people devoted to the
official polytheistic cults, and led them to seek deliverance in the mystery
religions, and it terrified innumerable Christians who in the secrecy of their
consciences were led to doubt their redemption by Christ. Many philosophers
and theologians of antiquity, other than Stoics, were deeply committed to
proving that our wills are free, and to refuting the demoralizing theory of
sidereal fatalism. Christian doctors, in particular, defended with great vigor
human freedom of choice as a most excellent -- but most perilous -- gift of
God. "The cultural history of antiquity in its decline would be incomplete,"
says Amand, "without a chapter entitled: 'The bad dream of the astrological
heimarmene and the battle for moral freedom.'" (Amand, ibid., p. 587-588
and p. 7.) For Christians, the problem was complicated by the doctrine that
while men may not know the future, God does.
21. St. Augustine, for example, says that when ordinary men hear the
word 'fate' "ordinary usage leads them to think of nothing but the influence of
the position of the stars at the moment when a child is born, or conceived."
Augustine continues: "Those, however, who believe that the stars, apart from
the will of God, determine what we do, what goods we have, or what evils we
suffer, must be thrown out of court, not only by adherents of the true religion,
but also by those who choose to worship gods of any sort, false gods though

they be. For what is the effect of this belief except to persuade men not to
worship or pray to any god at all?..... As against these rash assertions,
blasphemous and irreligious as they are, we Christians declare both that God
knows all things before they happen, and that it is by our own free will that
we act, whenever we feel and know that a thing is done by us of our own
volition. But we do not say that all things come to pass by fate. No indeed,
we say that nothing comes to pass by fate. For the word fate is commonly
used of the position of the stars at the moment of conception or birth, and we
have shown that word means nothing, but is the frivolous assertion of an
unreality .... It is not true, then, that there is no reality in our will just
because God foresaw what would be in our will .... Therefore we are in no way
compelled to abolish free will when we keep the foreknowledge of God, or
blasphemously to deny that God foreknows the future because we keep free
will. Instead we embrace both truths; with faith and trust we assert both.
The former is required for correct belief, the latter for right living. And there
is no right living if there is no correct belief in God. Far be it then, from us,
in order to enjoy free will, to deny the foreknowledge of him by whose
assistance alone we are free, or shall ever be free..... Nay, it is precisely
because of foreknowledge that there is no doubt that man himself sins when
he sins. For he whose foreknowledge cannot be mistaken foresaw that
neither fate, nor fortune, nor anything else but the man himself would sin. If
he chooses not to sin, he certainly does not sin, and this choice not to sin was
also foreseen by God." (Augustine, Civitate Dei contra paganos, City of God
Against the Pagans, 413-426 A.D., translation by William Green, 1963, of v. i,
p. 134-135; v.ix, p. 174-175; v.x, p. 184-187.) Thus while Augustine rejects
astrological prediction in the name of free will, he embraces a doctrine of
predestination and divine foreknowledge.
22. The limits of free will must be carefully observed, says Augustine.
He writes in a letter to Hilarius: "... our free will is able to perform good
works if it is helped from above, which happens as a result of humble petition
and confession; whereas, if it is deprived of divine help, it may excel in
knowledge of the Law, but it will have no solid foundation of justice, and will
be puffed up with impious pride and deadly vanity..... This free will will be
free in proportion as it is sound, and sound in proportion as it is submissive
to divine mercy and grace. Therefore, it prays with faith and says: 'Direct
my paths according to thy word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me.'
It prays, it does not promise; it confesses, it does not declare itself; it begs for
the fullest liberty, it does not boast of its own power." (Augustine, Letters,
translated by Sister Wilfrid Parsons, 1953, v. 3, p. 321, 323-324.)
23. Mircea Eliade says: "Of course, astrology, the hope that one can
know the future, has always been popular with the rich and powerful -- with
kings, princes, popes, etc. -- particularly from the Renaissance on. One may
add that the belief in the determination of destiny by the position of the
planets illustrates, in the last analysis, another defeat of Christianity.
Indeed, the Christian Fathers fiercely attacked the astrological fatalism
dominant during the last centuries of the Roman Empire. 'We are above
Fate,' wrote Tatian; 'the Sun and the Moon are made for us!' In spite of this
theology of human freedom, astrology has never been extirpated in the
Christian world. But never in the past did it reach the proportions and
prestige it enjoys in our times." (Mircea Eliade, Occultism, Witchcraft, and
Cultural Fashions, 1976, p. 59.) It is doubtful that astrology, and astral

religion, is as great a force right nowadays as it was in the Hellenistic era,
but when Eliade was writing (early 1970's) it was enjoying one of its
recurrent upsurges.
24. Eliade speculates on reasons for the popularity of astrology: "... the
discovery that your life is related to astral phenomena does confer a new
meanng on your existence. You are no longer merely the anonymous
individual described by Heidegger and Sartre, a stranger thrown into an
absurd and meaningless world, condemned to be free, as Sartre used to say,
with a freedom confined to your situation and conditioned by your historical
moment. Rather, the horoscope reveals to you a new dignity: it shows how
intimately you are related to the entire universe. It is true that your life is
determined by the movements of the stars, but at least this determinant has
an incomparable grandeur. Although, in the last analysis, a puppet pulled by
invisible ropes and strings, you are nevertheless a part of the heavenly world.
Besides, this cosmic predetermination of your existence constitutes a
mystery: it means that the universe moves on according to a preestablished
plan; that human life and history itself follow a pattern and advance
progressively toward a goal. This ultimate goal is secret or beyond human
understanding; but at least it gives meaning to a cosmos regarded by most
scientists as the result of blind hazard, and it gives sense to the human
existence declared by Sartre to be de trop. This parareligious dimension of
astrology is even considered superior to the existing religions, because it does
not imply any of the difficult theological problems: the existence of a personal
or transpersonal God, the enigma of Creation, the origin of evil, and so on.
Following the instructions of your horoscope, you feel in harmony with the
universe and do not have to bother with hard, tragic, or insoluble problems,
At the same time, you admit, consciously or unconsciously, that a grand,
through incomprehensible, cosmic drama displays itself and that you are a
part of it; accordingly, you are not de trop." (Eliade, ibid., p. 61.) One may
wonder to what extent resistance to notions or the existence of free will and
indeterminism, especially in human affairs, is motivated by yearnings for
security, or for being a part of an astral divine plan.
25. The Church continued to vigorously oppose astrology throughout the

Middle Ages, and since astrology and astronomy were intertwined, the
opposition sometimes spilled over to astronomy. Pierre Duhem says,
speaking of medieval Italian astrologers: "To deny human freedom, to deny
the miraculous action of Providence in the world, to use superstitious
divinations and magical operations, was to contradict all Christian teaching
and to contravene the most strict prescriptions of the Church. Among the
adepts of astrology, then, and the ministers of Catholicism, a struggle was
inevitable. Sometimes it was violent. The unbelieving astrologers who
enlivened the spirit of the Court of Naples harshly attacked orthodox
doctrine; and the mendicant monks, Dominicans and Franciscans, zealously
defended dogma. The Church raged against impenitent error with the
toughness which was the rule of the time, and over the history of Italian
astronomy in the Middle Ages the flame of the stake sometimes threw its
bloody gleam." (Pierre Duhem, Le Système du Monde, 1913, v. 4, p. 187-188.)
26. The prime example used by Duhem of such a Neapolitan astrologer

is Guido Bonatti (born before 1223, died 1296 or 1297), who wrote a popular
book on astrology, and was vigorously opposed by a celebrated preaching

friar, John of Vincence (Jean de Vicence). One can't help noticing that
Bonatti lived to an old age, unpunished by the Church. Pico della Mirandola
later (1495) characterized Bonatti's work as puerile and only suitable for
fools. However, Duhem describes Bonatti's arguments, meant to show that
the possible, which lies between the necessary and the impossible, is not the
contingent, as Aristotle and Abu Ma'shar had said, but something like the
necessary while it is still potential. This may be wrong, but Bonatti's
arguments, as quoted by Duhem, don't sound foolish.
27. Duhem himself speaks admiringly of the views of Avicenna (985-

1036 A.D.) and Al Gazali (1058-1111 A.D.) in which a more subtle version of
this idea is embedded in an elaborate philosophical and theological system,
which was of paramount influence in the Muslim world, and had considerable
effect in the Christian world. A basic motive of Avicenna and Al Gazali was
to elucidate the relations between God, the celestial intelligences belonging to
the heavenly spheres, and the bodies and souls of the sublunary world.
Duhem says: "For Aristotle, in any substance of the sublunary world, there is
a matter which exists potentially and a form which exists actually. For
Avicenna and Al Gazali, in all being after the First Cause, there is an essence
which is simply possible and an existence which a creative cause makes
necessary." (Pierre Duhem, ibid., v. 4, p. 495.)
28. In this last formulation, the First Cause and creative cause are
allowed for, and a mechanism for turning the possible into the necessary is
furnished, but the underlying intent to show that everything has a cause
(First Cause excepted) resembles that of Bonatti. Furthermore: "Like
Peripatetism [Aristotelianism], like Stoicisn, like Hellenic Neoplatonism, the
Arabic Neoplatonism makes all of its metaphysics lead to the justification of
the principle which the astrologers claim for themselves. With what rigor
Avicenna develops it! With what care he submits to it everything which
happens in the world, even what seems to happen by chance, even the
decisions of our wills." The principle, in brief, is that everything for which
existence has been preceded by non-existence, including voluntary decisions,
has a cause; and that terrestrial events arise from celestial ones, which in
turn proceed in a necessary manner from the necessity of the divine will.
(Duhem, ibid., p. 493-494.)
29. Despite Christian opposition to astrology, there were Christian

writers who promoted it from early on. For example, there was Firmicus,
more completely Julius Firmicus Maternus, who converted to Christianity in
the time of the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great (4th century
A.D.). He wrote a work called Mathesis, on the casting of horoscopes, which
was well-known throughout medieval times and later. As we would expect of
a Christian, he was not a fatalist, and he believed in one supreme God.
According to Thorndike: "Firmicus provides not only for divine government of
the universe and creation of the world and man, but also for prayer to God
and for human free will, since by the divinity of the soul we are able to resist
in some measure the decrees of the stars. He also holds that human laws and
moral standards are not rendered of no avail by the force of the stars but are
very useful to the soul in its struggle by the power of the divine mind against
the vices of the body." (Lynn Thorndike, ibid., v. 1, p. 531.) Thorndike
remarks that the astrologer Hephaestion of Thebes, who wrote later in the

fourth century, seems also to have been a Christian, so Firmicus seems not to
have been a solitary case or an anomaly. (p. 535.)
30. Firmicus makes specific predictions which Thorndike takes to be

revealing of the state of the society around Firmicus. For example, the
evidence of the Mathesis suggests that most people in what we see to have
been declining Rome were not conscious of the the intellectual decadence and
lack of interest in science generally imputed to them. (Thorndike, ibid., p.
538.) It seems that mathematics and medicine were important factors in 4th
century culture, along with the rhetorical studies whose role may have been
over-estimated in recent times, perhaps by scholars uninterested in the
sciences.
31. During the flowering of Arabian culture in the couple of hundred

years after the rise of Islam, there were many Arabian astrologers, and some
of their writings strongly influenced Christians during the European Middle
Ages, chiefly starting from around 1100. Alkindi and Albumasar (Abu
Ma'shar) (9th century A.D.) are two especially famous names. Another,
somewhat lesser known, was Thebit ben Corat (or Thabit ibn Kurrah, Abu Al
Hasan, etc., etc.), (also 9th century A.D). Roger Bacon (c. 1214-1292) alludes
to him as "the supreme philosopher among all Christians [!], who has added
in many respects, speculative as well as practical, to the work of Ptolemy."
However, Thorndike says he was not a Mohammedan, but a heathen or
pagan, a member of the sect of Sabians, whose chief seat was at his birth-
place, Harran. These are presumably descendants of the Sabaeans of
southern Arabia we mentioned earlier.
32. The Sabians, Thorndike says, appear to have continued the

paganism and astrology of Babylonia, but also to have accepted Hermetic
traditions from Egypt, and some Gnostic and Neo-Platonic doctrines. They
laid special stress on the spirits of the planets, to whom they prayed and
made sacrifices and suffumigations. Days on which planets reached their
culminating points were celebrated as festivals. They observed houses and
stations of the planets, their risings and setting, conjunctions and
oppositions, and their rule over certain hours of the day and night. Some
planets were masculine, others feminine, some lucky, others unlucky. They
were related to different metals, and different members of the human body
were placed under different signs of the zodiac. Each planet had its own
appropriate figures and forms, and ruled over specified climates, regions and
things in nature. Most of this, however, is astrological commonplace,
whether of pagans, Mohammedans or Christians. It was only in worshiping
the spirits of the planets and denying the existence of one God, and in their
practice of sacrificial divination, that the Sabians could be distinguished as
heathen or pagan. Thebit became one of the Caliph's astronomers in Bagdad,
where he founded his Sabian community. He was famed above all as a
philosopher, but most of his philosophical works are lost. Some geometrical
treatises by him are extant, also a work on weights, and four astronomical
treatises, evidently of no great originality. He was also the author of a work
cited by numerous medieval authorities, on the construction of astronomical
or astrological images for various ends. This was said by Thebit, on the
authority of Aristotle and Ptolemy, to be the "acme of astrology". (Thorndike,
ibid., v. 1, p. 661-662.)

33. Theodore Wedel observes that in the astrological treatises of such
Arabian writers as Albumasar, Abenragel and Alchabitius, judicial astrology
as Ptolemy had described it occupied a position of minor importance. Instead,
emphasis was on interrogationes and electiones. For the interrogationes, rules
were given with which an astrologer could answer questions about such
matters as identifying a thief, the location of missing objects or persons,
trustworthiness of an associate, or the wealth of a prospective marriage
partner. For the electiones, rules were given for determining propitious
moments for actions. These might be applied to even small details, such as
the proper time for boarding a ship, writing a letter, or cutting one's
fingernails. (Wedel, ibid., p. 53-54.)
34. Richard Lemay has argued that a work of Albumasar, whose name
more accurately and completely was Abu Ma'shar Ja'far ben Muhammad ben
'Umar al-Balkhi, was very likely the single most important original source of
Aristotle's theories of nature for European scholars, starting a little before
the middle of the 12th century. (Richard Lemay, Abu Ma'shar and Latin
Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century, The Recovery of Aristotle's Natural
Philosophy through Arabic Astrology, 1962.) It was not until later in the 12th
century that the original books of Aristotle on nature began to become
available in Latin. The works of Aristotle on logic had been known earlier,
and Aristotle was generally recognized as "the master of logic". But during
the course of the 12th century, Aristotle was transformed into the "master of
those who know", and in particular a master of natural philosophy, or the
scientific theory of natural things. It is especially interesting that the work of
Abu Ma'shar in question is a treatise on astrology. Its Latin title is
Introductorium in Astronmiam, a translation of the Arabic Kitab al-mudkhal
al-kabir ila 'ilm ahkam an-nujjum, written in Baghdad in the year 848 A.D.
It was translated into Latin first by John of Seville in 1133, and again, less
literally and abridged, by Hermann of Carinthia in 1140 A.D.
35. Lemay says: "Genuine peripatetic [i.e., Aristotelian] doctrines in the

Introductorium are hopelessly mingled together with empirical notions
common among psychologists, physicians and other popular practitioners of
Oriental society while, on the other hand, an Aristotelian 'scientific' basis is
very cleverly set up in support of astrology." (Lemay, ibid., p. xxix.) Thus, to
begin with, the Christian scholars of Europe associated the natural science of
Aristotle with astrology. This sheds light on the nature of the condemnations
of Aristotle by Church authorities early in the 13th century, which
emphasized pernicious doctrines of astrological fatalism and pantheistic
cosmology, and on the later integration of Aristotle into Christian doctrine
made by such scholars as Robert Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas. Lemay goes so far as to say that "during the thirteenth century, the
authority of Abu Ma'shar on astronomy-astrology, and on cosmology,
disputed the first place with Aristotle himself", and quotes a marginal note
in a medieval manuscript to the effect that Ptolemy in the Almagest is the
authority for the courses of the planets, and Alfraganus for their geometry,
but on the nature of the planets and their influence on the lower world, Abu
Ma'shar is set above Aristotle. (Lemay, ibid., p. xxxv.)
36. During the course of the 12th century, most of the translations into
Latin from Arabic made by European scholars were of astrological material.
As a result, says Lemay: "Astrology became a superior branch of physics, a

sort of provisional metaphysics to be modified and displaced only in the
thirteenth century at the time of the full adoption of Aristotle's Metaphysics
and Physics. The twelfth century intellectual effervescence stirred up by
Arabic learning opened a transitional period in natural philosophy based
principally on the premisses of astrology." (Lemay, l.c., p. 8.) The kind of
basic premise Lemay has in mind is the one derived by Abu Ma'shar from the
works of Aristotle, to the effect that every motion in the physical universe
depends strictly and deterministically on the motion of celestial objects,
especially the planets (including the sun and moon), which are alive and act
as agents of God.
37. It appears, then, that the partisans of natural science in the 12th
century, Christians included, were saturated with astrology. Lemay says:
"The names of Adelard of Bath, John of Seville, Hermann of Carinthia,
William of Conches, Bernard Silvester, Roger of Hereford, Daniel of Morley,
Raymond of Marseilles, Robert of Chester, Alfred of Sareshel, Alanus de
Insulis and Raoul of Longchamp. are all associated one way or another with
the rising interest in the natural Aristotle; all were firm believers as well in
the validity of astrological science. Twelfth century scholars have long been
studied with the conviction that they were entirely absorbed in logical
disputes, or bent on finding in nature a preordained imitation of biblical or
theological concepts. Dispassionate examination of the rich manuscript
materials remaining from this period has resulted in nothing less than a re-
discovery of some major aspects of twelfth century intellectual life. Whether
in astrology or alchemy, in medicine or mathematics, in geometry, botany or
mineralogy, etc., the intellectual pursuits of twelfth century scholars appear
to have ranged well beyond the pale of religious thought; theirs were the
permanent interests which men of all times have shown in the physical laws
of their natural habitat. The dedication of astrologers to their discipline
represented a far more serious preoccupation than the mere mention of their
science would incline modern historians to imagine. It has always been a
great mistake of historians of medieval thought to minimize or totally to
overlook this field of inquiry as of nor importance or having negligible
bearing upon the intellectual outlook of the time." (Lemay, ibid., p. xxiv-xxv.)
38. In the 8 volumes of his A History of Magic and Experimental Science

(1923-1958), Thorndike discusses the attitudes toward astrology of a host of
medieval writers and leaders. For example, there is Saint Hildegard (1098-
1179) of Bingen. At first sight, she is a strong opponent of astrology. She
calls the mathematici "deadly instructors", and warns that men "should not
seek signs of the future in either stars or fire or birds or any other creature".
On the other hand, she emphasizes the influence of the moon on natural
phenomena, and also the passions of men via their "humors" (fluids), which
determine to some fair extent their character and even something of their
fates. There is, in her Causae et curae, a list of predictions for each day of the
moon of the type of person who will be conceived on that day. (Thorndike,
ibid., v. 2, 1923, p. 148-151.)
39. John of Salisbury (1120?-1180) was thoroughly opposed to astrology,

but got into some difficulty trying to reconcile God's omniscience and
foreknowledge with fatal necessity. (Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p. 164-167.) Of the
Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204), Thorndike says: "That
Maimonides was well acquainted with the art of astrology may be inferred

from his assertion that he has read every book in Arabic on the subject.
Maimonides not only believed the stars were living, animated beings and that
there were as many pure intelligences as there were spheres, but he states
twice in the Guide for the Perplexed that all philosophers agree that this
inferior world of generation and corruption is ruled by the virtues and
influences of the celestial spheres. While their influence is diffused through
all things, each star or planet also has particular species especially under its
influence." (ibid., p 211.) For some reason, Maimonides identified the control
of human destinies by the constellations with the rule of blind chance.
Maimonides also believed that God has planned all things in advance, and
that this is incompatible with things occurring fortuitously. John of
Salisbury, on the other hand, attacked both Epicureans and Stoics on the
ground that the former believe in blind chance and the latter in strict
necessity, and both are wrong. It's not clear from Thorndike's description
whether he was talking about everything happening by chance for
Epicureans, and by necessity for Stoics, or just about some things for each.
40. Robert Grosseteste (1168?-1253) was Bishop of Lincoln. A

Franciscan chronicler, Salimbene, regarded him as one of the greatest clerics
in the world. Matthew Paris, a Benedictine chronicler, even though he was in
some ways not well disposed to Grosseteste, referred to him as a saint, and
Grosseteste was indeed put forward for canonization. Some say the
nomination was unsuccessful because of the way Grosseteste had fearlessly
criticized the temporal organization of the Church, especially in connection
with awarding benefices to unsuitable office seekers. Roger Bacon,
sometimes acclaimed as a scientific thinker of great originality, praised him
as the most illustrious scientist and translator of the Schools, and even
ranked him with Solomon, Aristotle and Avicenna. For Grosseteste
"mathematics" includes astronomy, and astronomy includes astrology.
41. Thorndike says of Grossesteste's De artibus liberalis: "Grosseteste

accepts astronomy or astrology as the supreme science and says in his
treatise on the liberal arts that natural philosophy needs its aid more than
that of the others. There is scarcely any operation whether of nature or of
man, such as the planting of vegetables, or transmutation of minerals, or
cure of diseases, which can dispense with astronomical assistance. For
inferior nature does not act except as celestial virtue moves and directs it.
He then goes on to detail the effects of the moon, Saturn, and Mars on the
hour of planting, and then to emphasize the importance of selecting the
favorable hours astrologically in medical practive and in alchemy where he
associates the seven planets with seven metals. He also argues that the
harmony of the movements of the celestial spheres is found also in their
effects upon the inferior world. Therefore he who knows the due proportion
of the elements in the human body and the concord of the soul with the body,
can restore any lack of harmony in the same to its proper state. In other
words, diseases and even wounds and deafness should be curable by music
based upon a knowledge of astrology and mathematics, and one should also
be able to control such emotions as joy, grief, and wrath." (Thorndike, ibid.,
v. 2, p. 445.)
42. In another treatise, De impressionibus aeris seu de prognosticatione,

on weather prediction, Grosseteste discusses such things as the power of the
zodiacal signs and planets, including such technical matters as house,

exaltation and aspect. On the question of free will, he holds that the human
body is subject to two forces: "as part of the world of cause it is changed in
many ways by the movements of the stars, but it is also subject to the control
of the mind especially in voluntary actions." (idem, p. 446.) He follows
Augustine in The City of God in denying that all our actions which seem
freely willed are predictable from the stars. J. D. North says: "In his
Hexameron [commentary on the first 6 books of the Bible], Grosseteste's final
position on astrological belief is stated at some length. Superficially it is
hostile -- astrology books are written at the dictation of the devil, and should
be burned -- but his hostility has to do with the issue of determinism, free
will, and theological values. His belief in celestial influence was as strong as
ever. He thought that the science of the astrologers must fail because the
influences they sought are so precisely focussed in accordance with the
momentary stellar configuration, that even the most accurate astronomer
would not find them. They were real enough, in Grosseteste's view." (J. D.
North, "Medieval Concepts of Celestial Influence: A Survey", in Astrology,
Science and Society, Historical Essays, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p.
11.) <![endif]>
43. Grosseteste was a great supporter of the use of geometry in

explaining natural phenomena. Thorndike observes that in his treatise De
lineis, angulis et figuris, Grosseteste holds that not only light but every
natural agent sends forth its virtue to the object affected and acts on sense or
matter along geometrical straight lines. This doctrine of radiation or
emanation of force seems to date back at least to Plotinus, and Alkindi among
the Arabs in his treatise on Stellar Rays says that the stars and all objects in
the world of the four elements emit rays of this sort. (Thorndike, ibid., v. 2, p.
443.)
44. James McEvoy considers Grosseteste's masterpiece, and most

original work, to be his De luce (On Light). McEvoy says that according to
Grosseteste: "The entire world-machine was created in the beginning from
first form and first matter. Light multiplied itself from a single point
infinitely and equally on all sides to form a sphere, and extended matter into
the dimensions of the actual universe..... Though the propagation of light and
the consequent expansion of matter, beginning from the primordial point,
takes place equally in every direction, of necessity the outermost reaches of
extended matter are more sparse and rarefied than are the inner, which
remain capable of further rarefaction. The farthest limit of extension is
reached when no further rarefaction of matter is possible; the ultimate
capacity of matter being realized, the area immediately bounded by the outer
spherical surface is incapable of further physical change. A perfect body had
come into being, the firmament having in its composition only first matter
and form. The most simple body in essence, it is the greatest in quantity and
the container of all subsequent bodies." (James McEvoy, The Philosophy of
Robert Grosseteste (1982), p. 152, 154.) Shades of the Big Bang, and
Expanding Universe!
45. McEvoy concludes from his examination of the De luce that

Grosseteste "aimed consciously at producing a synthesis of the cosmogony of
Genesis and the cosmology of the De Caelo [of Aristotle]" (ibid., p. 167.) As to
Grosseteste's place in the history of science, McEvoy says: "His intuition led
him to the conviction that mathematics, far from being an abstraction from

aspects of the physically real, is the very internal texture of the natural
world, presiding over its coming to be and controlling its functioning; that, in
the words of Kepler, 'Ubi materia, ibi geometria' ['Where there's matter,
there's geometry']. Of course, this faith was metaphysical; but then so too
was much of the high-level inspiration of scientists in the seventeenth
century. It was abstract, because the mathematical structure of reality is not
given to the senses, but intuited or believed in by the mind. What it afforded
was not so much scientific results as delight in the pure understanding of the
essence of things, and, what Grosseteste valued most of all, a glimpse beyond
the beauty of the harmoniuous textura of things to the mind of the primus
numerator ['prime calculator'], the lux prima et inaccessibilis ['primal and
inaccessible light']..... The novel aspect of Grosseteste's world-system goes
back entirely to this conception of God as the great calculator. For the first
time, it would appear, in the history of Christian belief, God is addressed as a
mathematician whose ideas for creation are mathematical operations
realizable in matter and form." (McEvoy, ibid., p. 210-211, 214.)
46. Here Grosseteste employs a mathematics different in kind from the

numerology found at times among the Church Fathers. McEvoy suggests
that the patristic numerology might have been pursued with the expectation
that it would reveal a coherence and harmony in creation. However,
Grosseteste's idea of God as Numerator generates expectations of a more
mathematical type, the kind of expectations which fulfil themselves in the
sciences. This happens, McEvoy says, "... when an inner need for meaning
and form sharpens the eye and encourages it to read upon the screen of ideal
reality the after-image of the programme that determined the innermost
structure of things. In scientific inquiry, evidence turns up to answer inner
needs of the questioning mind, if they are insistent enough and sufficiently
clear and coherent; for in this respect nature is not parsimonious or
ungenerous; she is ample enough to suit different tastes." (ibid., p. 214-215.)
McEvoy is making a distinction similar to the one I made earlier between
applied and appliqued mathematics.
47. However, Grosseteste also indulged in numerology at times.

McEvoy describes Grosseteste's proof that the universe is a complete and
harmonious thing: "In the most simple body there are four things to be
found: form, matter, composition, and the composite. Form is totally simple
and corresponds to the mathematical unity. Matter is the dyad, due to its
binary qualities of receptivity and divisibility. Composition corresponds to
the number three, for in it are informed matter, immattered form, and the
property itself of composition. 'Four' comprehends whatever the composite is
beyond these three. The aggregate of these numbers is ten, contained in the
quaternity of the first body (which virtually contains all the others), and
mirrored in the number of bodies in the world -- for the four elements form
together a single terrestrial body. Manifestly, ten is the perfect number of
the universe and is possessed by every whole and perfect thing. Clearly, too,
only the five proportions found in the first four numbers are adequate for the
composition and harmony that sustain every composite being; they are the
foundation of harmony in musical sound, gesture, and rhythm." (ibid., p. 157-
158.)
48. With Grosseteste, we have in the same person an understanding of

an intrinsic mathematical nature of nature, and an imposition on nature of

some numerology. We also have in the same person a devotion to astrology,
and a cosmogony and cosmology based on light which bears a faint
resemblance to current cosmologies of the "big bang" type. McEvoy says: "In
the rational and scientific cosmology of De luce two basic ideas are enthroned,
namely, the continuity of nature and action through the material world, and
the ultimate unity of matter. Both of these bear some resonance of the half-
magical world of astrology and alchemy...... The influence of astrology and
alchemy made it natural for Grosseteste in the earlier stages of his
philosophical itinerary to look for continuity of nature and action between the
heavens and the earth." (ibid., p. 182, 187; cf. also p. 165-166.) It appears
that we have here an example of the confluence of influences out of which the
European scientific revolution of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was
eventually to grow.
49. Wedel argues that the most decisive factor in the development of the
doctrines on astrology of many university scholars -- scholastics -- was the
works of Aristotle, whose complete canon had been made accessible in Latin
translations in the first quarter of the 13th century. In his De generatione et
corruptione (On growth and decay), Aristotle had taught that the processes of
earthly growth and change depend on the stellar spheres. These were the
"crystalline" spheres in which the stars and planets were said to be
embedded, a theory proposed, it seems, by Eudoxus, presumably to explain
why these objects had such regular motions. Wedel says: "And astrological
theory had, since the days of Ptolemy, become so inseparable a part of
Aristotelian cosmology that the Christian theologians, in welcoming the one,
were inevitably compelled to offer a favorable reception to the other. A
modification of such importance in the traditional doctrine of the Church
could not take place without a struggle..... In effecting a compromise between
the verdict of the early Church and the new astrology, Albert the Great and
Thomas Aquinas faced a problem of no slight difficulty." (Wedel, ibid., p. 64.)
50. Thomas Bradwardine (1290(?)-1349) was a Christian theologian of

Oxford who published in 1344 a work called De causa Dei (God's Cause), and
was archbishop of Canterbury at the end of his life (victim of the Black
Plague). Gordon Leff says that De causa Dei was a response of faith to
scepticism, notably that of William of Ockham (d. 1349, victim of the Black
Plague). It came from a person for whom theology was the apex of the
sciences (in the general sense of the word), and was meant to cut away at
outlooks which start from men rather than from God. There are,
Bradwardine says, two views of fate. One is fate as inevitable necessity, in
general due to the heavenly bodies, and more specifically due to individual
celestial objects, ruling those born under their influences. The other view of
fate is as a certain disposition, and guidance from above. The first view,
according to Bradwardine, cannot be accepted by Christians at all. If,
however, the necessity is withdrawn, and fate governed by the stars is seen
rather as a disposition and inclination in man, then the fate of the stars need
not be rejected -- for divine fate must be recognized. Is it not written,
Bradwardine says, "He spake and it was done?" We only call things
fortuitous when we don't know their causes. In fact, just as with fate, God is
the cause of everything. But Providence, God's active governance, has
nothing in common with necessity imposed by the stars, or with pure chance.

51. In Leff's view: "... with Bradwardine, God's will is not to be regarded
in the way the Arab philosophers saw it, as a universal and impersonal first
cause acting implacably through a hierarchy of secondary causes, such as
planets and celestial spheres.
Chapter 7. From Ptolemy to Newton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. In his Spiritus Mundi (1976, p. 70-89), Northrup Frye speaks of the

relation of the Ptolemaic and Copernican world systems, and of astrology and
astronomy, which he takes, as a literary critic, to be "a collision between two
mythologies, two pictures or visions, not of reality, but of man's sense of the
meaning of reality in relation to himself." Frye contrasts the two visions:
"The geocentric view had on its side the religious feeling that the moral and
natural orders had been made by the same God, that man was the highest
development of nature, that God had died and risen again for man, and that
therefore the notion of a plurality of worlds could be dismissed." Moreover,
the Ptolemaic view was also supported by the mythical analogy between the
macrocosm, the Universe, and the microcosm, Man. The macrocosm was
finite in both time and space. "Just as man lives for only seventy years, so
the universe was created to last for seven thousand years, six thousand years
of history and a thousand years of millennium, corresponding to the six days
of creation and the Sabbath of rest. Creation took place four thousand years
before the birth of Christ, who was born in 4 B.C.: therefore the millennium
will begin in 1996. However the heliocentric view had some mythological
trump-cards too. The sun is the source of light, and therefore the symbol of
consciousness. And the Renaissance brought with it a new and expanded
sense of consciousness, a feeling that consciousness represented something
that tore man loose from the lower part of nature and united him with a
higher destiny." But, Frye says, "of course, it happens to be true that the
earth goes around the sun, and not true that the sun goes around the earth."
2. Is it false that the sun goes around the earth? Albert Einstein and
Leopold Infeld say in their The Evolution of Physics 1938, p 212): "Can we
formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems],
not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily,
relative to each other? If this can be done, our troubles will be over. We shall
then be able to apply the laws of nature to any CS. The struggle, so violent in
the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would
then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification.

The two sentences, "the sun is at rest and the earth moves," or "the sun
moves and the earth is at rest," would simply mean two different conventions
concerning two different CS. Could we build a real relativistic physics valid
in all CS; a physics in which there would be no place for absolute, but only for
relative motion? This is indeed possible! [general relativity]."
3. Frye asserts that when mythologies collide, it is doubtless an

advantage to have the truth, or more of the truth, on one's side -- but not a
clinching advantage. "The words 'sunrise' and 'sunset' are as familiar to us
as ever," he says. "We 'know' that what they describe is really an illusion,
but they are metaphorically efficient, and man can live indefinitely with
metaphor." Science only destroys the unscientific, and separates itself from
mythology. "The autonomy of science," says Frye, "goes along with its
reliance on mathematics, which can apparently penetrate much further into
the external world than words can do." (Frye, ibid.)
4. As to mathematics and words, Galileo says: "Philosophy is written in

this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze.
But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the
language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other
geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a
single word of it; without these one wanders about in a dark labyrinth."
(Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore (The Assayer), translated by Stillman Drake in
Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, 1957, p. 237-238.) For Galileo as for
Kepler, geometry is at the core of mathematics -- concepts of number, or at
any rate numbers other than integers, depend on concepts of geometry.
5. It is one thing to say the heavens can be read like a book of words,
and another to say that they can be comprehended with geometry. Marsilio
Ficino wrote in his Theologia platonica (late 15th century): "The notions of
divine beings are made clear by the disposition of the heavens, as if through
letters." (Quoted by Eugenio Garin in Astrology in the Renaissance (1983, o.
69), translation of Lo Zodiaco della Vita (1976).) Earlier still there is the
statement of Bernard Silvester in his De mundi universitate (12th century),
as reported by Thorndike: "Nous or Intelligence says to Nature, 'I would have
you behold the sky, inscribed with a multiform variety of images, which, like
a book with open pages, containing the future in cryptic letters, I have
revealed to the eyes of the more learned.'" (Lynn Thorndike, A History of
Magic and Experimental Science, 1923-1958, v. 2, p. 105.) Ficino and
Silvester were talking about astrology.
6. Galileo inherited his views of the importance of geometry from

classical Greek antiquity, and the 16th and 17th century scientists were not
the first to revive it. Robert Grosseteste in his De lineis, angulis et figuris (c.
1230) says: "There is an immense usefulness in the consideration of lines,
angles, and figures, because without them natural philosophy cannot be
understood. They are applicable in the universe as a whole and in its parts,
without restriction, and their validity extends to related properties, such as
circular and rectilinear motion, nor does it stop at action and passion,
whether as applied to matter or sense ... For all causes of natural effects can
be discovered by lines, angles and figures, and in no other way can the reason
for their action possibly be known." (quoted by James McEvoy in The
Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste, 1982, p. 168.)

7. There is something in mathematics besides words and language,
something more than algebra. There are the abstract pictures and visions of
geometry. Beyond that, there are the intuitions of mathematicians,
instituted, it appears, by basic structures and processes of our universe. In a
narrow sense, mathematical "intuition" refers to geometric visualization. In
a larger sense it refers to any mathematical knowledge which is not based --
perhaps not base-able -- on formalized logic or language, and proofs
formulated using them. There are some who appear to have direct insight
into relations of numerical, spatial and temporal abstractions, both among
the abstractions themselves and as they apply to other things. Formal proofs
follow after, if they can be found at all. If this is so, mathematics is not
merely a part of logic, as Bertrand Russell and other logicians have
maintained.
8. What about Frye's view of mythology? Mythology, he holds, is not

primarily an attempt to depict reality, not a primitive form of science or
philosophy, but an attempt to articulate the greatest human concerns.
However, mythology, he says, tends to project itself on the outer world and
harness science with pseudo-scientific presuppositions. Then science has to
destroy such mythological thinking in its own area. This doesn't mean that
the mythological thinking should be destroyed in the areas to which it
belongs. Mythology has its own spheres and functions, and what takes place
is a separation of mythology and science. Frye quotes Bernard Shaw to the
effect that if William the Conqueror had been told by a bishop that the moon
was 77 miles from the earth, he would have thought that a very proper
distance for the moon, inasmuch as 7 is a sacred number. As science
destroyed the unscientific in its concerns, what Frye calls "symmetrical
pattern-making" went underground into occult science, into alchemy,
astrology, kabbalism and magic. But of course, theoretical physicists and
cosmologists are makers of symmetrical patterns par excellence. Perhaps
Frye has in mind some kind of Baconian "inductive" science, in which one
collects pieces of information (probably dry and unexciting in themselves) and
somehow extracts from them hypotheses and theories after the fact of
gathering the information. This is not the way of theoretical physics or
mathematics.
9. As an example of the gradual separating of poetic and scientific

modes of thinking, Frye takes astrology. Astrology is, he says, like the
science of astronomy, a study of the stars, but it studies the stars from a
geocentric point of view: it is interested mainly in the influences that the
movements of stars are believed to have on human concerns. Geocentricity is
not a necessary concomitant of astrology, as we have seen. Putting that
aside, however, it is charming to think that while it seems the physical
influence on our characters of the planet Mars is negligible, Mars may have a
poetical influence on those who are told it occupies a special position in their
horoscopes -- no matter what its position at their births.
10. Frye states that it is conceivable that astrology will eventually

validate its claim to be a coherent subject, but in the meantime, the
popularity of astrology (he was writing in the earlier 1970's) indicates a
growing acceptance of a kind of thinking poets use. In this way, astrology
would not be empty, no matter what its scientific status. In the scientific
view of things, Frye says, the starry universe died during the course of the

16th century. In a metaphorical sense, this is contrary to the popular, and
even the scientific wo rks (if you know how to read them) of modern
astronomers, cosmologists and physicists. But I suppose Frye means that
current astronomers no longer consider celestial bodies to be alive in the way
that, say, Plato and Aristotle did. Astrology preserves something of the view
that the sky is the symbol of the divine order of a personal creator. By the
time we get to the prologue to Goethe's Faust, says Frye, "the conception of
God as the infinitely skillful juggler of planets is only a subject for parody."
Frye cites Byron's early 19th century “Vision of the Last Judgement”:
“The angels all were singing out of tune,

And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon
Or curb a runaway young star or two... "
It was Darwin, Frye observes, who completed the revolution in

perspective that Copernicus had begun. The doctrine of evolution, he
considers, made time as huge and frightening as space. The past, after
Darwin, was no more emotionally reassuring than the skies had come to be.
Frye concludes that we live in more than one world. We live in an actual
world, our physical environment in time and space, the world studied mainly
by the natural or physical sciences. At the same time we live in worlds we
want to live in, and worlds we are creating out of our environment. "This
world," Frye claims, "is always geocentric, always anthropocentric, always
centered on man and man's concerns." (Frye, ibid.)
11. Frye proposes the following chronology, for astrology (presumably

in England):
"1473. Astrology and astronomy are much the same subject, and most of
those who study the stars are interested primarily in astrology.
1573. The situation is not very different, despite Copernicus. There had
always been theological reservations about astrology, mainly on the score of
an implied fatalism, and these had been increased by the Reformation and
Counter-Reformation. But still astrology was generally accepted as a
reasonable hypothesis, and in the next generation Kepler was an energetic
caster of horoscopes.
1673. This is the age of the Royal Society, and by now most of the star-
gazers are interested only in astronomy.....
1773. With the discovery of Uranus imminent, belief and interest in

astrology is abandoned by most educated people.
1873. Astrology is firmly consigned to the scrap-heap of exploded

superstitions.
1973. Astrology is a major industry, with newspapers printing horoscopes,

a large number of books expounding the subject, and a great many practicing
astrologers plying their trade. At the same time astrology has separated
from astronomy: the two studies are carried on by different people and their

literatures are addressed to different publics. There are many who 'believe
in' astrology, i.e. would like to feel that there is 'something in it', but I should
imagine that relatively few of them are astronomers."
12. I suppose Frye doesn't mean us to take his chronology of astrology

too soberly. A perhaps more soberly seriously chronology of the fortunes of
astrology in England for the years 1642-1800 has been given by Patrick
Curry. Briefly, astrology flourished in England in the middle years of the
17th century -- from about the beginning of the Puritan revolution in 1642 to
the Restoration in 1660. In many respects, a decline began in 1660. During
the course of the 18th century, omen astrology continued to decline, and
"high" astrology, meant as serious cosmological or philosophical explanation
by educated people, practically died out. However, "popular" astrology
survived. Curry mentions the annual Moore's Vox Stellarum ("Voice of the
Stars"), known as Moore's Almanack. As well as simple ephemerides, these
provided yearly astrological guidance of the omen sort -- predictions about the
weather, agriculture, politics, wars, and natural disasters. By 1738, this was
outselling all its rivals at 25,000 copies a year. Its printings rose to 107,000
copies a year in 1768, 353,000 in 1800 and peaked at 560,000 in 1839. John
Clare described in 1827 a typical farmer seated in a tavern and reading
"Old Moore's annual prophecies

Of flooded fields and clouded skies;
Whose Almanac's thumb'd pages swarm
With frost and snow and many a storm,
And wisdom, gossip'd from the stars,
Of politics and bloody wars.
He shakes his head, and still proceeds,
Nor doubts the truth of what he reads."
(Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power, Astrology in Early Modern

England, 1989, p. 101-102.) Curry proposes that the survival of
popular astrology was a class phenomenon.
13. Bernard Capp concludes from his study of English almanacs that,
like astrology itself, they were at their peak in the Elizabethan and Stuart
periods, and showed decay by the 18th century, at any rate among the
educated. The decay was gradual. There was a lively debate on the validity
of astrology in the mid 16th century. A similar debate in France at that time
proved to be a decisive turning point for astrology there, leading to its
devaluation. The English episode was less decisive. In the second half of the
16th century, no major scientist seriously devoted his efforts to astrology, and
the Royal Society, the universities and the College of Physicians often
displayed hostility toward it. Yet starting from the 1640's, interest in a
reformed astrology increased dramatically. In the 17th century, belief in
astrology was never extinguished, even in the upper classes of society, but
scientists increasingly turned away from it. (Bernard Capp, English
Almanacs, 1500-1800, Astrology and the Popular Press, 1979, p. 276-278.)
14. Morris Jastrow asserts (in 1911) that in England, Jonathan Swift
can fairly claim credit for having given the death-blow to astrology with his
famous squib, the Prediction for the Year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.

Swift begins by professing profound belief in the art, but then points out the
vagueness and absurdity of present practices. He then proceeds to describe a
more excellent way: "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 the almanac-maker. I have consulted 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 raging fever. Therefore I advise him to
consider of it and settle his affairs in time." There followed a letter giving an
account of the death of Partridge on the very day and nearly at the hour
mentioned. In vain, the astrologer protested that he was still alive, and got a
literary friend to write a pamphlet to prove it. He also published his almanac
for 1709. Swift, in his reply, abused him for his lack of manners in
disagreeing with a gentleman like himself, and answered his arguments one
by one. In particular, he declared that publication of another almanac was
irrelevant as evidence for his continued existence, "for Gadbury, Poor Robin,
Dove and Way do yearly publish their almanacs, though several of them have
been dead since before the Revolution." (cf. Morris Jastrow, Encyclopedia
Britanica, 11th edition, 1910-1911, article "Astrology", v. 2, p. 799-800). Of
course Swift was referring to almanacs being issued under the names of their
first and former publishers. Jastrow concludes: "Nevertheless a field is
found even to this day for almanacs of a similar type, and for popular belief in
them."
15. Jacques Halbronn comments that in the late 17th and early18th
century attacks on astrology often had a forbidding character which failed to
undermine its appeal for large sectors of the population. Laughter, as
prescribed by Swift, was often a more effective medicine. However, Halbronn
notes that Swift had been preceded in this genre by, among others, Franois
Rabelais. The latter's Pantagruline Prognostication was a sort of
prognostication "for all years", which revealed the truisms and banalities of
this kind of astrological discourse. (Jacques Halbronn, "The Revealing
Process of Translation and Criticism", in Astrology, Science and Society, 1987,
edited by Patrick Curry, p. 212.)
16. Among reasons long put forward for the decline in the hold of
astrology over the educated classes, there are the discoveries of astronomers,
with the telescope or otherwise, that the heavens are not perfect or
unchanging (novae, sun spots, mountains on the moon), the discovery of new
"planets" (which is what Galileo called the moons of Jupiter he had
discovered with his telescope), and the realization that stellar distances are
much greater than had been believed. Perhaps also involved was the
transition from a belief in an Aristotelian-Ptolemaic universe of finite extent
to a belief in a decentralized universe of infinite extent, as described by
Alexander Koyré (From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, 1957).
(Most cosmologists today believe the universe to be of finite extent, but
expanding -- the old finite universe was of fixed size.) There was also a
change in attitudes of churchmen toward astrology.
17. Capp says: "Robert Boyle and others were convinced that science
could strengthen Christianity. From the harmony and splendour of the
universe they felt able to prove the existence of a divine Creator. They
depicted a universe which was regular and ordered, shaped by the hand of
God but run according to the constant laws he had created..... In this current

of religious thought, which by 1700 represented the orthodox view [in
England], there was no place for a God repeatedly interfering in his own
laws. Nor, by extension, could there be room for the stars as the instruments
of such intervention, and still less for astrologers as the self-appointed
interpreters of God's will." (Capp, ibid., p. 280.) This no doubt applies to
astrological predictions which could be overturned, but it would seem to
strengthen a strictly deterministic astrology. Astrologers might discover
rather than interpret God's immutable will by employing laws according to
which the stars influence people -- if only they knew the laws. However, the
scientists were more successful at discovering laws in their domain than the
astrologers were in theirs.
18. Patrick Curry says: "Often people wanted more specific and
personal advice, on urgent matters, than was available from a book or
almanac. Then they had recourse to the local 'wise' or 'cunning' man, or
woman. While it is impossible to estimate numbers, it seems that this figure
too had disappeared more from 'Books and Talk' than from 'the World'."
(Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power, Astrology in Early Modern England,
1989, p. 102.) (Curry is referring to a remark made by Mrs. Hester Thrale in
1790: "Superstition is said to be driven out of the World -- no such Thing, it is
only driven out of Books and Talk.") Such so-called cunning persons, Curry
says, remained a recognized influence well into the nineteenth century,
combining -- for the poor -- services of medicine, divination and magical
protection, all with a strong though primitive astrological component. Of
course, we still have our local fortune tellers in the United States today.
19. John Melton in his attack on astrology, Astrologaster or the Figure-

Caster, (1620), describes how he consulted an astrological fortune-teller of
this sort about a gold chain he had lost. He is admitted to the astrologer's
house and led upstairs by a small boy. Then, Melston says: "Before a Square
Table, covered with a greene Carpet, on which lay a huge Booke in Folio,
wide open, full of strange Characters, such as the Aegyptians and Chaldaeans
were never guiltie of, not farre from that, a silver Wand, a Surplus
[surplice?], a Watering Pot, with all the superstitious or rather fayned
Instruments of his cousening [cheating] Art. And to put a fairer colour on his
black and foule Science, on his head hee had a foure-cornered Cap, on his
backe a faire Gowne (but made of a strange fashion) in his right hand he held
an Astrolabe, in his left a Mathematical Glasse [telescope?]. At the first view,
there was no man that came to him (if hee were of any fashion) could offer
him for his advice lesse than a Iacobus [a coin on the order of a pound or
guinea], and the meanest halfe a Peece [half of a lesser coin], although hee
peradventure (rather than have nothing) would be contented with a brace of
Two-pences." (Quoted by Don Allen Cameron in The Star-Crossed
Renaissance, 1941, p. 136.)
20. Nearly a century and a half later, Tobias Smollett, in his novel The
Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762), gives a similar description of
such a person, an astrologer consulted by Timothy Crabshaw, groom and
squire to Sir Launcelot: "He was dragged upstairs like a bear to the stake,
not without reluctance and terror, which did not at all abate at sight of the
conjurer, with whom he was immediately shut up by his conductress, after
she had told him in a whisper that he must deposit a shilling in a little black
coffin, supported by a human skull and thigh-bones crossed, on a stoll covered

with black baize, that stood in one corner of the apartment. The squire,
having made this offer with fear and trembling, ventured to survey the
objects around him, which were very well calculated to augment his
confusion. He saw divers skeletons hung by the head, the stuffed skin of a
young alligator, a calf with two heads, and several snakes suspended from
the ceiling, with the jaws of a shark, and a starved weasel. On another
funeral table he beheld two spheres, between which lay a book open,
exhibiting outlandish characters and mathematical diagrams. On one side
stood an ink-standish with paper, and behind this desk appeared the conjurer
himself, in sable vestments, his head so overshadowed with hair that, far
from contemplating his features, Timothy could distinguish nothing but a
long white beard, which, for aught he knew, might have belonged to a four-
legged goat, as well as to a two -legged astrologer ....."
21. "[The conjurer] exhorted him to sit down and compose himself till
he should cast a figure; then he scrawled the paper, and waving his wand,
repeated abundance of gibberish concerning the number, the names, the
houses, and revolutions of the planets, with their conjunctions, oppositions,
signs, circles, cycles, trines, and trigons. When he perceived that this artifice
had its proper effect in disturbing the brain of Crabshaw, he proceeded ... "
The astrologer tells Crabshaw some things that Crabshaw had already told
him, although Crabshaw seems to have forgotten this. Crabshaw is
"thunderstruck to find the conjurer acquainted with all these circumstances,"
and wants to know if he can ask a question or two about his fortune, "The
astrologer pointing to the little coffin, our squire understood the hint, and
deposited another shilling. The sage had recourse to his book, erected
another scheme, performed once more his airy evolutions with the wand, and
having recited another mystical preamble, expounded the book of fate in
these words: "You shall neither die by war nor water, by hunger or by thirst,
nor be brought to the grave by an old age of distemper; but, let me see -- ay,
the stars will have it so -- you shall be -- exalted -- hah! -- ay, that is --
hanged, for horse-stealing." --"Oh, good my lord conjurer!" roared the squire,
“I'd as lief give forty shillings as be hanged." --"Peace, sirrah!" cried the other;
"would you contradict or reverse the immutable decrees of fate? Hanging is
your destiny, and hanged you shall be -- and comfort yourself with the
rejection, that as you are not the first, so neither will you be the last to swing
on Tyburn tree." This comfortable assurance composed the mind of Timothy,
and in a great measure reconciled him to the prediction." (Tobias Smollett,
The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, 1762, Hutchinson edition of 1905,
bound with Adventures of an Atom, p. 215-217.)
22. Jacques Halbronn gives some details about the decline of astrology
in France. The primary goal of the work of Abbé Pluche, especially the
Histoire du Ciel (1739) was to undermine the foundations of astrology by
reawakening the world of gods and heroes that had been pushed aside. "The
history of the birth of this supposed science," he wrote, "is its refutation, for
all Astrology is no more than a false interpretation of certain signs that have
been misunderstood." One of Pluche's major concerns was to distinguish
sharply between astronomy and astrology, and Halbronn observes that "in
this he was followed by all the historians of the Revolutionary period, from
Bailly to La Lande and Delambre. Astronomers to some extent felt affected
by the disfavor attached to astrology, and since approximately the time of
Pluche, astronomers have been prime opponents of astrology. Historians of

astronomy committed themselves to removing the stigmata of astrology by
purifying their discourse of everything that might be a reminder of the link
between the two activities. For a century and a half, roughly from 1730 to
1880, astrology was considered by many only in the past tense. Astrology
came to be considered as no longer dangerous, but merely empty. (Jacques
Halbronn, "The Revealing Process of Translation and Criticism", in Astrology,
Science and Society, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 213-215.)
23. The effect on astrology of the transition from the Ptolemaic to the
Copernican view of the world has often been mis-evaluated. As many
astrologers realized, Copernicanism and astrology are as consistent as
Ptolemaicism and astrology, just as navigation by the stars as viewed from
earth is consistent with navigation by the stars as viewed from the sun.
Whatever influence the earth and sun have on one another doesn't depend
which body is taken as a reference point. As far as positions of celestial
objects are concerned, aside from the forces they exert on one another, it's
just a matter of one's point of view. Given the general relativity of Einstein,
this is so even taking forces into account. It's comparatively simple to
transform positions with respect to our earth into positions with respect to
our sun, and vice versa. Relating forces in the two systems is more difficult,
but possible. Furthermore, while the effect of placing the sun rather than the
earth at the center of the universe no doubt made some people feel less
central (!), I suggest that a decline in belief in the power of magic, and in the
power to predict personal and political matters by means of interpreting the
stars, contributed more than the advent of Copernicanism to feelings that the
universe was not made especially for us. This was perceived as a loss of
power, or potential power, rather than of position.
24. A decline in belief in astrology was especially prevalent among well

educated and scientifically oriented people. Formerly there were professors
of astrology in universities, and astrologers were openly hired and consulted
by temporal and spiritual leaders. For example, at the universities of
Bologna, Padua and Milan in Italy, the list of professors of astrology is
continuous from the early 13th to the 16th century, and includes such names
as Pietro d'Abano, Giorgio Peurbach and Regiomontanus. (Wedel, l.c., p. 77.)
The latter two are often counted among the earliest modern astronomers.
The chair in judicial astrology at the University of Salamanca was occupied
until at least 1770 (Thorndike, ibid., v. VI, p. 166). Professors of mathematics
and medicine were often astrologers, and numerous officials of the State and
Church up to kings and popes employed or favored astrology. Wedel speaks,
for example, of Guido Bonatti, perhaps the most famous professional
astrologer of the 13th century: "As an example of the kind of services he
rendered his masters, Filippo Villani relates that while in the employ of
Guido de Montefeltro, he would mount the campanile [bell tower] to observe
the stars at the outbreak of any military expedition. At the first striking of
the bell, the count and his men would put on their armor; at the second
stroke, they would mount their horses; and at the third, spur their steeds to a
gallop. Experience testifies, says Villani, that by this means the count won
many a victory." (Wedel, ibid., p. 78-79.) For a long time, astrology was a
chief tool of medical doctors. This is no longer so (I think). Yet many people
still to some degree believe in the efficacy of astrology, such is the deep
longing many people have for the kind of power astrology is alleged to
furnish.

25. I have depicted some large patterns and small bits of
astronomy/astrology, the study of stars, as it was up to the transformation of
science which began in the latter part of the 16th century. It was in this era
that astronomy and astrology began to split apart to the extent we see today.
Galileo was a prominent contributor to this separation. In his Dialogo sopra
due massimi sistemi del mondo, tolemaico, e copernicano of 1632, Galileo has
Salviati (representing himself) say: "Likewise it is completely idle to say (as
is attributed to one of the ancient mathematicians) that the tides are caused
by the conflict between the motion of the earth and the motion of the lunar
sphere, not only because it is neither obvious nor has it been explained how
this must follow, but because its glaring falsity is revealed by the rotation of
the earth being not contrary to the motion of the moon, but in the same
direction. Thus everything that has been previously conjectured by others
seems to me completely invalid. But among all the great men who have
philosophized about this remarkable effect, I am more astonished at Kepler
than at any other. Despite his open and acute mind, and though he has at
his fingertips the motions attributed to the earth, he has nevertheless lent
his ear and his assent to the moon's dominion over the waters, to occult
properties, and to such puerilities." (Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two
Chief World Systems, 1632, translated by Stillman Drake, 1962, p. 462.)
26. From our point of view, as influenced by Newton's treatment of

gravitational attraction, Kepler seems to have had the right idea after all.
The moon does have a physical effect on our lives, as star-gazers first
maintained so long ago, inasmuch as its gravitational attraction has an effect
on our lives. This much of astronomy/astrology has been absorbed into
astronomy. Galileo wanted to do away with even this much.
27. On the other hand, Galileo has Sagredo (representing an educated

layman) say to Simplicio (representing an Aristotelian philosopher): "I have
a little book, much briefer than Aristotle or Ovid, in which is contained the
whole of science, and with very little study one may form from it the most
complete ideas. It is the alphabet, and no doubt anyone who can properly
join and order this or that vowel and these or those consonants with one
another can dig out of it the truest answers to every question, and draw from
it the instruction in all the arts and sciences. Just so does a painter, from the
various simple colors placed separately upon his palette, by gathering a little
of this with a bit of that and a trifle of the other, depict men, plants,
buildings, birds, fishes, and in a word represent every visible object, without
any eyes or feathers or scales or leaves or stones being on his palette. Indeed,
it is necessary that none of the things imitated nor parts of them should
actually be among the colors, if you want to be able to represent everything; if
there were feathers, for instance, these would not do to depict anything but
birds or feather dusters..... This manner of 'containing' everything that can
be known is similar to the sense in which a block of marble contains a
beautiful statue, or rather thousands of them; but the whole point lies in
being able to reveal them. Even better we might say that it is like the
prophecies of Joachim or the answers of the heathen oracles, which are
understood only after the events they have forecast have occurred." Salviati
interjects: "And why do you leave out the prophecies of the astrologers, which
are so clearly seen in horoscopes (or should we say in the configurations of
the heavens) after their fulfillment?" (l.c., p. 109-110.) This much of

astronomy/astrology, attributed by Galileo to an unsupported use of
language, is not found in our astronomy today.
28. Similarly, Thorndike relates of Descartes that in 1629: "... he wrote

that he judged from the title of Gaffarel's recent Curiositez inouyes sur la
sculpture des Persans, horoscope des patriarches et lecture des estoilles
[Forgotten curiosities about the sculpture of the Persians, horoscopes of the
patriarchs and reading of the stars] that it would contain only chimeras.
Thus he already drew a sharp line between natural or mathematical magic,
which could be effected or explained mechanically, and an immaterial magic
based on the power of words, pictures and diagrams." (A History of Magic
and Experimental Science,1923- 1958), v. VII (1958), p. 557.)
29. It has been stated at times that a crucial blow to the validity of
associating influences of celestial objects with human affairs was dealt when
Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley discovered the regular orbits of comets. In
this view, it was the unpredictability of comets that made them seem
ominous, and when the unpredictability was removed, so was the
ominousness. However, Simon Schaffer has argued that the work of Newton,
Halley and some of their contemporaries on comets was part of a natural
philosophy which still dealt with prophetic aspects of astronomical signs. In
particular, Newton suggested that comets might be used by God to replenish
materials on Earth, or, more ominously, to terminate life on Earth by
crashing into the sun and defeating the stability of the solar system. At the
same time, it follows from Schaffer's work that Newton attacked a basic tenet
of astral religion, the divinity of celestial objects. Newton took this doctrine
to be a form of idolatry, and also as the basis of astrology. Thus the work of
Newton on comets, and work related to it, contained an attack on astrology.
Schaffer's analysis of Newton's cometography (as Schaffer calls it, perhaps
after a work Cometographia of 1668 by Seth Ward which Schaffer cites, in
which Ward asserted that comets move in circles) can be used not only to
reveal Newton's argument against astrology, but also to show a part of what
we now call astronomy emerging from the astronomy/astrology which
preceded it. (Simon Schaffer, "Newton's Comets and the Transformation of
Astrology", in Astrology, Science and Society,1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p.
219-243.)
30. It was a comet of 1664-1665 which aroused Newton's interest in

comets, and perhaps in astronomy in general. In his work on comets (1619-
1620), Kepler had distinguished between permanent celestial objects which
move in closed orbits, and transient ones, such as comets, which move (he
thought) in straight lines. By 1680, Newton had convinced himself that this
classification was correct. However, certain events transformed his view.
Among these was a heightened concern among astrologers and their
opponents over the significance of comets in connection with a Catholic threat
(the Popish Plot), and the fall of monarchies. This was of great concern to
Newton. The comets of 1680-1681 and 1682 were to become prize specimens
in a new cometography he developed. Robert Hooke had by this time argued
that comets were more like planets than was generally thought at the time,
and Edmond Halley had convinced himself that linear paths for comets could
not explain observations. The astronomer Giovanni Cassini had identified
the comet of 1680 with those of 1577 and 1665. Earlier, in 1677, the
astronomer John Flamsteed had announced that comets "make their returns

as in stated times & move about ye fixed stars at a vast distance." He
pronounced this to be a powerful argument against astrological predictions
based on appearances of comets, and even against judicial astrology in
general. In 1681, Flamsteed argued for a cometary path which took a sharp
bend near the sun, and suggested that it might be attracted by the sun in its
approach and repelled from it afterwards. Between the spring of 1681 and
the autumn of 1684, Newton decided that comets should be treated in the
same manner as planets, and that both types of objects moved in elliptical
orbits around the sun. He developed a method for calculating the parameters
of the orbits of comets and their periods which appeared in Book 3 of the
Principia in 1687. By the winter of 1695-1696, Halley and Newton had
established at least two closed and periodic cometary paths, and on 3 June
1696 Halley told the Royal Society that the comet of 1682 and that of 1607
were the same, and that it had a period of about 75 years. This became
known as Halley's comet. (Schaffer, ibid.)
31. According to Schaffer, this work of Newton and Halley on comets in

the 1690's was intimately linked to their re-definition of the function of
comets in the universe. There were a number of projects connected with
these functions. These included an analysis of the stability of the solar
system, the scriptural history of the Earth including the Biblical deluge and
end of the world, an analysis of changes in mass of the planets and sun, and
of the maintenance of vital activity throughout the cosmos. Newton held that
comets were part of a divinely planned system. For example, in a letter to
Richard Bentley, he says: "To your second Query I answer that ye motions
wch ye Planets now have could not spring from any naturall cause alone but
were imprest by an intelligent Agent. For since Comets descend into ye
region of our Planets & here move all manner of ways going sometimes the
same way wth the Planets sometimes the contrary way & sometimes in cross
ways in planes inclined to ye plane of the Ecliptick at all kinds of angles: its
plaine that there is no naturall cause wch could determin all ye Planets both
primary and seconday to move ye same way & in ye same plane wthout any
considerable variation. This must have been the effect of Counsel." (Letter
from Newton to Bentley, 10 Dec 1692, in The Correspondence of Newton,
edited by H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall and L. Tilling, 1959-1977, v.
3 (1961), p.234.) And he is quoted by Gregory as saying: "that a continual
miracle is needed to prevent the Sun and fixed stars from rushing together
through gravity: that the great eccentricity in Comets in directions both
different from and contrary to the planets indicates a divine hand: and
implies that the Comets are destined for a use other than that of the planets."
(Gregory, memoranda of 5,6,7 May 1694, ibid., p. 336.)
32. In 1687, Newton argued as follows in Book III of the Principia:

"And it is not unlikely but that the vapor [from the tails of comets], thus
continually rarefied and dilated, may be at last dissipated and scattered
through the whole heavens, and by little and little be attracted towards the
planets by its gravity, and mixed with their atmosphere; for as the seas are
absolutely necessary to the constitution of our earth, that from them, the sun,
by its heat, may exhale a sufficient quantity of vapors, which, being gathered
together into clouds, may drop down in rain, for watering of the earth, and for
the production and nourishment of vegetables; or being condensed with cold
on the tops of mountains (as some philosophers with reason judge), may run
down in springs and rivers; so for the conservation of the seas, and fluids of

the planets, comets seem to be required, that, from their exhalations and
vapors condensed, the wastes of the planetary fluids spent upon vegetation
and putrefaction, and converted into dry earth, may be continually supplied
and made up; for all vegetables entirely derive their growths from fluids, and
afterwards, in great measure, are turned into dry earth by putrefaction; and
a sort of slime is always found to settle at the bottom of putrefied fluids; and
hence it is that the bulk of the solid earth is continually increased; and the
fluids, if they are not supplied from without, must be in continual decrease,
and quite fail at last. I suspect, moreover, that it is chiefly from the comets
that spirit comes, which is indeed the smallest but most subtle and useful
part of our air, and so much required to sustain the life of all things with us."
(Isaac Newton, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (1687),
translated by Andrew Motte (1729), revised by Florian Cajori (1934) with the
title Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and his System of the
World, p. 529-530.)
33. In the early 1670's, Newton had written in a manuscript called "Of
natures obvious laws & processes in vegetation" that "this Earth resembles a
great animall or rather inanimate vegetable, draws in aethereall breath for
its dayly refreshment & vitall ferment & transpires again the grosse
exhalations". (Quoted by Schaffer, ibid., p. 235.) These ideas were made a
part of his cometography after 1687, and amplified in the final queries in his
Optics of 1706. Thus comets served a divine office -- the restoration of
vegetative life.
34. Newton seems not to have been much attached to the idea that
celestial objects are alive. The Earth, he says, resembles a large animal, or
rather an "inanimate vegetable" (whatever that might be). Robert Westfall
calls attention to an alchemical paper of Newton's which probes the
distinction between vegetation and mechanical changes. Newton sometimes
referred to a principle of vegetable action as a spirit, or "Powerfull agent".
Sometimes he referred to it with a plural such as seeds or seminal virtues,
which are nature's "only agents, her fire, her soule, her life." Westfall
concludes: "That is, what he found in the world of alchemy was the
conviction that nature cannot be reduced to the arrangement of inert
particles of matter. Nature contains foci of activity, agents whose
spontaneous working produces results that cannot be accounted for by the
mechanical philosophy's only category of explanation: particles of matter in
motion." (Robert S. Westfall, ”Newton and Alchemy” in Occult and scientific
mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984, edited by Brian Vickers, p. 315-335.)
35. Westfall makes a case for concluding that Newton's alchemical

studies stimulated Newton to introduce his concept of forces of attraction and
repulsion acting between particles of matter. But the concept of a life force
animating matter is quite different from the concept of a living planet with a
soul. I have not been able to find any indication that Newton considered
planets to have souls, or to be alive as an animal or person is alive, in the
way Kepler did.
36. By 1698, Newton had concluded that the comet of 1680 was
periodic, and in the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Principia (1713, 1726) said:
"The comet which appeared in the year 1680 was in its perihelion less distant
from the sun than by a sixth part of the sun's diameter; and because of its

extreme velocity in that proximity to the sun, and some density of the sun's
atmosphere, it must have suffered some resistance and retardation; and
therefore, being attracted somewhat nearer to the sun in every revolution,
will at last fall down upon the body of the sun. Nay, in its aphelion, where it
moves the slowest, it may sometimes happen to be yet further retarded by the
attractions of other comets, and in consequence of this retardation descend to
the sun. So fixed stars, that have been gradually wasted by the light and
vapors emitted from them for a long time, may be recruited by comets that
fall upon them; and from this fresh supply of new fuel those old stars,
acquiring new splendor, may pass for new stars. Of this kind are such fixed
stars as appear on a sudden, and shine with a wonderfull brightness at first,
and afterwards vanish little by little." (Newton, Principia, translation of
Motte and Cajori, p. 540-541.) Thus Newton conjectures that a nova may be
the result of an old star being struck by one of its comets. Furthermore, he
predicts that the comet of 1680, belonging to our own solar system, may fall
into our sun.
37. Newton never made public the fact that his own work involved
correlation between divine functions of comets and ancient prophecy.
However, he drafted arguments in his System of the World in 1685 that a
true system of the world had been known in ancient times, and later
corrupted. A version of this appeared in English in 1728: "It was the ancient
opinion of not a few, in the earliest ages of philosophy, that the fixed stars
stood immovable in the highest parts of the world; that under the fixed stars
the planets were carried about the sun; that the earth, as one of the planets,
described an annual course about the sun, while by a diurnal motion it was in
the meantime revolved about its own axis; and that the sun, as the common
fire which served to warm the whole, was fixed in the centre of the universe.
This was the philosophy taught of old by Philolaus, Aristarchus of Samos,
Plato in his riper years, and the whole sect of the Pythagoreans; and this was
the judgment of Anaximander, more ancient still; and of that wise king of the
Romans, Numa Pompilius, who, as a symbol of the figure of the world with
the sun in the centre, erected a round temple in honor of Vesta, and ordained
perpetual fire to be kept in the middle of it."
38. "The Egyptians were early observers of the heavens; and from them,
probably, this philosophy was spread abroad among other nations; for from
them it was, and the nations about them, that the Greeks, a people more
addicted to the study of philology than of Nature, derived their first, as well
as soundest, notions of philosophy; and in the Vestal ceremonies we may yet
trace the ancient spirit of the Egyptians; for it was their way to deliver their
mysteries, that is, their philosophy of things above the common way of
thinking, under the veil of religious rites and hieroglyphic symbols. It is not
to be denied that Anaxagoras, Democritus, and others, did now and then start
up, who would have it that the earth possessed the centre of the world, and
that the stars were revolved towards the west about the earth quiescent in
the centre, some at a swifter, others at a slower rate. However, it was agreed
on both sides that the motions of the celestial bodies were performed in
spaces altogether free and void of resistance. The whim of solid orbs was of a
later date, introduced by Eudoxus, Calippus, and Aristotle, when the ancient
philosophy began to decline, and to give place to the new prevailing fictions of
the Greeks. But, above all things, the phenomena of comets can by no means
tolerate the idea of solid orbits. The Chaldeans, the most learned

astronomers of their time, looked upon the comets (which of ancient times
before had been numbered among the celestial bodies) as a particular sort of
planets, which, describing eccentric orbits, presented themselves to view only
by turns, once in a revolution, when they descended into the lower parts of
their orbits. And as it was the unavoidable consequence of the hypothesis of
solid orbits, while it prevailed, that the comets should be thrust into spaces
below the moon; so, when later observations of astronomers restored the
comets to their ancient places in the higher heavens, these celestial spaces
were necessarily cleared of the incumbrance of solid orbits." (probably
translated by Andrew Motte, appended to the Motte and Cajori translation of
the Principia, p. 549-550.)
39. In the years in which Newton was forming his theory of comets, he
was also composing a fundamental study of ancient theology and natural
philosophy, the Philosophical origins of gentile theology (begun 1683-1684;
reworked 1694 and after). Here he linked idolatry and false cometography.
False cometography, he said, suffered from the worship of planetary souls as
real divinities identified with temporal kings and heroes. In the mid 1680's,
Newton argued that the natural philosophers of the ancients had been their
priests. The Chaldeans in Babylon were an example. In the Philosophical
origins, he explained that when "the stars were declared to move in their
courses in the heavens by the force of their souls and seemed to all men to be
heavenly deities", then "gentile Astrology and Theology were introduced by
cunning Priests to promote the study of stars and the growth of the
priesthood and at length spread through the world." (Quoted by Schaffer, l.c.,
p. 242; "gentile" is used here with the obsolete meaning of "heathen" or
"pagan".). Newton singled out Cabbalists, Gnostics and neo-Platonists as
sharing a common idolatry and a common error which concealed the true
system of the world. Thus around 1685, Newton had composed a treatise on
ancient philosophy in which he charged that false worship of elements of
what had been proper natural philosophy had destroyed a correct theory of
comets, already known to certain ancient astronomers, and which he was
undertaking to restore.
40. In Schaffer's view, Newton's interpretation of his work on comets

affected astrology in two ways. First, it promoted the idea that the
interpretation of comets should pass from popular divination to a
theologically oriented natural philosophy: theologically oriented, since
Newton regarded the activity of comets to be divinely directed, and believed
that they could be used by God as His agents. This still gave comets a
dramatic function and prophetic meaning. They could, for example,
rejuvenate Earth and the planets, and they could terminate life on Earth.
Second, Newton challenged the idolatry which attributed the wrong kind of
spiritual power to the heavens. That is, he attacked the idea that planets are
divine. (Schaffer, ibid., p. 241-242.)
41. Here we come to a crux. Mathematical celestial mechanics, of the

sort largely founded by Newton, can be used to predict the motions of comets
-- they move pretty nearly in predictable ellipses (at least, most all of them do
-- a few might move in hyperbolas or parabolas). Furthermore, mathematics
of the kind introduced by Newton, and extended by many others by way of
nonlinear dynamics, can be used to predict breakdowns of the stability of the
solar system. Thus Newton's methods can be used to predict such things as

the end of the world (quite aside from the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
which is another story). Therefore one might be entitled to call Newton's
celestial mechanics a kind of reformed astrology. It achieves one of the aims
of astrology by methods quite different from traditional astrology – Kepler’s
announced program. Newton himself believed that with his methods he was
restoring the system of the ancient Babylonian astronomers, which had been
corrupted by priests and astrologers. "Astrologers, augurs, auruspicers &c
are," he said, "such as pretend to ye art of divining ... without being able to do
what they pretend to ... and to believe than man or woman can really divine
... is of the same nature with believing that the Idols of the Gentiles were not
vanities but had spirits really seated in them." (Quoted by Shaffer.)
42. Newton supplied us with techniques for divining, for predicting

what God intends (if one believes in this manner, as it appears Newton did),
with which suitably equiped people can do what they pretend to be able to do
in the way of certain kinds of predictions, or very nearly, in certain
circumstances. And it has often been claimed that Newton's theory of gravity
grew out of a theory of planetary influences, although Newton himself
showed a noticeable reluctance to say so, protesting that his quantitative
results were correct no matter what you attributed them to. He showed great
reluctance to stand behind a mechanism for gravity, although at times he
spoke of God as an agency for maintaining celestial objects in their courses.
43. Eugenio Garin observes: "The stages of so-called 'scientific progress'

are anything but straightforward and unambiguous. In the middle of the
eighteenth century, G. M. Bose, Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the
University of Wittenburg, wrote, with regard to Newton and the Theory of
Universal Attraction: ... 'Shall action at a distance be granted? Will you then
prevent a star from acting [on] a Talisman at a distance? Rejoice
Melanchthon, the horoscope returns, Haly, Almutec, Athacir, Alcecadenor,
Hylec. Shall action at a distance be granted? Soon the Thessalian witch,
horrid with wrinkles and bristles, raging, shall return." (Eugenio Garin,
Astrology in the Renaissance, 1983), translation of La Zodiaco della Vita,
1976), p. 5-6.)
44. In Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the

Apocalypse of St. John, one of his last works, published in 1733, a few years
after his death, Newton says: "For understanding the Prophecies, we are, in
the first place, to acquaint ourselves with the figurative language of the
Prophets. This language is taken from the analogy between the world
natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic.
Accordingly, the whole world natural consisting of heaven and earth, signifies
the whole world politic, consisting of thrones and people, or so much of it as is
considered in the Prophecy: and the things in that world signify the
analogous things in this. For the heavens, and the things therein, signify
thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them; and the earth, with things
thereon, the inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth, called Hades or
Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them ....."
45. "In the heavens, the Sun and Moon are, by interpreters of dreams,
put for the persons of Kings and Queens; but in sacred Prophecy, which
regards not single persons, the Sun is put for the whole species and race of
Kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining with regal

power and glory; the Moon for the body of the common people, considered as
the King's wife; the Stars for subordinate Princes and great men, or for
Bishops and Rulers of the people of God, when the sun is Christ; light for the
glory, truth, and knowledge, wherewith great and good men shine and
illuminate others; darkness for obscurity of condition, and for error, blindness
and ignorance; darkning, smiting, or setting of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, for
the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to the
darkness; darkning the Sun, turning the Moon into blood, and falling of the
Stars, for the same; new Moons, for the return of a dispersed people into a
body politic or ecclesiastic." (Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and
the Apocalypse of St. John (1733), p. 16-23.) After this, Newton gives
interpretations of fire in various forms, various movements of clouds, winds,
thunder, lighting, water in various forms, geological formations, animals,
vegetables and plants, and so on.
46. This passage, in which Newton describes how he reads Biblical

prophecies, puts light on his reference (cited above) to Chaldeans as "the most
learned astronomers of their time", and his complaint (also cited above) that
certain ancient Greeks and priests had corrupted previously known correct
astronomy by declaring that the stars "move in their courses in the heavens
by the force of their souls" and were deemed to be "heavenly deities", and that
"gentile Astrology and Theology were introduced by cunning Priests to
promote the study of stars and the growth of the priesthood and at length
spread through the world." Newton speaks of the correspondences between
natural objects and processes, on the one hand, and political entities and
activities, on the other, as being a matter of figurative language, based on
analogy between the two worlds. Yet he believes in the accuracy and indeed
inevitability of the predictions made by the Biblical prophets. He says: "And
the giving ear to the Prophets is a fundamental character of the true
Church..... The authority of the Prophets is divine, and comprehends the sum
of religion... Their writings contain the covenant between God and his
people, with instructions for keeping this covenant..... And no power on earth
is authorized to alter this covenant." Of Daniel in particular, he says: "The
predictions of things to come relate to the state of the Church in all ages; and
amongst the old Prophets, Daniel is most distinct in order of time, and easiest
to be understood: and therefore in those things which relate to the last times,
he must be made the key to the rest." (Newton, ibid., p. 14-15.)
47. Thus according to Newton's description, Biblical prophecy can give

results of the kind the Chaldeans expected from their omen astrology and
other methods of prediction they used, before the invention of personal
astrology with its horoscopes and houses. In Newton's view, as stated in the
first part of the Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
Apocalypse of St. John, Biblical prophecy furnishes "in figurative language"
strictly determined predictions of political matters based on the
interpretation of natural processes involving celestial and terrestrial natural
objects. To be sure, he doesn't admit the divinity of such objects. The
accuracy of the predictions is presumably guaranteed by the one God alone,
who uses the natural objects "figuratively" (whatever that might mean) in
order to communicate this foreknowledge. Newton's views on this question
therefore resemble those of Calvin, but differ distinctly from those of Thomas
Aquinas (to take just two examples). A widespread judgment today (as
discussed earlier) is that the Chaldeans did attribute divinity to celestial

objects. Newton seems to imply (although I don't know of a place where he
says so outright) that the Chaldeans did not do so, and that such beliefs were
introduced later by certain Greeks, to the detriment of true astronomy. Of
course, Newton knew nothing of the many Babylonian writings which have
been recovered after his time.
48. Pierre Duhem remarked that modern science was born on the day
someone proclaimed the truth that the same mechanics and the same
physical laws rule celestial and sublunary motions, the sun, the flow and ebb
of the tides, the fall of bodies. This pertains to the universality I spoke of
earlier. For such a thought to become possible, Duhem says, it was necessary
that the stars fall from the divine rank in which antiquity had placed them,
and for this it was necessary for a theological revolution to occur. This
revolution, Duhem believed, was the the work of Christian theologians.
(Pierre Duhem, Le Système du Monde, 1913, v. 2, p. 453.) The path to
Duhem's conclusion is not clear, since denial of the divinity of celestial objects
occurred in pre-Christian antiquity, and seems then and later to have had
several sources. For example, we noted that Deuteronomy 4.19 forbids the
worship of celestial objects, so it appears Jews began or continued the
theological revolution (if it can be called this) before Christ appeared. Again,
with Galileo and after, telescopes revealed irregular features of our moon,
sun and some planets, some of which had counterparts on earth (mountains
on the moon), and this made it difficult to believe any longer in the perfection
and distinctiveness usually required of divine objects. But it would be
characteristic of Newton to include a theological motive among the reasons he
rejected the divinity of celestial objects.
49. Later in the Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, Newton

deals with the Apocalypse of St. John, the book of Revelations of the Christian
New Testament. Here it is said on the basis of Daniel 10.21 and 12.4,9 that
Daniel sealed the book of Revelations "until the time of the end". Newton
takes this to mean that "these prophecies of Daniel and John should not be
understood till the time of the end: but then some should prophesy out of
them in an afflicted and mournful state for a long time, and that but darkly,
so as to convert but few. But in the very end, the Prophecy should be so far
interpreted as to convince many..... But if the last age, the age of opening
these things, be now approaching, as by the great successes of late
Interpreters it seems to be, we have more encouragement than ever to look
into these things. If the general preaching of the Gospel is approaching, it is
to us and our posterity that those words mainly belong: In the time of the end
the wise shall understand. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the
words of this Prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein."
(Newton's italics.)
50. Newton continues: "The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretel

times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them
Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but
brought the Prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was quite
otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to
gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after
they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own
Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world.
For the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing

argument that the world is governed by providence..... The event [of Christ's
second coming] will prove the Apocalypse; and this Prophecy, thus proved and
understood, will open the old Prophets, and all together will make known the
true religion, and establish it. For he that will understand the old Prophets,
must begin with this; but the time is not yet come for understanding them
perfectly, because the main revolution in them is not yet come to pass ....."
51. "There is already so much of the Prophecy fulfilled, that as many as

will take pains in this study, may see sufficient instances of God's providence:
but then the signal revolutions predicted by all the holy Prophets, will at once
both turn mens eyes upon considering the predictions, and plainly interpret
them. Till then we must content ourselves with interpreting what hath been
already fulfilled. Amongst the Interpreters of the last age there is scarce one
of note who hath not made some discovery worth knowing; and thence I seem
to gather that God is about opening these mysteries. The success of others
put me upon considering it; and if I have done any thing which may be useful
to following writers, I have my design." (Isaac Newton, Observations upon
the Prophecies of Daniel, p. 249-253.)
52. Newton said in the passage I quoted earlier that the book of Daniel
must be made the key to all the other prophecies about the end of time, which
express what God will bring to pass, and from all he says in the first few
pages of this work, we might expect that Biblical prophecy will enable to
predict when the world will end. But this later passage is a kind of
admission of defeat. We cannot securely extract prophecies from the
Scriptures, he is saying -- we can only understand fully what the words mean
retrospectively, and then see that the prophecies have been fulfilled.
53. So Newton's method for reading Biblical prophecy appears from his
description, I suggest, as a kind of "purified" omen astrology, of the general
sort Kepler envisioned, along with some purified divination of other kinds.
Of course, Kepler influenced Newton in numerous other ways, amd in any
case, as we have seen, astrology and astral worship in various forms were
still intertwined with astronomy in the Europe of Newton’s time. We can say,
I suggest, that in the Principia, with his celestial mechanics, Newton
presented what can be, and may well have been taken in his time, to be a
kind of purified astrology -- a mathematically based system with which one
can in many cases predict with great accuracy the motions of natural objects
when one knows mathematical expressions for the forces -- or influences --
acting on them. This can be described as a kind of natural astrology, a term
which was used in Newton's time, cf. Natural Magic. There is a common
objective underlying both of these works: to be able to predict the course of
things. In interpreting Biblical prophecy for this purpose, Newton found the
canonical scriptures too obscure, an obscurity which he attributed to God's
design. In applying his laws of motion and gravitation, and their
mathematical development, for this purpose, he may have taken himself to
have had greater success in developing this objective.
54. In the preface to his biography of Newton, Robert Westfall observes:

"It has been my privilege at various times to know a number of brilliant men,
men whom I acknowledge without hesitation to be my intellectual superiors.
I have never, however, met one against whom I was unwillng to measure
myself, so that it seemed reasonable to say that I was half as able as the

person in question, or a third or a fourth, but in every case a finite fraction.
The end result of my study of Newton [over a period of some 20 years] has
served to convince me that with him there is no measure. He has become for
me wholly other, one of the tiny handful of supreme geniuses who have
shaped the categories of the human intellect, a man not finally reducible to
the criteria by which we comprehend our fellow beings... " (Robert Westfall,
Never At Rest, A Biography of Isaac Newton, 1980, p. ix.)
55. It may be that Westfall is right about the nature of Newton's genius,
but I suggest that feelings of Newton's "otherness" may be alleviated to some
extent by admitting Newton's attachment to, or obsession with, knowing the
course of things as broadly as possible, together with the fact that he was a
firm believer in the truth of Biblical prophecy, and was in some degree
dedicated to the aims of omen or natural astrology, although not to the
methods. This means that a certain distortion of Newton may be introduced
by making too central in one’s interpretation of Newton’s life and works that
part of Newton's work most people would nowadays characterize as
“scientific”, and separating this from his interests in what we now call
alchemy, to be distinguished from “genuine” chemistry, and astrology, to be
distinguished from “genuine” astronomy. For example, Westfall says (on the
next page of his preface): "Newton holds our attention only because he is a
scientist of transcendant importance. Hence I tend to think of my work as a
scientific biography, that is, a biography in which Newton's scientific career
furnishes the central theme." (Westfall, ibid., p. x.)
56. We should allow for what Newton took to be scientific methods and
subject matter, or rather what he took to be methods and subject matter of
natural philosophy, since the term “scientific” was not used in his day in the
ways we use it today (in English). He appears, for example, to have believed
that determining the chronology of the world, and interpreting Biblical
prophecy to predict the end of the world, were enterprises which could be
undertaken scientifically. Newton wanted to find out about the course of
things any way he could – using mathematics, alchemy, scriptures, whatever
offered some prospect of working. This aim underlies both his scientific (in
our sense) and religious works. Given a tolerant enough view of the
intellectual, religious and political environment of his time, his interests and
methods seem quite understandable. His speed, depth and scope of
penetration are awesome -- but alien? I think they need not be.
57. I have dwelt more on the astrology than the astronomy in

astronomy/astrology to set the stage for an appreciation of how astronomy, as
we now understand it, grew from a complex mixture of astrolatry, astrology
and astronomy. It seems likely to me that the positions of the planets and
sun and moon at our births are of little or no significance in determining our
characters and careers (unless Gauquelin and many present-day astrologers
are right; see Preface). But there are subtler senses in which the stars can
affect the way we are and act. For example, it is a familiar contention that
our values and ideals aren't found, or shouldn't be found, in nature, in time
and space. "Is" doesn't imply "ought", the slogan goes. But how have our
values, desires, hopes and ideals evolved as we have interacted with the rest
of the natural world -- in particular, with the heavens? To what degree have
we been led by the stars, which are, according to most current physical
cosmologies, our ultimate ancestors?

58. Gerald Hawkins comments: "Perhaps we shall never know the true
significance of the sky in the lives of ancient peoples. Did a gossamer idea
spread outward, transferred by contact between cultures, and was this idea
the critical step toward civilization, the emergence of man as that species
with transcendental consciousness? Or was the awareness a natural
response of different races, different cultures, to the unifying stimulus of the
sky? We find evidence for this influence from before the time of writing, from
deep prehistory, on the continents of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and on the
Pacific Islands." (Gerald Hawkins, Beyond Stonehenge, 1973, p. 282-283.)
59. E.C. Krupp suggests that what takes place in the sky assists our
brains in organizing its perceptions of the world. The idea that order is a
fundamental aspect of the universe may be taken to be an assumption,
having its ultimate origin in the interactions of humans with the skies and
their contents. Without the sky, our brains might have sought symmetry and
order and cyclical phenomena elsewhere -- crystals or flowers, perhaps. But
the sky is an obvious repository of order. Its effects on our brains is shown by
the antiquity of astronomy and the presence of celestial imagery everywhere
in ancient times. "What we see in the lights overhead," Krupp says, "is the
itinerary of cosmic order ... It defines what is sacred and makes the sky the
domain of the gods." (E. C. Krupp, Echoes of the Ancient Skies, The
Astronomy of Lost Civilizations, 1983.)
60. "If we are seeking immortality," Krupp says, "the sky is a good
place to start. We see endless repetition there. Although we know that we
ourselves will die, we see the sun, moon and stars survive night after night,
month after month, year after year. They may disappear, but their absences
are only temporary..... We see a fundamental pattern in the celestial realm
and frame from it what seems to be the cycle of cosmic order and the way of
the world: creation-growth-death-rebirth. We seek our own past, present,
and future in that cycle." Of course we also see the cycle of birth-growth-
death-rebirth in vegetation, but this is seen to follow movements in the sky,
which are more certain and superior. Contemplation and worship of celestial
beings and their actions are an antidote to chaos."
61. "Celestial order," says Krupp, "generally was transfused into human
society in ancient times through the sovereignty of the ruler. The mandate of
heaven sanctified kingship. By invoking the sky, kings and their institutions
gained special authority and meaning." The sky "is the door of perception to
cosmic order." However, its cycles are not simple. This leads to complicated
calendars. Dealing with this complexity was a duty of central authorities.
Ultimate responsibility for the calendar might belong to the pharaoh, the
king, the emperor. His power was thus enhanced because he was in league
with the sky. Celebrations of celestial renewal allowed ancient peoples to
participate in the rhythm of cosmic order, and also to promote terrestrial
renewal and stability. Usually, a king acquired his authority through the
mandate of heaven, the source of order. But the king and his people also had
to re-energize the sky. Their temples were made sacred as metaphors of
cosmic order. Entire cities and ritual centers were astronomically aligned
and organized. Krupp says: "Beijing is the only world capital still laid out
according to a sacred cosmological plan... the cosmological motive behind the
city's layout is known and preserved. Even today, the monuments of the
secular government of the People's Republic of China adhere to the ancient

sacred plan. The flagpole in Tian an men Square, the Monument to the
People's Heroes, and Mao Ze Dong's Mausoleum all occupy stations on the
city's main axis, between the Tian an men and the Qian men, two great gates
of old Imperial Beijing." (Krupp, ibid., p. 15, 22, 63, 74-75, 96, 141, 183, 196,
259, 315.)
62. From the 1st century A.D.:
" ..... stetit unus in arcem

erectus capitis victorque ad sidera mittit
sidereos oculos propiusque aspectat Olympum
inquiritque Iovem; nec sola fronte deorum
contentus manet, et caelum scrutator in alvo
cognatumque sequens corpus se quaerit in astris.
..... perspice vires,

quas ratio, non pondus, habet: ratio omnia vincit."
"Only man stands on a hill with his head raised up, sending his
starry eyes in triumph to the stars, looking more closely at the
heavens, and searching for God. He isn't content with the outward
God, but examines heaven's womb. Following bodies akin to his
own, he looks for himself in the stars ..... consider the power
which reason has and gravity doesn't: reason conquers everything."
(Manilius, Astronomica, a treatise on astrology and simple

astronomy written about 10 A.D., text edited by G. P. Goold
(1972).)
63. From the late 20th century A.D.: "All of chemistry, beyond hydrogen
and helium, and therefore, all of life has been formed by stellar evolution. In
other words, with the exception of hydrogen, everything in our bodies and
brains has been produced in the thermonuclear reactions within stars which
later exploded in galactic space." (Benjamin Gal-Or, Cosmology, Physics, and
Philosophy, 1981, p. 352.)
Chapter 8. Updates and Addenda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U1. I spoke about Stoics in Chapter 1, Sections 39-50, and in Chapter 5, sections 30-
33. In his book Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer, 1999,
Anthony Grafton contrasts what he takes to be characteristic of Stoic views of our physical
universe with those of many astrologers. He says (p. 201):

“Philosophers who imagined themselves as looking down to earth from the dizzying
vantage point of the heavens normally did so in order to distance themselves from trivial
concerns, to master the deeper realities of the cosmic order. Marcus Aurelius – whom, as we
have seen, Cardano tried to use as his guide into the moral life – laid special weight on this
form of mental discipline. His constant efforts to show that things of the world and the body
had no substantial worth, as Carlo Ginzburg has recently argued, represented an effort to
make alienation from all everyday concerns the mark of wisdom. And the royal road to
alienation lay through a consistent effort to contemplate the vast expanse of space and time
in the universe – and thus to remove oneself from the momentary concernings, which were
revealed, when they appeared before this immense backdrop, as worthless. Marcus Aurelius’
sometimes puzzling questions and riddles formed organic parts of a rationally conceived
program of mental and spiritual exercises.” (The reference to Carlo Ginzburg is to Occhiacci
di legno: Nove riflessione sulla distanza, Milan, 1998, p. 15-39.
Grafton continues: “For Cardano and other astrologers, by contrast, the cosmic
perspective that lent distance had a radically different value. It concentrated their attention
on the local and ephemeral. Examining the staars that shone at a client’s birth, watching
the movements of the planets during an illness, made the contours of the client’s permanent
character, even the minor ones, and the details of his short-term case history, even its
ephermeral fluctuations, stand out with a new clarity. Distance enhanced the astrologers’
promiscuous attention to the kinds of detail philosophers disdained. Their cosmic viewpoint
focused and intensified their intimate contact with the emotional and the corporeal side of
each individual life, as if a viewpoint on the celestial pole or at the mid-heaven actually
magnified the minute details of individual life on earth. In the world of the astrologers,
opposition might not be true friendship, but distance could be true intimacy.” (Grafton refers
in this connection to R. Reisinger, Historische Horoskopie, Wiesbaden, 1997.)
U2. I note that what Grafton refers to as viewpoints of philosophers, presumably

especially Stoic philosophers and perhaps numerous medieval Christian and other
philosophers, fits in with what I’ve said in Chapter 4 in connection with a common view that
a major influence of Copernican theory was to displace mankind from a central place in the
universe in people’s minds, and to make people more humble if that’s taken to imply that
they were overproud before. I note also that in trying to explain the extraordinary
persistence of astrology over a couple of thousand years or more, in the face of philosophical,
theological and other sorts of condemnations and prohibitions of it, one might look to the way
astrologers concentrate on working out details of this-worldly affairs rather than on other-
worldly affairs.
U3. With regard to ancient Mesopotamia, some of whose astral interests I discussed in
Chapter 4, a treatise on the subject was published in 1999 by Hermann Hunger and David
Pingree called Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia. A major part of this work is devoted to
detailed presentations and interpretations of astronomical data as recorded and
mathematically manipulated by ancient Babylonians, based on a large but not exhaustive
quantity of the clay tablets on which the records were inscribed, and which have been
collected by various archeologists and stored in various locations. There is a resumé of what
is known about the beginnings of Babylonian astrology and astronomy which agrees on the
whole with what I presented in Chapter 4. Interest in such matters appears to have been
connected early with interpretations of signs and omens. Hunger and Pingree say (p. 1):
"People in Ancient Mesopotamia believed that the gods would indicate future events to
mankind. These indications were called "signs", in Sumerian (g)iskim, in Akkadian ittu.
Such signs could be of very different kinds. There were to be found in the entrails of
sacrificial animals, in the shapes of oil spreading after being dropped into water, in
phenomena observed in the sky, in strange occurrences in everyday life. We can classify

omens into two trype: those that can be produced when they are wanted (e.g., to answer a
question) and those that happen without human action provoking them. An example of the
first type are omens from the inspection of the entrails of sheep; to the second type belong all
omens observed in the sky. Omens can be classified according to their predictions: some
omens concern the king, the country, or the city; others refer to private individuals and their
fortunes."
U4. Hunger and Pingree go on to emphasize that neither of these types of omens
seems to have been interpreted fatalistically. They say (p. 1): "One thing is to be kept in
mind: the gods send the signs, but what these signs announce is not unavoidable fate. A
sign in a Babylonian text is not an absolute cause of a coming event, but a warning. By
appropriate actions one can prevent the predicted event from happening. The idea of
determinism is not inherent in this concept of sign. The knowledge of signs is however based
on experience: once it was observed that a certain sign had been followed by a specific event,
it is considered known that this sign, whenever it is observed again, will indicate the same
future event. So while there is an empirical basis for assuming a connection between sign
and following event, this does not imply a notion of causality."
U5. Eclipses were among the most dangerous omens. Hunger and Pingree describe an
unusual method which was employed to avoid dangerous consequences of certain eclipses.
They say (p. 25): "If an eclipse implied the death of the king of Assyria, some man was
chosen to be put in his place, at least for all appearances. Usually someone whose life was
not considered important, like a condemned criminal, seems to have been used for this
purpose. He was clad like a king and made to sit on the throne, but of course he had no
influence on government. In order to make it clear to everyone who was to suffer the
impending evil, the bad portents were recited to the substitute king. The true king, in the
meantime, had to behave as inconspicuously as possible, avoid being seen outside the palace,
and undergo extensive purifying rites. In letters written to him during such a period, the
king was to be addressed as "farmer" in order to avoid any association with kingship. It was
expected that the dire fate announced by the omen would fall on the substitute king. The
assumed time of validity of such an omen was 100 days. If additional unfavorable portents
were expected (e.g., other eclipses), the substitute would remain enthroned for most of this
time. Otherwise, his "reign" could be rather short; it was neither convenient nor necessary to
extend it. In any case, the substitute king had to die. It is unknown how his death was
brought about, but it was the decision of the true king: in the letters, the advisers ask the
"farmer" on which day the substitute king "should go to his fate". He was then buried and
mourned like a king." The authors cite here S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the
Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, part II, 1983, p. xxii-xxxii. They go on to say that
"According to literary tradition, a substitute king was enthroned during the reign of Erra-
imitti of Isin in the early part of the 2nd millennium [B.C.]; this case was atypical insofar as
the true king died while the substite sat on the throne, and so the reign passed to the latter.
The reference for this is A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, 1975, p. 155.
U6. Hunter and Pingree state that "We do not know when this belief in omens
originated; by the time when texts containing these omens are attested, it is already well
established. That is about the last third of the third millennium B.C." (p. 6) They observe
that "In the first millennium B.C., celestial omens are found organized in a series of tablets
called Enuma Anu Enlil ("When Anu (and) Enlil") after the opening words of its mythological
introduction. ... The mythological introduction (lines 1-8) traces the order of heaven and
earth back to the gods Anu, Enlil, and Ea It comes in a Sumerian and an Akkadian version
which are slightly different from each other. The Sumerian version mentions the Moon god,
the Akkadian versian the Sun god, but in different functions." (p. 12, 14)

U7. With regard to horoscopic astrology, Hunger and Pingree say (p. 26-27): "At the
end of the 5th century B.C., the earliest examples (datable to -409) of what what has been
called Babylonian horoscopes are attested." It is said that so far 32 such horoscopes are
known (F. Rochberg-Halton, "Babylonian Horoscopes and their Sources", Orientalia 58, 1989,
p. 102-123). "They begin with the date on which a child was born. Rarely is the name of the
child mentioned. Then follow the positions of the planets, in the sequence Moon, Sun,
Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars. Their positions are more often given by zodiacal
sign alone, less often by degree within a sign. Apart from these positions, other astronomical
data are included in the horoscope. These can be more or less distant in time from the date
of birth, but were probably considered as possibly significant. Such are the length of the
month (whether 29 or 30 days), the time interval between sunrise and moonset just after full
moon, and the time between moonrise and sunrise towards the end of the month. Further
events are eclipses, including those that were not visible in Babylonia, equinoxes and
solstices, and conjunctions of the moon with reference stars. ... Most of the horoscopes do
not give any predictions about the future life of the child. Such predictions were probably to
be found on different tablets. There exist a number of nativity omen texts which could have
served this purpose ... Occasionally, such nativity omens are quoted in horoscopes. One
could see in a horoscope a listing of the "signs" available for the date of birth, a kind of omen
protasis [statement of the sort "if such and such happens"], for which the apodosis [following
statement of the sort "then this-or-that will happen"] was to be found in the omen literature.
Seen in this way, the horoscopes would be an expansion of the tradition omen procedure, and
not a radical departure from them." (p.27; references to F. Rochberg-Halton, loc. cit., p. 110,
and F. Rochberg, "Babylonian Horoscopes", Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society, 88/1, 1998, p. 16).
U8. According to Hunger and Pingree, one category of records pertaining to Babylonian
astral concerns, in addition to the collections known as Enuma Anu Enlil, is called "Letters
and Reports". These were sent to Assyrian kings, notably Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal,
most of them between 677 B.C. and 665 B.C. (p. 23-24). Another category is known as the
"Diaries". These are said to be "records of observations and computations made during each
period of half a year (six or seven months). The oldest so far was inscribed in -651, but the
series probably began in the first year of Nabu-nasir, -746 ... while the latest securely dated
Diary is from -60. This means that the tradition of keeping the Diaries persisted through
seven centuries --- or even eight, if the Diaries continued to be kept till the end of cuneiform
writing in the late first century A.D. During this time-span Babylonia was rules by native
Dynasties, Achaemenid Persians, Hellenized Macedonians, and Parthiana, so it is unlikely
that the supporting institution was the state. There is some evidence, from the late second
century B.C., that the observers for the Diaries were employed by the Temple of Marduk in
Babylon ... The purpose of the compilation of the Diaries has been much debated. Two recent
studies take opposite stands: Swerdlow (N.M. Swerdlow, The Babylonian Theory of the
Planets, 1998) argues that they were intimately connected with the Mesopotamian practice of
reading celestial omens, while Slotsky (A.L. Slotsky,The Bourse of Babylon, 1997), following
a suggestion by Pingree, interprets them as intended, as far as the celestial observations are
concerned, for astronomical purposes." Six reasons supporting the latter hypothesis are
given. They are chiefly based on the notions of periodicity which are evident with regard to
the data given in the Diaries. For example, the majority of the omens given in the Enuma
Anu Enlil, and the Letters and Reports, are in no sense periodic, whereas the Diaries show a
concentration on periodic phenomena. And, it is suggested, "The Diaries treat periodic
phenomena as predictable; this deprives them of their meaning as omens. For omens,
celestial or otherwise, are sent to man as warnings by the gods. They must be seen, not
computed, and they must occur randomly. The scribes of the Diaries certainly continued to
believe in omens since they report some, but they cannot be shown to believe that the
celestial and and terrestrial phenomena they primarily revealed [in the Diaries] were

ominous. The reason for the inclusion of non-periodic phenomena such as historical events in
the Diaries remains unclear to us." (p. 139-140) The implication is that the Babylonian
astral investigators of this period had latched onto the idea of making predictions of future
astronomical phenomena based on observable periodic celestial phenomena, especially on the
motions of celestial objects. Another factor is that the earlier omens often considered what
we knowadays interpret as weather or meteorological phenomena, for which, as we know,
predictability is uncertain at best, and perhaps impossible in the case of chaotic phenoma,
i.e. those which at best we will only be able to attempt prediction by techniques based on
nonlinear dynamics, and for which inductive reasoning (averages, probabilities) based on
statistical analysis of past instances of weather phenomena are only rough guides.
U9. The degree to which the Slotsky-Pingree evaluation is correct would be very
significant in assigning provenance to the rise of mathematical and observational astronomy
as independent, to some degree, from astrology in the sense of reading omens and, later,
horoscopes from celestial phenomena. In fact, the dates of the earliest known personal
horoscopes, reported above, and the earliest known indications of astronomical studies based
on careful observations and mathematical techniques are roughly in the same periods. This
suggests that the split of what we nowadays think of as astrology (in a broad sense) and
astronomy (in recent senses of the term) began at roughly the same time, and that this was
also perhaps when genethlialogical interpretations of celestial phenomena (i.e., predictions of
the future based on times of birth of persons or data of origin of other entities) began to
separate from the more general judicial astrology in which predictions were made for
kingdoms and their rulers based directly on alignments of planets and stars without
reference to birth dates.
U10. The work Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the
Language of the Stars, 1995, by Ann Geneva, is centered mainly on the astrological of one
man, Lilly, described, as the author says, by Bernard Capp as "the most abused as well as
the most celebrated astrologer of the seventeenth century." (p. 55; the reference is to Capp's
English Almanacs 1500-1800, 1979, p. 57). Geneva interprets astrology as a "symbolic
language system" (e.g., the title of Chapter 9 is "The Decline of Astrology as a Symbolic
Language System.") Her Chapter 6, called " 'Ars Longa, Vita Brevis': The Starry Language
Decoded" discusses Lilly's use of astrological techniques and terminology to "encrypt" his
prognostications, which were generally political in nature, and especially concerned the
struggles between the Parliamentarians and Royalists of the time of Charles I of England.
Lilly was much devoted to the cause of the Parliamentarians. For example, she gives (p. 176)
the following three methods of such "encryptment" by Lilly::
"1. SUBSTITUTION. Predicting the King's death using the individual geniture tradition by
substituting aspects of the King's natal geniture to avoid explicit reference to either his name
or his nativity.
2. CELESTIAL OMENS. The use of an ancient tradition linking naatural phenomena such
as comets and eclipses to sublunar events, and specifically to major upheavals in government
and the death of kings.
3. CONJUNCTIONS. The historiographical use of conjunctionist astrology, stemming from

the eighth century Sasanian astrologers, to position the King's impending defeat and death
within large periodic cycles of time, enhancing the sense of cosmic order an inevitability."
If I understand Geneva correctly, she means by calling Lilly's version of astrology a "symbolic
language system" that he used connections between celestial phenomena as parallels to

political phenomena, and especially to predict the course of political events in England
leading up to the execution of Charles I, and took advantage of a parallel known to initiates
between astrological names or symbols, and the names of prominent political and military
figures. She downplays the role of astronomy and mathematical calculations in the work of
an astrologer. She says (p. 9): "While astrology shared some common ground with
astronomy and mathematics, it had developed as a prognostic art within its own tradition,
generating unique diagnostic categories and methodologies. Precise knowledge of geocentric
astronomy was crucial in calculating the initial figure, but the true skill of the astrological
practitioner resided in interpretation. And much like painters who hire others to paint their
backgrounds, astrologers by the early modern period did not always bother to perform their
own computations. Once the celestial paradigm had been accurately determined, the
astrologer identified the meanings of literally scores of variables, from astrology's symbolic
language into the vernacular. Early modern astrology as such thus had more in common
with the art of medical diagnosis -- a comparison that also occurred to Ptolemy --- than it did
with astronomy or mathematics." This view seems to make the astronomical and
mathematical bases of astrology (in present-day senses of these terms) rather inessential to
the kind of authority that astrological predictions were believed to have had by some, as
compared with other methods of prognostication, such as crystal-gazing, use of Tarot cards,
reading tea leaves, and so on.
U11. Geneva proposes (p. 6) that "One need only consult Ptolemy's second century AD
Tetrabiblos to see that astronomy and astrology constituted two quite separate, and often
incompatible pursuits. While to Ptolemy astrology is 'prediction through astronomy', he
makes the clearest possible distinction between the two by publishing his great work on
astronomy, the Almagest, in a separate volume from the Tetrabiblos. Despite this, even the
flap copy of the Loeb edition of the Tetrabiblos insists astrology from Ptolemy's day through
the Renaissance was 'fused as a respectable science with astronomy." To my mind, this is
rather like saying that psychology and biology are two quite separate pursuits, which they
are in some respects. Still, the role of biology in psychology may be likened, in my view, to
the role of astronomy in astrology, and historically psychology and biology (quite modern
terms) were fused integrally for a long time, given due allowance to the fact that psychology
and biology did not become separate, in some respects, from each other and from other kinds
of study until comparatively recently. The extent to which psychology can be "reduced" to
biology (and biology to chemistry, and chemistry to physics, and even, sometimes, physics to
mathematics) is still a matter of lively debate. There is also the matter of the scope of the
terms corresponding to our "astronomy" and "astrology" (e.g., in Latin, Greek and Akkadian)
in past times, as compared to later usages, as discussed in Chapter I of the present work.
U12. Geneva asks (p. 71) " ... exactly what was Lilly so good at? ... some of his
admirers had studied astrology for as long as Lilly had done. Yet despite their greater ability
in subjects like astronomy, mathematics, Latin, physics, languages, geometry, theology, and
philosophy, Lilly remained their acknowledged superior in judicial astrology. He obviously
had a knack: but for what? If merely a combination of modern intellectual skills, such as
historians often claim of astrology --- part psychology, religion, mathematics, physics,
sociology, journalism, etc. --- had been required then surely others would have triumphed. If
he were alive now, Lilly would be practicing in none of these professions. I finally decided
that this was a genuinely obsolete category. Nothing in the twentieth century is
comparable. The answer then became self-evident: Lilly was a genius in exactly the
category of knowledge which he claimed as his own --- that of judicial astrology. What skills
this comprised when stripped of distorting modern contexts was another matter, one which
the remainder of this study will try to explicate." If I understand this claim correctly,
Geneva is attributing to Lilly possession of a lost art, and one which evidently stands alone,
independent of other kinds of arts and sciences, such as those she listed. Does this mean

that Lilly had some facility for some kind of direct revelation obtained from arranging and
contemplating what Geneva calls the symbols, or symbolic language, of astrology, which
presumably was a kind of medium for his prognostications? My reading of Geneva's work
leads me to speculate that what she has shown is rather that Lilly's genius lay mainly in his
ability to diagnose and predict major political movements of his time, based (as Geneva
quotes him as saying) on careful study and attention to political events and processes, and
communicated by him in a clever way by means of astrological concepts and terminology. I
wonder, too, whether or not he was also a kind of genius at political propaganda,
communicating in his symbolic or encrypted way in the face of strict censorship and extreme
punishment for disloyalty to the king, and perhaps also influencing the outcomes which he
predicted.
U13. I don't find in Geneva's work a study of predictions of Lilly which failed, as
compared to those which succeeded. She does note, however, (p. 184) that "when Lilly found
the astrological tradition wanting, he did not hesitate to develop a new methodology using
existing astrological formulations. He also expressed his intention of passing it on to his
astrological inheritors, an ambition in keeping with his more respectable scientific
contemporaries. And finally, there is Geneva's quotation (p. 281) of a statement by Lilly:
"my arguments are not demonstrative, or can be made so: I acknowledge my Prognosticks to
be only grounded upon conjectural probabilitie, and are not subject to the senses, or
Geometricall demonstrations; thus I speak to avoyd carping."
U14. It is interesting to compare the points of view of Ann Geneva described

above, and those of Ulla Koch-Westenholz in her work Mesopotamian Astrology: An
Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination, 1995. Koch-Westenholz
distinguishes between "artificial" and "natural" divination. Following Cicero (de
divinatione 1.11, 2.26), she defines natural divination as "direct, inspired communications
from the gods that 'the mind seizes from without', e.g. dreams and oracles." (p. 9). The
point of view of Geneva seems to attribute to Lilly's practice of judicial astrology
something of the nature of such natural divination, not essentially based on anything else
than direct contacts with the future (whether from the "gods" or God or not). Perhaps this
is more than Geneva wants to claim, but there is a tendency toward this, I think, in her
proposals that Lilly didn't depend on astronomy, mathematics, etc., except as a mode of
communicating what he "saw" for the future. "Artificial divination" is defined by Koch-
Westerholz as including "everything where 'computation and constant observation' is
necessary to ascertain the gods' will." (p. 10) Koch-Westerholz goes on to say that
"While inspired divination certainly is attested in Ancient Mesopotamia, it appears to
have been of minor importance, and the bulk of our sources, the omen compendia,
concerns deductive divination." She distinguishes between two kinds of deductive
divination, "provoked omens" such as found in induced examination of entrails or oil
slicks in water basins, and "unprovoked omens" such as arise from interpretations of
occurrences which "appear without being asked for, e.g. astrology." She observes that
these two kinds of deductive divination were practiced by different kinds of experts: "the
baru, diviner, whose main field was provoked omens" and "the tupsarru, scribe/scholar,
whose expertise included unprovoked omens and exorcism." (p. 10)
U15. Geneva proposed a quite radical separation of astronomy and astrology, even
in antiquity, whereas Koch-Westerholz states: "As a rule astronomy and astrology have
always been treated separately, while in fact they were never regarded as separate before

the end of the Renaissance -- and certainly not in Ancient Mesopotamia." This view is
reflected in the title of the present work, The Marriage of Astronomy and Astrology.
Koch-Westerholz refers to an article by F. Rochberg-Halton (American Oriental Series,
1987, 67, p 327 ff.) in which it is recommended "that historians differentiate between the
specific goals and method of ancient astronomy and astrology. ... But she also stresses
that 'the training and interests of the scribes in both these areas very likely stemmed from
one intellectual tradition.' A close link continued also during the evolution of
mathematical astronomy. ... With the rise of mathematical astronomy in the 5th century
B.C., by which it became possible to calculate the movements of the planets and predict
eclipses, it is hard to understand how such events could be seen as portentous accidents or
willed communications from the gods. In fact, the whole discipline of astrology became
fundamentally changed, both as to basic principles, and its uses ... " (p. 21-22) I suggest
that Koch-Westerholz, when speaking of the rise of mathematical astronomy in the 5th
century B.C., she is referring to what I would call the rise of geometric astronomy. There
is abundant evidence, e.g. in the works of Otto Neugebauer and his colleagues, that the
ancient Babylonians practiced a kind of mathematical astronomy, albeit not based on
geometric models. In modern terms, they practiced, for example, interpolation of values
in tables of observations by various arithmetical schemes for purposes of making
predictions of eclipses, which was and still is use of a kind of mathematics by most
definitions of the term "mathematics". Cf. Chapter 4, section 46, of the present work.
Still, it is still accurate, I expect, to say that the rise of geometric astronomy in the 5th
century B.C. (or perhaps a bit earlier) transformed the practice of astral prediction.
U16. Koch-Westerholz observes that "The provoked omens are signs deliberately
sought to answer specific questions formally addressed to the gods. By their very nature,
such signs are always sent by gods. Unprovoked omens may likewise be regarded as
willed divine communications, or they may be seen as "signs" (ittu) without any sender,
like our black cat crossing the street or what we would call 'symptoms'. This
ambivalence between a theistic and a mechanistic world view permeates much of
Babylonian thought and is duly reflected in the astrological texts. ... the relation between
ominous events and their interpretations could be regarded as part of a purely mechanical
scheme of things." (p. 11-12). Also, it was possible to avert or mitigate a predicted bad
event by means of special rituals, involving prayers and offerings. Koch-Westerholz
says: "In fact, most bad omens could be averted mechanically by performing the
appropriate namburbu [rituals]. This is a far cry from the gods ruling the universe by
their immutable will." (p. 12) This presumably applies to all kinds of Babylonian
divination practices and theories. Thus there appears to have been no commitment, at
least up to the Hellenistic period, to strict determinism or fatalism in connection with the
observation and interpretation of omens.
U17. On the origins of astrology as practiced by the Babylonians, Koch-

Westerholz discusses a view attributed to P. J. Huber ("Dating by Lunar Eclipse Omens
with Speculations on the Birth of Omen Astrology", FS Asger Aaboe, Acta Historica
Scientiarum Naturalium et Medicinalium, Vol. 39, 1987). Huber is said to have
suggested that omen astrology arose by a process similar to that which has been
atrributed to the rise of extispicy, predictions of future events based on examining and

interpreting the entrails of sacrificed sheep, which Koch-Westerholz calls "the
Babylonian divinatory discipline par excellence. (p. 14) According to this view, the
"protasis", the ominous phenomenon "read" from a liver was linked to "apodasis", the
signified event, by "circumstantial association." The procedure, presumably, was thus to
link the state of the entrails with a near-contemporaneous event for the purpose of making
future predictions. It was then a kind of causation concluded from correlation (perhaps
by an inductive process in which more than one example was involved?). Then, says
Koch-Westerholz, in this view of the origins of omen prognostication, "Closely following
the empirical stage ... came the theoretical stage when the omina were written down in
long tabular compendia on tablets. At the same time, the empirical findings were
'phrased in accordance with the code', i.e. a set of general rules or a theoretical system,
and remaining blanks in the system, for which no empitical data were available, could be
filled out by interpolation." (p. 14) (Presumably Koch-Westerholz is not referring here to
interpolation as a mathematical or arithmetical technique.) P. J.Huber is said by Koch-
Westerholz to have suggested an analogous origin for omen astrology, based to start with
on lunar eclipses being associated with the deaths of certain Old Akkadian kings. Koch-
Westerholz finds problems with Huber's arguments, as she discusses on p. 35-36. There
seems to have been a biased selection of available evidence by Huber, and also doubts
about the chronology used by Huber.
U18. Koch-Westerholz argues that various suggestions about the origins of

Babylonian divinatory practices in general have overstressed the precedence in time of
empirical data over theoretical hypotheses. She says "In my opinion, the idea of an
empirical background of Babylonian divination is very difficult to uphold. ... It is
generally agreed by modern philosophers of science that knowledge about the world is
rarely obtained by purely empirical observation, without some pre-existing theory to
integrate the observed data. In other words, the 'circumstantial association' assumed to be
the fountainhead of the historical omens, is in itself unlikely." She cites as "modern
philosophers of science" N. R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery, 1965 and Karl Popper,
The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1959 (this was the English translation -- the original
German version, Logik der Forschung, was published in 1935), who are two of the early
pioneers, along with many others (e.g. Alexander Koyré) in maintaining a primacy of
theoretical and deductive methods over inductive methods based on empirical data
gathered in advance, without any theoretical bases fixed in advance. The latter as a view
of the way science proceeds is often attributed to Francis Bacon. Caricatures of the two
positions are sometimes advanced. On one side, it is claimed that empirical data can be
gathered without any particular plan as to what conclusions can be drawn from the data,
and conclusions then drawn and hypotheses made and theories constructed afterwards by
general methods which can be applied to any kind of empirical data thus obtained. On
the other side, it may be claimed that any gathering of empirical data is guided from the
start by some sort of hypotheses or theories held by the gatherers, perhaps without the
gatherers being aware or fully aware of the theories they have in mind. In my view, the
actual state of affairs in such procedures is a continual interaction of gathering empirical
data and theorizing on the basis of it, in which the primacy of one over the other changes
over time and among different gatherers. To argue about which comes first seems to me
unproductive, although in specific instances, it may be possible to point to one or the

other as having come first in a specific endeavor to attain knowledge or probable
knowledge of some sort.
U19. Later in her work, Koch-Westerholz also speaks in such a way that she
considers the empirical and theoretical to be in continual interaction, although she
attributes a sort of primacy to the theoretical. She is concerned to consider what sorts of
assumptions guided Babylonian astrologers in choosing what to observe and how to
classify their observations. She says: "Babylonian astrology was the result of the
interaction of practical observation and theoretical schematization well known from the
other omen series. The crucial phenomena in divination: heliacal [first appearance just
before sunrise, last setting just after sunset] and acronycial [last rising just after sunset]
risings and settings, stationary points [as when a planet retrogrades], conjunctions [two or
more bodies having the same celestial longitudes, i.e. one just "above" the other] and
other positions in relation to a particular celestial body, eclipses, colours and other optical
phenomena, all derive from actual observations rather than speculations. But it is
obvious that practical experience was subordinate to theory or schematization: in order
to fit the various schemata, also phenomena which never occur in reality were listed in
the series, especially in the eclipse sections ... The schematization included binary
oppositions like: left - right, above - below, in front of - behind, sunrise - sunset, bright -
faint, on time - late/early; and qualifications like: colours: white, black, red and yellow;
direction: the four quarters; time: month, day, watch, duratiion; location: path of Anu,
Enlil or Ea (Footnote: The paths of Enlil, Anu and Ea were probably areas along the
eastern horizon rather than bands in the sky parallel to the celestial equator as previously
supposed ...) Furthermore, these opposites and qualifications do not have the same
meaning in all contexts; astrology is very far from the neat generalizations striven for in
barutu [artificial omens], but there are some tendencies in that direction." (p. 97-98)
Koch-Westerholz gives an interesting example of the application of the "bright - faint"
distinction: "A simple rule that is common to all kinds of Babylonian divination is of
almost mathematical rigour: within the same omen, a good sign with a good sign has a
good prediction; good combined with bad means bad; bad combined with bad means
good. Expressed algebraically, the rule is also familiar to us: ++ = +; +- = -; -- = +. An
often quoted example of this rule is found in the astrological texts: if a well-portending
planet is bright: favourable (++ = +); if it is faint: unfavourable (+- = -); of it is faint:
favourable (- - = +). But the rule might also be illustrated from texts of extispicy or
lecanomancy as early as Old Babylonian." (p. 11)
U20. David Pingree in his work From Astral Omens to Astrology: From Babylon to
Bikaner, 1997, gives numerous details which supplement my discussions of origins of
astrology in Babylonia, Greece, and other parts of the world. In this work, Pingree
doesn't add much to what has already been said here about origins of astrology in
Babylonia itself. There are large gaps in what is known, and much of what is said about
this remains conjectural. Of the origins of what we nowadays often refer to as horoscopic
astrology, Pingree says: "The science of astrology was developed in, most probably the
late 2nd or early 1st century B.C. as a means to predict, from horoscopic themata drawn
up for the moment of an individual's birth (or conception), the fate of that native. This
form of astrology, called genethlialogy, is rooted in Aristotelian physics and Hellenistic

astronomy, but also borrowed much from Mesopotamia and some elements from Egypt
as well as developing many theories of its own. The adaptation of this form of astrology
to determine the best time for initiating actions is known as catarchic astrology. These
are the two main forms of astrology known in the West; interrogational astrology was
developed in India in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. on the basis of Greek catarchic
astrology, and historical astrology in Sasanian Iran in perhaps the 5th or 6th century A.D.
on the basis of continuous forms of Greek genethlialogy. All of these types of astrology
depend on the notion that the planets, in their eternal rotations about the earth, transmit
motion (change) to the four elements and to the assemblages of elements, animate and
inanimate, in the sublunar world. This theory is completely different from that of
celestial omens, in which the gods, whose physicl manifestations are the constellations
and planets, send messages concerning their intentions regarding kings and countries, by
means of celestial phenomena. That these divine intentions can be altered by the use of
propitiatory rituals (namburbis) in Mesopotamia, santis in India) emphasizes the
fundamental conceptual difference between omens and astrology." (p. 21-22) Pingree
goes on to say, however, that astrology does have a Mesopotamian background, and gives
an example of this "pre-astrology" from "a 13th century B.C. Hittite tablet based on a
translation from an Old Babylonian Akkadian text in which a brief prediction is made for
a person depending on the month in which he was born." (p. 22) Based on an example
used by the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus in analyzing the conditional "If someone is
born when Canicula (Sirius) is rising, he will not die in the ocean", which appears to be
related to a record in a Babylonian principal manual of instruction translated by Pingree
(or perhaps by A. Sachs) as "The place of Cancer: death in the ocean". Pingree says
"This correlation, if correct, shows that the Babylonian science of birth omens was
known in the Greek world by the late 3rd century B.C." "But," says Pingree,
"Babylonian birth omens were probably known in Greece long before these Stoic
philosophers debated about their validity." (p. 23) Pingree cites Eudoxus, one of the
great mathematicians of classical Greece, as one who, according to Cicero, recommended
that "one should not at all believe 'the Chaldeaeans in their prediction and noting down of
anyone's life from the day of birth." The theory in the 5th book of Euclid's Elements [of
geometry] is attributed to Eudoxus (4th century B.C.), in which the first known treatment
of what has become known as the real number system was presented, one which is still as
sound today as it was in the 4th century B.C., and was in use in its original form until
sometime in the 19th century A.D. In that century, several alternative versions were
presented, e.g. those of Augustin Cauchy, Richard Dedekind and Georg Cantor, whose
major differences from the development given by Eudoxus on matters of "existence" of
real numbers other than rational numbers (ratios of whole numbers). Eudoxus is also
credited by Archimedes with first rigorously proving formulas for volumes connected
with spheres and cylinders, and perhaps most famously of all for presenting a
geometrically based planetary theory, i.e. a geometrical model for the planets known in
his time of what we now call our solar system On the other hand, Pingree observes that
Proclus (5th century A.D.) cites Theophrastus (around 300 B.C.) as "praising the theory
of the Chaldaeans in his day which 'predicts the lives and deaths of individuals.' " (p. 24)
U21. Pingree goes on to describe influences of what he calls Babylonian

astronomy (rather than astrology, or interpretation of celestial omens -- ) in India, which

he says are "perceptible in Sanskrit texts of the first half of the last millennium B.C." (p.
31; on p. 32, Pingree refers to "Babylonian astral sciences" in this connection). In
subsequent chapters, he describes further transmission of astral predictive material in
India, Iran (Persia) and Byzantium. It appears that remaining records about Persian
astrological practices are scarce, presumably because most of them were destroyed after
the advent of Mohammed. In India, relevant Sanskrit records are more prevalent.
U22. The title of the book by Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars, 1991,
doesn't indicate the scope of this work. The first two-thirds of the work is devoted to
setting the stage for a presentation of Origen's views on astral influences. While Scott is
primarily interested in implications for Christian theology, in my view Scott also sets a
stage for showing influences on and influences of the marriage between astronomy and
astrology as found in Europe and northern Africa and southwestern Asia in classical,
Hellenistic and early medieval times. Scott opens with a consideration of the thought of
pre-Socratic philosophers of classical Greece, and the thought of Plato on the nature of
the stars and planets. He observes: "In contrast to many other pre-industrial societies, a
formal cult of the stars was almost unknown in ancient Greece. Aristophanes, Plato, and
Aristotle regarded their worship as either an archaic or foreign practice, but the
veneration of heavenly bodies, particularly the sun and moon, was not unusual in popular
piety. Common practices always affect intellectual life, and Greece was no exception;
even in the Parthenon, the very symbol of classical Athens, the sun and moon appear as
gods. ... And yet this common supposition tht the heavens were alive was increasingly
examined, questioned, and even rejected as Greek astronomy began its scientific
development on the other side of the Greek-speaking world among the Ionians. As a
reult, belief in the divinity of the stars is conspicuously rare in Greek philosophy between
Alcmaeon and Plato." (p. 3-4) Scott reviews some of the fragments we have left of the
pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Thales, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Empedocles,
Archelaos, Democritus, and Diogenes of Apollonia, as to speculations about the physical
nature of the heavenly bodies. They were said to be "made of earth and fire", "fiery
bodies", "rocks" or "red hot stones", "full of fire", and so on. Scott says: "The precise
religious beliefs of the Ionian naturalists or of those who accepted their teachings on the
heavens is not clear, but they were perceived as denying the gods, as Aristophanes' play
The Clouds makes clear. ... Plutarch indicates the unpopularity of this naturalism with
respect to the heavens, referring here to the teachings of Anaxagoras: 'It was still not
talked about and spread only among a few, who received it with some caution rather than
giving it much credence. They could not bear the natural philosophers and what were
then called the 'star-gazers', because they frittered away divinity into irrational causes,
unforeseen forces, and necessary occurrences.' " (p. 5-6)
U23. Plato's views about the heavens and stars changed over the course of his
lifetime. He appears to have been more concerned with their roles in the cosmos in his
later life. In the Statesman, one of the later dialogues, he speaks of the planets, taken to
include our sun and moon as well as the five planets (in our present-day sense) which are
visible without instruments. He notes, as Scott puts it, that "in the first era of history God
imparts his own motion to the universe, but that there is another era in which the universe
begins to move in the opposite direction under its own power, since its Maker has made it

both living and rational. Thus for the first time (if the usual chronologies of Plato's works
can be trusted) Plato suggests that an independent rational power is at work in at least
some of the heavenly bodies (i.e. the planets), and that this accounts for an observable
phenomenon." (p. 10) The planets are thus endowed according to Plato's story, with a
power belonging to themselves.
U24. In the Statesman, Plato is concerned about how the majority of celestial
objects, the "fixed" stars, revolve every day one way, from East to West, but that a few
prominent "stars", namely the five planets (though not the Sun and Moon), while they
share in this diurnal rotation sometimes go the opposite way with respect to the fixed
stars. Plato has the Stranger say, beginning at section 268, by way of telling a "pleasant
story": "There is an era in which the god himself assists the universe on its way and
helps it in its rotation. There is also an era in which he releases his control. He does this
when its circuits have completed the due limit of the time thereto appointed. Thereupon
it begins to revolve in the contrary sense under its own impulse -- for it is a living
creature and has been endowed with reason by him who framed it in the beginning."
(translated by J. B. Skemp, 1952, p. 23 ff. of edition of 1957). In Plato's later very
influential dialogue Timaeus, his cosmology is more developed and detailed. In
connection with how Plato's speculations about the natures of celestial bodies influenced
the development and acceptance of astrological doctrines, it is suggestive that he assigns
to stars two kinds of motion, the diurnal revolutions from East to West, and also axial
rotations. In addition, the five planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, have a
different kind of motion peculiar to them, retrograde motion from West to East with
respect to the fixed stars. The movement from East to West of the fixed stars, shared by
the planets (including the Sun and Moon) is, according to Plato's story, imparted to them
and perhaps maintained by the Demiurge, Plato's name for the deity who creates and
manages the physical universe as based on eternal models or Ideas established and
managed by a superior deity. Thus celestial objects do not maintain this motion from
within themselves, although they are said to be alive and have souls. The axial rotations
of the celestial objects hypothesized by Plato are said to originate and be maintained from
within the bodies, and thus can be said to be powers they themselves possess. In
addition, the retrogradation of the five planets shows that they have an additional power,
as do the annual spiral motions of the sun and moon with respect to the fixed stars. The
upshot of all this, as applied to development of astrology, is that Plato assigns a certain
power to all the stars, and additional powers to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn. Our Earth is also said to be alive and to have a soul.
U25. Now, by way of relating the stars and their powers to people, Plato says that
with the residue of that which the Demiurge had "mixed and blended the soul of the
universe", a residue which was no longer as pure as it was before, the Demiurge "divided
it into souls equal to number with the stars, and distributed them, each soul to its several
star." (41D-E, translated by F. M. Cornford in his Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 142 of the
1957 edition). Plato goes on (42B): "And he who should live well for his due span of
time should journey back to the habitation of his consort star and there live a happy and
congenial life; but failing of this, he should shift at his second birth into a woman' and if
in this condition he still did not cease from wickedness, then according to the character of

his depravation, he should constantly be changed into some beast of a nature resembling
the formation of that character, and should have no rest from the travail of these changes,
until letting the revolution of the Same and uniform within himself draw into its train all
that turmoil of fire and water and air and earth that had later grown about ir, he should
control its irrational turbulence by discourse of reason and return once more to the form
of his first and best condition." (idem, p. 144) Having created the souls of humans, each
human corresponding to a star, the Demiurge "sowed them, some in the Earth, some in
the Moon, some in all the other instruments of time." (idem, 42D, p. 144). For Plato
identified the planets as "instruments of time".
U26. Scott says (p. 55, 57-58): "Aside from the Epicureans, all the major
philosophical schools in the Hellenistic era believed in the divinity of the stars. Even the
notorious atheist Euhemerus (fl. 300 BC) acknowledged that they (at least) were gods.
And yet an identificaion was not without its difficulties. A problem particularly vexing
for Platonists was the visibility of the stars (since divinity was thought to be perceptible
to the mind only and not to the senses), and this was a frequent topic of discussion in
Platonic circles. ... One response was to say that in the case of the stars, soul was
perfectly adapted to body and the lower and visible part to a higher intelligible part. The
'secondary' gods exist through the higher invisible gods, depending on them as the star's
radiance depends on the star. In the star the divine soul exercises a perfect supremacy.
Chaeremon does not seem particularly interested in any other gods besides the visible
ones, but such a view was unusual in philosophers of the period, for if the supreme God
is altogether simple and is in no way made of ruler and rules, it is difficult to undersstand
how any visible (and therefore material) body could be truly divine. Recognizing this,
Alexandrian astronomers began to refer to the planets by their appearance rather than
using the names of gods, since the mythological associations of the older practice were
plain to them. ... Philosophers of this period devised a wide variety of ways of referring
to the astral gods which emphasized their intermediate divine nature which was superior
to the human condition but inferior to the supremely divine. Most of these ways of
talking about the heavenly bodies stemmed from Plato and from the Epinomis." The
Epinomis has been and sometimes still is ascribed to Plato, but some later scholars hold
that while the Epinomis has something in common with Plato's later work, especially the
Laws to which it is a kind of sequel, it appears to have been written by a follower of
Plato, perhaps Philipp of Opus (Scott, p. 20). Scott sats (p. 20, 22) that "Emphasis on the
importance of the heavens is carried to its furthest extreme in the Epinomis ... the
Epinomis declares the wise man to be, not the philosopher, but the astronomer". As
discussed in Chapter 1 of the present work, the word translated here as "astronomer" in
previous times customarily denoted a kind of combination of what nowadays we call
"astronomer" and what we call "astrologer".
U27. "One view which was frequent in Stoic and Platonic circles," says Scott,
"was that as the stars were intermediate and subordinate gods, so they regulated an
intermediate and subordinate providence. The idea as we have seen is implicit in Plato,
Aristotle, and the Academy and , despite the ambiguity of the stars' relation to ether or
God in Stoicism, it was taken over by Chrysippus, who believed that stars govern the
world in accordance with providence. ... A common later expression of this is that there

are different grades of providence, namely primary and secondary, and in some writers
tertiary. Primary providence (that of the supreme God) sees to the beneficial arrangement
of universals, while secondary providence operating through the stars sees to the
generation and arrangement of that which is mortal and particular beneath the moon, and
a tertiary providence is sometimes assigned to the daemons." (p. 61) Daemons, in this
usage, refers to lesser deities, e.g. deified heroes, and not necessarily evil kinds of
deities. At this point Scott comments on the relationship of philosophy and religion of
the Hellenistic era to astrology. He says (p. 61-62): "This concept of the stars' activity is
in part shaped by older ideas on the place of heaven in controlling generation and daily
occurrences such as the weather, and was strengthened by the growth in importance of
astrology in the Hellenistic period. Much of what was said in older philosophy helped
pave the way for astrology, and despite some vigorous protests, both Stoicism and
Platonism were thought by many of their later representatives to be compatible with this
discipline. The combination of philosophy with astrology reaches it height in the fourth
and fifth centuries AD, but it is already present in philosophy before Origen in the view
that the stars exercise control over destiny (eimarmene). Thus a variety of factors were at
work causing the stars to be ascribed with important functions concerning terrestrial life.
This in turn increased the pressure on philosophers to give some account of their religious
importance."
U28. Scott next, on his way to discussing works of Origen, comments on works of
Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC - 40 AD), so far as they relate to opinions on the nature of
stars and planets. His conclusion is: "He [Philo] follows the conventions of his day in
honouring the stars but he is both too good a Jew and too good a Platonist to take this to
its logical consequences. For all their glory, the stars are distinctly inferior to God, who
is above heaven. The cosmological inconsistencies which were present individually in
Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoa come to a crescendo in Philo, and this happens in part
because he is not able to criticize and correct his teachers, and because he has sometimes
combined his sources in a clumsy way, but it has also happened because of his
philosophical and religious integrity: he refuses to put anything (even the stars) on the
same level as God. His efforts are of great importance for students of Origen, because
Origen will follow him both in attempting to present a scriptural cosmology, and in
placing strict limitations on the usual pagan religious understanding of heaven. One idea,
however, which Origen adopts and which is not present in Philo or any of the classical
philosophical schools is the recognition of the possibility of evil in heaven. This view,
which is of great importance for Origen in understanding the place of the stars in the
divine economy, gradually developed in Hellenism, and exerted a great influence on early
Christianity. That the heavenly bodies affected the lilfe below was a philosophical
commonplace, but our sources in the early imperil era are sharply divided about the
nature of this influence." ( p. 74-75).
U29. Here are some excerpts from the works of Philo to illustrate his beliefs
about the stars, taken from the elegant Victorian translation of Philo's works by C. D.
Yonge, first published in 1854-1855. First, from a work commonly known as On the
Creation, although Yonge gives its complete title as A Treatise on the Account of the
Creation of the World, as Given by Moses, we have:

"XVIII. (55) But the Creator having a regard to that idea of light perceptible only by the
intellect, which has been spoken of in the mention made of the incorporeal world, created
those stars which are perceptible by the external senses, those divine and superlatively
beautiful images, which on many accounts he placed in the purest temple of corporeal
substance, namely in heaven. One of the reasons for his so doing was that they might give
light; another was that they might be signs; another had reference to their dividing the
times of the seasons of the year, and above all dividing days and nights, of months and
years, which are the measures of time; and which have given rise to the nature of number.
(56) And how great is the use and how great the advantage derivable from each of the
aforesaid things, is plain from their effect. But with a view to a more accurate
comprehension of them, it may perhaps not be out of place to trace out the truth in a
regular discussion. Now the whole of time being divided into two portions day and night,
the sovereignty of the day the Father has assigned to the Sun, as a mighty monarch: and
that of the night he has given to the moon and to the multitude of the other stars. (57) And
the greatness of the power and sovereignty of the sun has its most conspicuous proof in
what has been already said: for he, being one and single has been allotted for his own
share and by himself one half portion of all time, namely day; and all the other lights in
conjunction with the moon have the other portion, which is called night. And when the
sun rises all the appearances of such numbers of stars are not only obscured but
absolutely disappear from the effusion of his beams; and when he sets then they all
assembled together, begin to display their own peculiar brilliancy and their separate
qualities.
"XIX. (58) And they have been created, as Moses tells us, not only that they might send
light upon the earth, but also that they might display signs of future events. For either by
their risings, or their settings, or their eclipses, or again by their appearances and
occultations, or by the other variations observable in their motions, men oftentimes
conjecture what is about to happen, the productiveness or unproductiveness of the crops,
the birth or loss of their cattle, fine weather or cloudy weather, calm and violent storms of
wind, floods in the rivers or droughts, a tranquil state of the sea and heavy waves,
unusual changes in the seasons of the year when either the summer is cold like winter, or
the winter warm, or when the spring assumes the temperature of autumn or the autumn
that of spring. (59) And before now some men have conjecturally predicted disturbances
and commotions of the earth from the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and
innumerable other events which have turned out most exactly true: so that it is a most
veracious saying that "the stars were created to act as signs, and moreover to mark the
seasons." And by the word seasons the divisions of the year are here intended. And why
may not this be reasonably affirmed? For what other idea of opportunity can there be
except that it is the time for success? And the seasons bring everything to perfection and
set everything right; giving perfection to the sowing and planting of fruits, and to the
birth and growth of animals. (60) They were also created to serve as measure of time; for
it is by the appointed periodical revolutions of the sun and moon and other stars, that days
and months and years are determined. And moreover it is owing to them that the most
useful of all things, the nature of number exists, time having displayed it; for from one
day comes the limit, and from two the number two, and from three, three, and from the
notion of a month is derived the number thirty, and from a year that number which is

equal to the days of the twelve months, and from infinite time comes the notion of
infinite number. (61) To such great and indispensable advantages do the natures of the
heavenly bodies and the motions of the stars tend. And to how many other things might I
also affirm that they contribute which are as yet unknown to us? for all things are not
known to the will of man; but of the things which contribute towards the durability of the
universe, those which are established by laws and ordinances which God has appointed to
be unalterable for ever, are accomplished in every instance and in every country." Here
Philo says that astral or astrological prediction is feasible, inasmuch as one reason God
created the stars and planets is to give us signs.
U30. On the other hand, Philo maintains elsewhere, in effect, that while the stars
and planets give us signs, they don't cause the events which the signs indicate will or may
happen. In this view, the stars and planets are one way God communicates to humans. In
an appendix to his translation of the works of Philo, Yonge translates a treatise not found
in the now standard Loeb edition of Philo's works, with the title A Treatise Concerning
the World, we read:
"I. There is no existing thing equal in honour to God, but he is the one Ruler, and
Governor, and King, to whom alone it is lawful to govern and regulate everything; for the
verse- "A multitude of masters is not good,
"Let there one sovereign be, one king of all,"{1}{Homer, Iliad: 2.204.}
is not more appropriate to be said with respect to cities and men than to the world and
God, for it follows inevitably that there must be one Creator and Master of one world;
and this position having been laid down and conceded as a preliminary, it is only
consistent with sense to connect with it what follows from it of necessity. Let us now,
therefore, consider what inferences these are. God being one being, has two supreme
powers of the greatest importance. By means of these powers the incorporeal world,
appreciable only by the intellect, was put together, which is the archetypal model of this
world which is visible to us, being formed in such a manner as to be perceptible to our
invisible conceptions just as the other is to our eyes. Therefore some persons, marveling
at the nature of both these worlds, have not only worshipped them in their entirety as
gods, but have also deified the most beautiful parts of them, I mean for instance the sun,
and the moon, and the whole heaven, which, without any fear or reverence, they called
gods. And Moses, perceiving the ideas which they entertained, says, "O Lord, King of all
gods,"{2} [Deuteronomy 10:17.] in order to point out the great superiority of the Ruler to
his subjects. And the original founder of the Jewish nation was a Chaldaean [Babylonian]
by birth, being the son of a father who was much devoted to the study of astronomy, and
being among people who were great studiers of mathematical science, who think the
stars, and the whole heaven, and the whole world gods; and they say that both good and
evil result from their speculations and belief, since they do not believe in anything as a
cause which is apart from those things which are visible to the outward senses. But what
can be worse than this, or more calculated to display the want of true nobility existing in
the soul, than the notion of causes in general being secondary and created causes,
combined with an ignorance of the one first cause, the uncreated God, the Creator of the

universe, who for these and innumerable other reasons is most excellent, reasons which
because of their magnitude human intellect is unable to apprehend? but this founder of
the Jewish nation having conceived an idea of him in his mind, and looking upon him as
the true God, forsook his native country and his family, and his father’s house, knowing
that if he remained, the deceits of the polytheistic doctrine also remaining in his soul
would render his intellect incapable of discovering the nature of the one God, who is
alone everlasting, and the father of everything else, whether appreciable only by the
intellect or perceptible to the outward senses; but if he departed and emigrated, then he
saw that deceit would also depart from his mind, which would then change its erroneous
opinions into truth."
U31. So far as astral prediction is concerned, a basic distinction has often been
made, from ancient times to the present, between celestial bodies having various kinds of
powers of their own over human affairs and destinies, and celestial bodies furnishing
signs, presumably related to non-astral powers which affect human affairs and destinies.
Astrologers and astronomers have long been concerning with predicting the future. As I
have argued in this work, and as many others have maintained, often enough in the past
one and the same person who did this, or believed it possible to do this, engaged in or
made use of activities concerned with predicting the future which in today's usual
meanings of the terms astrologer and astronomer would be identified as both an
astronomer and an astrologer. One of the differences today between people who are
classified as an astrologer or as an astronomer lies in how each interprets celestial events
and processes which they both are engaged in interpreting for purposes of predicting
something which will or may happen in the future; another difference concerns which
celestial events and processes exist to be interpreted for such a purpose. A common
example concerns our earth's moon. Astronomers agree that there are techniques for
predicting where the moon will be in the sky in the future of a given time, and what phase
it will be in, with great accuracy. They also agree that the moon has at least one
prominent power of affecting human affairs, namely a still quite mysterious power
known as gravity or gravitation which, for example, exerts influences on the tides of the
oceans which have to be taken into account for various human affairs. Actually, few
astronomers or physicists would use the English term power to refer to gravitation. In
non-relativistic mechanics, the term force is commonly used, and this is closely
associated with what the term energy is used to denote. In relativistic mechanics, the
situation is more complicated, one hears about such things as curvature of space, and the
like. In what is often called classical celestial mechanics, Newton's Law of Gravity and
Laws of Motion, along with an elaborate mathematical apparatus, are taken as the basis
for predicting future positions and phases of the moon, as well as of the sun and other
planets of our solar system, and many other celestial objects, from asteroids and comets
up to constellations and galaxies. Gravitation, non-relativistically and relativistically
interpreted, plays a major role in many other kinds of predictions by astronomers besides
positions and phases of celestial objects, from what will happen tomorrow in connection
with the energy output of our sun, energy which is of vital importance in human affairs,
to what will happen tomorrow if you get too near a so-called black hole, and what will
happen in the future to our solar system or to our universe as a whole which is even of
some importance in connection with human affairs of tomorrow inasmuch as it may

affect religious and philosophical beliefs which may in turn influence behavior of human
and other kinds of individuals and groups, sometimes on a quite large scale.
U32. Astrologers, on the other hand, seldom pay attention to forces of gravity or
curvature of space in making their predictions. A common complaint of present-day
astronomers, physicists, cosmologists and the like is that astrologers can demonstrate no
power of celestial objects and their processes which can account for what the astrologers
claim are their influences on terrestrial creatures and their affairs. It is maintained by
most physical scientists of today that gravitation, electromagnetic effects, nuclear forces,
and the like, exerted by celestial objects (presumably other than our earth) have never
been demonstrated to have the kind of influences on terrestrial affairs that present-day
astrologers maintain they have. Astrologers often reply to this by observing that such
influences by powers whose existence is accepted by physical scientists haven't been
shown not to exist, or by observing that there may be or are powers not known to or not
accepted by physical scientists which do have influences on terrestrial affairs of the sort
they deal with. Arguments and disagreements of this sort have gone on since antiquity,
and it doesn't look like they will be settled soon, or indeed ever. A thesis of the present
work has been that in past times, what we now call astronomy and astrology were more
interwoven than they customarily are today, although they still share some basic
assumptions, e.g. about predicting future positions of celestial objects and the like. One
consequence of this thesis, if it be accepted, is that what has happened in the development
of astral prediction over time is a kind of specialization in connection with astral
prediction, an effect which has been dominant in connection with all kinds of human
affairs. Another consequence is that one may expect to see a kind of punctuated
evolution in connection with astral prediction, rather than some kind of revolution in such
matters. This has bearing on a familiar theme in history and philosophy of science, that
of so-called scientific revolutions, and especially alleged "incommensurability" between
theories and interpretations accepted in different eras, to use the term made popular by
Thomas Kuhn. If by "incommensurability", one means existence of basic differences of
the sort common to present-day astronomers and astrologers, one can empirically verify
that such incommensurability exists. If by "incommensurability", one means that the
nature of what is true about our universe between what present-day astronomers and
astrologers hold can't be decided, one can empirically verify that it hasn't yet been
decided. But, as I said near the beginning of this work, I won't be concerned here with
matters of truth and falsity of what astronomers and astrologers say. I have reviewed
here something about the relationship of past and present astronomy and astrology, and
their practitioners and customers, in order to make a setting for the next chapter in the
book by Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars (1991) which I have been
considering, and I will now return to it, and in particular to Chapter 6, "The Heavenly
Powers".
U33. Nowadays, to maintain seriously that what philosophers sometimes call the
"mind-body" problem is closely related to problems of the nature and powers of celestial
bodies would, at least in academic settings, be considered to be a kind of crackpottery.
However, Scott observes that in the Hellenistic era, theories of "astral bodies" served to
make a relationship of this kind. Scott says (p. 77, 78, 79.): " ... the existence of a

substance which literally was on the boundary between the incorporeal noetic realm of
God and the corporeal world of becoming helped explain how it was possible for the
incorporeal soul to be joined to the corporeal body. The stars became a model for how
humanity's divine rationality was related to the irrationality of the sublunary world. The
belief began slowly to evolve that the soul was joined to the gody through the medium of
an 'astral body'. ... Plato had written that corporeal vision occurs as a result of a fine,
smooth, non-destructive fire which is emitted from the eye and combines with light,
which is akin to it, forming a bond between the soul and that which is see, Light then is
the medium between soul and the world. ... The later Platonic astral body theory suggests
that the star which in the Phaedrus myth [presented by Plato in his dialogue of that name]
acts as the soul's vehicle (schema) is in fact a reference to the luminous body which joins
the soul and the physical body. The gap between mind and matter is bridged by positing
a body of pneuma or light which is somehow related to both, just as physical vision
unites the mind to the world. ... Only after Origen, in the tradition of interpretation which
begins with Porphyry and his student Iamblichus, does Platonism begin to clarify the
precise nature of the astral body both in heaven and existing as the vehicle for the human
soul. At this later point, the astral soul becomes a tenet in systematic, neo-Platonic
philosophy. But in Origen's day, the concept of the soul's astral vehicle was still an
intellectual experiment which could be developed in several different ways."
U34. Scott goes on to discuss the relationship of such theories of union between
the divine and the human by way of the stars to astrology as it was generally practiced
and theorized about in the Hellenistic era. He says (p. 79): "A particularly important
development in this experiment is the theory of a planetary component in the structure of
the soul. The growth of interest in astrology in the Hellenistic era led to a special
emphasis on the influence of the planets on the soul, since astrology is very much
concerned with the effects of the various planetary positions on all generation." There
was considerable discussion and disagreement among philosophers and theologians who
accepted some version of an astral body theory as to whether or not, or in what cases and
to what extent, the influences of the planets (including the sun and moon) on humans was
benevolent or malevolent, good or evil. Nowadays, some of the terms for various schools
of thought on these issues are gnosticism, hermeticism (as put forth in the Corpus
hermeticum), neo-Platonism or just Platonism, and Mithraism (which Scott describes as a
cross between Platonism and astrology, p. 109).
U35. And now, finally, we come to Origen, Scott's destination. On p. xvi of his
introduction, Scott had said: "The final part [of this book] will investigate astronomy and
astrology, and the ambitious use he made of the concept of living heavenly bodies in his
theology. Specifically, attention will be given to the importance of the stars in
understanding Origen's cosmology, theodicy, doctrine of the Fall, and eschatology." At
this point we pass from so-called pagan or Jewish philosophers of the Hellenistic period
to an early Christian philosopher or theologian, one of the acknowledged Fathers of the
Church. Origen lived 186-232 A.D., and is thus one of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, i.e.
before promulgation in 325 A.D. of the Nicene Creed which affirmed that Jesus Christ is
of the same substance as God, and not, as Arius had claimed, unbegotten and an inferior
deity to God. Origen is known for having attempted to integrate some main doctrines of

pagan philosophy, especially as derived from works of Plato and his developers, with
Christian doctrines based on the Holy Scriptures. In particular, in connection with astral
worship, he affirmed numerous times, in various forms, that the stars are alive and
rational, based on the fact that they move, and in an orderly manner. On the other hand,
he emphasized that the stars were created, and thus not divine in the way God is, who is
uncreated. Some stars are described as having "fallen", in a theological sense, because
they had sinned. Thus they were, unlike God, capable of sin. The stars thus were
considered by Origen to be ontologically somewhere between God and man. However,
he denied that the stars were causes of good or evil in human affairs, although he stated
that they were causes of the seasons (see below). Scott says: "Origen is familiar with the
tradition which makes the heavenly bodies wrongdoers, and strongly opposes it. ... The
Gospel of Matthew itself links the moon with the demonic possession that causes
epilepsy (17:15), but Origen, citing this passage, goes to great lengths to show that this is
not in fact due to the heavenly body but to the cunning of demons who observe the
movements of the moon and also of the stars and plan their own evil deeds accordingly ...
Origen thus denies the important contemporary belief that the planets or stars were
malevolent. As part of the divine creation their nature is good." (p.143, 144). On the
other hand, Origen believed that "There is a proper use for the signs of the heavens, and
that is to refer to them in order to keep track of the change of seasons. In response to
Celsus [a pagan philosopher], Origen defended the Stoic idea that the whole universe had
been made for the benefit of humanity, and he thought that this was also true for the
physical heavens. Along with earth, sea, winds, and rain, so too heaven, sun, moon, and
stars were given by God to serve mankind. Like most of his pagan contemporaries,
Origen assumed that the association of different stars in the sky with different seasons
meant that the stars caysed the seasons and the changes in the weather that they brought.
This also meant that the heavenly bodies produce all of the fruits of the earth for the
human race to enjoy. Thus the stars had a central role in daily human affairs, though only
in regulating the natural world and not in our moral and spiritual life." (p. 146)
U36. Origen was, however, opposed to the viewpoints of astrologers, which he

took to involve denial of free will. Scott says, in agreement with what I presented in
Chapter 1 of this work: "Astronomy and astrology are of course sharply distinguished in
modern thought, but in antiquity the two words were used interchangeably. Most experts
in one tended to be experts in the other -- Ptolemy is the classic example. Thus it is not
surprising that Origen, who shows an interest in astronomy, is also familiar with
astrology, even though he was strongly opposed to it." (p.119) On the other hand, Scott
says: "The stars, however, had too strong a position both in contemporary philosophy and
in the popular imagination to play no role whatsoever in shaping the life below.
Connections between the moon and the movements of tides, or between the positions of
the stars and the seasons, had long since been made, and this lent much credibility to
astrological claims. The belief that one could foretell the future by studying the heavens
was common wisdom in Alexandria ... Among both intellectuals and the unlearned,
complete disbelief in astrological theory was scarcely credible in the third century." (p.
145) A middle way was, as had been done before, to believe that the stars were created
to give signs to humanity. "Origen believed," says Scott, that the stars could act as signs
of future events without causing them. He Christianizes this view, saying that the stars

were signs of all that happens, in accordance with Genesis 1:14, 'let them be for signs,'
and Jeremiah 10:2 'be not dismayed at the signs of heaven.' This was combined with his
conviction that all things in this world were traceable, not to Fate, but to free will or to
the dictates of Providence. ... Astrology is the mistaken use of this correlation between
heaven and earth; one which (following ! Enoch [of the Aprocrypha] and Clement [of
Alexandria, another ante-Nicene Father of the Church] is abetted by fallen angels." (p.
145, 146).
U37. Scott concludes (p. 167): "The ancient assumption that the stars are living
beings has now passed away, but just as the sea retains its fascination, even though
Poseidon no longer dwells in it, so too the celestial regions without their ancient gods.
Kant declared his awe at the starry heavens above and the moral law within, recognizing
in each case that we are in the presence of something great. The modern age no longer
believes that the stars have souls, but astronomical progress has not robbed them of their
power. The farthest created things, our own nearest self, these two remain mysteries to
us. Observing both we are indeed on the boundary of another land." One may dispute
Scott's statement, or implication, that there are no people any longer who believe that the
stars in some sense alive and have souls, with "souls" defined suitably, although this is
not so in the standard academies of our present-day world, at least in some regions of the
world. Scott is certainly right to say that the farthest created things, or for that matter
some of the nearer ones, too, remain in many ways mysterious, and that our selves, our
conscious selves, likewise remain in many ways mysterious to all of us who are
sufficiently open to mysteries.
Chapter 9. Pierre d'Ailly and Newton Again
1. Some 1400 years later than Origen, another Christian of rank, wrestled with
astrology in much the same way as Origen (see Chapter 8). This was Pierre d'Ailly, who
lived from 1350 or 1351 to 1420. D'Ailly rose to be a cardinal of the Roman Catholic
Church during the time of the Schism, and the period in which there were two (at one
point three) Popes, at Rome and Avignon, 1378 through 1414. D'Ailly's devotion to
astrology has been investigated by Laura Ackerman Smoller in her work, History,
Prophecy and the Stars (1994). In her introduction, Smoller observes that people who
have studied the roles of astrology and astronomy in medieval times have been concerned
mostly with the prevailing attitudes of people toward such practices and beliefs, and
mostly the attitudes of theologians, rather than with practice of astrology. "While their
studies nicely illuminate the Catholic church's response to astrology, they say little about
the opinions of persons who actually consulted the stars." (p. 5) Smoller observes that
d'Ailly's conversion to astrology late in life, and his extensive writings on the subject,
offers an opportunity to study why and also how a person might become involved with
astrology, and how one might go about such an involvement. "From d'Ailly's example,
then," she says, "astrology emerges as an integral part of the rational view of the world

in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The belief that the heavenly bodies had some
fort of influence on the earth below was just as pervasive as the notion that God had a
plan for the world's destiny. ... D'Ailly saw astrology not as a magical art by which he
could manipulate the future course of the world but rather as a rational science by which
he could discern the broad patterns of earthly events. The great numbers of people who
used astrology in medicine, or making their business decisions, and for political advice
must have believved , also, that they were turning to science for knowledge." (p. 7) In
passing, I note Smoller's comments on the nature of d'Ailly's writing: ""Many of his
works were little more than collages, composed of bits and pieces of other writers' prose.
Through all his borrowings, however, d'Ailly generally managed to convey his own
opinion, which was sometimes quite different from that of his source. ... On the whole,
d'Ailly was a compiler and digester of others' thought. His later readership suggests that
there was a vast need for this type of writing." (p. 10) The present work may be said to
have been compiled in the same spirit, although I am not sanguine enough to believe that
there is, or will be, a vast need for the present work. I do believe, though, that while
enduring originality is precious, commentary also serves purposes of value.
2. In his later life, Pierre d'Ailly was much concerned with defending
astrology/astronomy from charges that it was inconsistent with Christianity. As a basis,
he took the attitude endorsed long before by Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) that one can
distinguish between natural astrology and superstitious astrology, and that it is the
former which is consistent with Christianity, while the latter is not. Smoller reports that
d'Ailly in his Vigintiloquium or Concordantia astronomie cum theologia (Concordance
of astrology with theology; 1414) listed these components of superstitious or false
astrology: "1. The belief that all future events precede by fatal necessity from the stars;
2. The mingling of superstitious magic arts with astrology; 3. The placing of free will and
matters solely under divine or supernatural control within astrology's power." (p. 37)
Smoller notes that 2. is apparently directed against the practice of engraving stones with
astrological images. We have seen that 1. and 3. were also rejected by Origen, and indeed
this had been the central objection of Augustine to astrology. On the other hand, we have
also seen that at least up to the Hellenistic era, the Babylonian astrologers did not take
astrological omens to be irreversibly deterministic. One of the functions of priests was to
counteract unfavorable omens by means of suitable rituals. In his attempts to reconcile
free will and God's omnipotence with astrological influences, d'Ailly wrote a number of
treatises. To take an example, in one late treatise, the Concordantia astronomie cum
hystorica narratione (Concordance of astrology with historical narration; 1414), he
asserted "God arranged 'to work naturally with causes, except where a miraculous
operation intervenes.' thus astrological causality would apply to all earthly events save
miracles." (Smoller, p. 38) In another treatise of 1414, the Apologetica defensio
astronomice veritatis (Apologetic defense of astrological truth; contained in his Tractatus
de imagine mundi), d'Ailly speculates on the role of the astral influences on the Virgin
Mary as to the development of Christ in utero. Smoller says: "D'Ailly began with the
cautious observation that the Christian faith did not compel one to exclude any stellar
influence in Mary's birth, 'just as it does not compel one to say that the sun did not warm
her.' ... By reserving for God a supernatural causality beyond that of the stars, d'Ailly

placed astrology among the undeniable laws of nature and gave it a scope reaching as far
as the human aspects of Christ." (p. 38)
3. In Chapter 4 of her book, Smoller has an analysis of how Pierre d'Ailly used
astrology to aid in establishing a chronology consistent with and explanatory of that in
the Bible. An important principle he used for trying to establish the date of the Creation
of the world, the starting point of Biblical chronology, as well as for subsequent events he
took to be of importance, was the fixing of the times of conjunctions of Saturn and
Jupiter. These are described by Smoller as follows (p. 16, 20-23) "The seven planets all
traveled along the path of the zodiac, and the twelve signs which made up that band were
deemed to have their own characteristics. In one division of the zodiac, astrologers
distributed the signs among four triplicities (triplicitates, also sometimes translated as
trigons). The signs of each triplicity all shared the characteristics of one of the four
elements (fire, earth, air, and water). The signs were assigned successively to one of the
four triplicities, so that a planet in its path through the zodiac would pass first through a
fiery sign, then through an earthy sign, then through an airy sign, and finally through a
watery sign. There were three such series in any trip around the zodiac. The fiery
triplicity consisted of the signs Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius. It was under the rule of the
sun by day and Jupiter by night. The earthly triplicity contained Taurus, Virgo, and
Capricorn, under the rulership of Venus and the moon. Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius
made up the airy triplicity, under Saturn and Mercury. Finally, the watery triplicity
comprised Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, with Mars ruling both day and night. [Thus the
progression counterclockwise through the zodiac, taking into account the alternation of
the kinds of elements, can be represented on the circumference of a circle as Aries,
Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Pisces, and
back to Aries again.] ... As did his astrological sources, d'Ailly gave the greatest
consideration to those conjunctions of the two superior [outermost] planets, Saturn and
Jupiter. Their exalted positions and slow motions meant that their conjunctions were of
more universal and enduring significance than those of the other planets. Astrologers
classified these conjunctions according to the signs and triplicities in which they
occurred. Saturn completes its course through the zodiac in roughly 30 years, and Jupiter
takes around twelve years to make the same circuit. Hence, the time between any two
conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter will be approximately twenty years, during which time
Saturn will have traveled a little more than two-thirds of the way through the zodiac.
Thus, in the astrologers' customary example, if the first conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter
occurs in Aries, the second will be in Sagittarius, the third in Leo, and the fourth in Aries
again. But, because the two planets do not complete their course through the zodiac in
exactly thirty or twelve years, they do not return to the same precise point in Aries for
their fourth conjunction. Rather, they are joined some 2º25' from the point of the initial
conjunction, to take Albumasar's figyre. Hence a series of conjunctions of Saturn and
Jupiter will show a gradual progression like that in figure 3. Eventually, a conjunction
will happen in Taurus,, the neighboring sign to Aries. Then the succession will begin
again in another set of three signs. [Albumasar, also transliterated Abu-Ma'shar, was an
Arabian astrologer of the 9th century A.D.] In all, d'Ailly delineated four types of
Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions: the conjunctio maxima [greatest conjunction, occurring
after four changes of triplicity, so the starting point is repeated, customarily taken to be

the initial position of Saturn in Aries] (every 960 years), the conjunctio maior [greater
conjunction, occurring with each change of triplicity] (every 240 years), the conjunctio
magna [great conjunction, occurring with each change of zodiac sign in each triplicity]
(every 60 years), and the conjunctio minor [lesser conjunction, occurring with each
conjunction within a single zodiac sign] (every 20 years). D'Ailly located such
conjunctions throughout history and related them to the growth of new kingdoms and the
rise of new religions. He used astrology, then, as a coherent principle by which to
explain and observe the course of the world's fate."
4. This brings to mind work of Isaac Newton which I discussed in Chapter 7 of the
present work. I repeat here Sections 44-47 of that chapter:
44. In Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the

Apocalypse of St. John, one of his last works, published in 1733, a few years
after his death, Newton says: "For understanding the Prophecies, we are, in
the first place, to acquaint ourselves with the figurative language of the
Prophets. This language is taken from the analogy between the world
natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic.
Accordingly, the whole world natural consisting of heaven and earth, signifies
the whole world politic, consisting of thrones and people, or so much of it as is
considered in the Prophecy: and the things in that world signify the
analogous things in this. For the heavens, and the things therein, signify
thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them; and the earth, with things
thereon, the inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth, called Hades or
Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them ....."
45. "In the heavens, the Sun and Moon are, by interpreters of dreams,
put for the persons of Kings and Queens; but in sacred Prophecy, which
regards not single persons, the Sun is put for the whole species and race of
Kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining with regal
power and glory; the Moon for the body of the common people, considered as
the King's wife; the Stars for subordinate Princes and great men, or for
Bishops and Rulers of the people of God, when the sun is Christ; light for the
glory, truth, and knowledge, wherewith great and good men shine and
illuminate others; darkness for obscurity of condition, and for error, blindness
and ignorance; darkning, smiting, or setting of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, for
the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to the
darkness; darkning the Sun, turning the Moon into blood, and falling of the
Stars, for the same; new Moons, for the return of a dispersed people into a
body politic or ecclesiastic." (Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and
the Apocalypse of St. John (1733), p. 16-23.) After this, Newton gives
interpretations of fire in various forms, various movements of clouds, winds,
thunder, lighting, water in various forms, geological formations, animals,
vegetables and plants, and so on.
46. This passage, in which Newton describes how he reads Biblical

prophecies, puts light on his reference (cited above) to Chaldeans as "the most
learned astronomers of their time", and his complaint (also cited above) that
certain ancient Greeks and priests had corrupted previously known correct
astronomy by declaring that the stars "move in their courses in the heavens
by the force of their souls" and were deemed to be "heavenly deities", and that

"gentile Astrology and Theology were introduced by cunning Priests to
promote the study of stars and the growth of the priesthood and at length
spread through the world." Newton speaks of the correspondences between
natural objects and processes, on the one hand, and political entities and
activities, on the other, as being a matter of figurative language, based on
analogy between the two worlds. Yet he believes in the accuracy and indeed
inevitability of the predictions made by the Biblical prophets. He says: "And
the giving ear to the Prophets is a fundamental character of the true
Church..... The authority of the Prophets is divine, and comprehends the sum
of religion... Their writings contain the covenant between God and his
people, with instructions for keeping this covenant..... And no power on earth
is authorized to alter this covenant." Of Daniel in particular, he says: "The
predictions of things to come relate to the state of the Church in all ages; and
amongst the old Prophets, Daniel is most distinct in order of time, and easiest
to be understood: and therefore in those things which relate to the last times,
he must be made the key to the rest." (Newton, ibid., p. 14-15.)
47. Thus according to Newton's description, Biblical prophecy can give

results of the kind the Chaldeans expected from their omen astrology and
other methods of prediction they used, before the invention of personal
astrology with its horoscopes and houses. In Newton's view, as stated in the
first part of the Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
Apocalypse of St. John, Biblical prophecy furnishes "in figurative language"
strictly determined predictions of political matters based on the
interpretation of natural processes involving celestial and terrestrial natural
objects. To be sure, he doesn't admit the divinity of such objects. The
accuracy of the predictions is presumably guaranteed by the one God alone,
who uses the natural objects "figuratively" (whatever that might mean) in
order to communicate this foreknowledge. Newton's views on this question
therefore resemble those of Calvin, but differ distinctly from those of Thomas
Aquinas (to take just two examples). A widespread judgment today (as
discussed earlier) is that the Chaldeans did attribute divinity to celestial
objects. Newton seems to imply (although I don't know of a place where he
says so outright) that the Chaldeans did not do so, and that such beliefs were
introduced later by certain Greeks, to the detriment of true astronomy. Of
course, Newton knew nothing of the many Babylonian writings which have
been recovered after his time.
5. These passages by Newton and my assessment may be compared with a

statement by Smoller, speaking of d'Ailly's use of astrology (p. 122): "Why astrology? ...
The answer lies, it seems, in d'Ailly's concordance of astrology and theology -- that is,
first, in his insistence that astrology be considered a 'natural theology' and, second, in his
implication, by the use he made of the stars, that astrology was also a valid science,
useful because it lay outside of the realm of prophecy and revelation. That is, he
established astral causality to be an essential component of the divine plan, one entirely
in keeping with the central feature of his theology, the dialectic of God's absolute and
ordained power. And yet, he relied upon astrology to interpret the apocalypse [as in the
book of Revelations] precisely because it was nontheological. It offered him evidence
drawn from sources other than prophecy and revelation, which, as he argued, could be
contradictory, problematic, and even deceptive." D'Ailly was especially concerned in
trying to reconcile and combine Christian doctrines with astrological ones to reject that

idea of complete astral determinism or fatalism, and the accompanying idea of the non-
existence of human free will, other than as a kind of illusion. It strikes me now that what
Newton may have had in mind when he spoke of corruption of astral prediction by
ancient Greeks was the attribution to them of an introduction of the idea or principle of
complete determinism to purely astral influences, including in all human affairs. While
he would have known nothing of what is said on the clay tablets recovered in
Mesopotamia since his time, he have known something about the non-fatalistic elements
of Babylonian omen astrology from classical sources, or even possibly that he interpreted
Biblical passages in this way.
6. In her Chapter 5, Smoller discusses d'Ailly's concern for the advent of the
apocalypse, as predicted in the Revelations of St. John. She says (p. 85): "With the
outbreak of the Great Schism in 1378, Pierre d'Ailly and many of his contemporaries
assumed that the apocalypse was at hand. They based this dismal conclusion both on
their reading of Scripture and on a long medieval tradition of speculation about the end of
time." This may be compared with the statement made by Newton: "The predictions of
things to come relate to the state of the Church in all ages: and amongst the old Prophets,
Daniel is most distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood: and therefore in
those things which relate to the last times, he must be made the key to the rest." (loc. cit.,
p. 15). Smoller says (p. 86): "Scripture was by far the most important source of
information about the apocalypse for d'Ailly and his contemporaries. Passage in Daniel
and Revelation spelled out, albeit in enigmatic form, God's plan for the world's end.
Commentaries of these two books were key vehicles for eschatological speculation in the
Middle Ages." Of course, Newton is not considered to have lived during the time of the
European Middle Ages. Newton says in the section of this work devoted to Revelations
(p. 250-251): "'Tis therefore a part of this Prophecy, that it should not be understood
before the last age of the world; and therefore it makes for the credit of the Prophecy, that
it is not yet understood. But if the last age, the age of opening these things, be now
approaching, as by the great successes of late Interpreters it seems to be, we have more
encouragement than ever to look into these things. In the general preaching of the Gospel
be approaching, it is to use and our posterity that those words mainly belong: In the time
of the end the wise shall understand, but none of the wicked shall understand. Blessed is
he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this Prophecy, and keep those things
which are written therein. The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretel times and things
by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness they have
not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy into contempt. The design of
God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to
gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were
fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the
Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted
many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by
providence."
7. D'Ailly was much concerned with uses of astronomy/astrology in establishing a

chronology of the world, consonant with Scripture, and with matching astronomical
phenomena interpreted astrologically with crucial historical events. Newton spent much

effort on a revision of chronology, based on astronomical phenomena on the one hand,
and classical authors and Scripture on the other. This, too, involved matching
astronomical phenomena with crucial historical events. In the case of Newton, however,
there is an absence of discussion of traditional influences of the sort considered by
astrologers. On the other hand, there is an absence, so far as I have been able to
determine, of refutation of or scorn for astrology as it was practiced in his own time, or
earlier. Newton's major work on chronology, published posthumously in 1728, was The
Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended. In this work, there is a chapter called "Of
the Empires of the Babylonians and Medes" in which Newton states (p. 328): "The
Babylonians were extreamly addicted to Sorcery, Inchantments, astrology and
Divinations, Isa. xlvii. 9, 12, 13. Dab. ii. 2, & v. 11. and to the worship of Idols, Jer. l. 2,
40. and to feasting, wine and women." In the two works of Newton being considered
here, this is the only passage I have noted in which Newton uses the word astrology. As
far as I can determine, Newton never presented a refutation of astrology as practiced in
his time. He was on the whole silent about astrology, though it was quite prominent in
the England of his time.
8. Newton's work as a chronographer has been studied in detail, along with

criticisms of it made in Newton's time, by Frank E. Manuel in his book Isaac Newton,
Historian (1963). Manuel observes (p. 65, 68): "The astronomical proofs of Newton's
revision of chronology center upon the determination of three ancient dates, among
which the precise timing of the Argonautic expedition is the crucial one. It occupied
Newton's interest for at least the last thirty or forty years of his life. The other
astronomical proofs concerned the year of King Amenophis' [of Egypt] death and the
period when Hesiod flourished. ... The astronomical dating of the Argonautic expedition
was founded upon the insight that an accurately measured precession of the equinoxes
could serve as the key to scientific chronology. ... to apply the idea of the precession to
chronology with Newton's daring and persistence was revolutionary. The style of the
man -- adapting scientific data that are already known to a new field -- is the same in the
chronology as in the physics. Newton had a way of staking all upon a single idea."
9. Christian chronography goes back to early Christian times. This topic has been
treated by William Adler in his Time Immemorial: Archaic History and its Sources in
Christian Chronography from Julius Africanus to George Syncellus (1989). Such
chronography had an elaborate development during the European Middle Ages, and we
see from Smoller's study of d'Ailly's work that it was a lively field during the
Renaissance. Indeed, there is some life in the field up to the present-day, although the
field has grown old, and is not as active as it once was. What may be striking in placing
Isaac Newton in this tradition is that he lived in the 17th and early 18th centuries, during
the height of the period often said by historians to contain the Scientific Revolution. In
Newton's work, one can see him engaged not in a Revolution but in an Evolution as far as
a transition from the astronomy/astrology which had been prevalent up to his time to the
separation of the fields of astronomy and astrology as we see them today. An
examination of the work of central and peripheral figures who brought about the so-
called Scientific Revolution in Europe might well reveal that one could better speak of an
evolution during this period -- perhaps an instance of cultural punctuated evolution, in

which a big change occurred in a relatively short time. Thus, if one wants to talk about
paradigm shifts in the manner of Thomas Kuhn, one might be persuaded to think of them
as occurring gradually rather than in some abrupt discontinuous manner, and as not
leading to what Kuhn called incommensurability, but rather to kinds of re-interpretation
in which the new retains something of the old.
Chapter 10. John Dee and Astrological Physics
1. A relatively late exemplar of a person who united

astronomy/astrology with mathematics and recommended observation of
nature was John Dee. Dee was born in London in 1527 and died in
Mortlake, Surrey, in 1608. The following details of his life are based on
the work by Nicholas H. Clulee, John Dee's Natural Philosophy (1988).
Dee took an MA at Cambridge in 1548. In 1551 he became connected
with the court of Edward VI of England, by way of family and university
connections. He was an adviser on matters of navigation in connection
with the early English voyage of Richard Chancellor and Hugh
Willoughby in 1553 to attempt to find a Northwest Passage to Cathay (the
Indies, China). Dee's patrons at court, which included the Duke of
Northumberland (John Dudley), were executed or otherwise deprived of
power during the reign of Mary. In 1555 Dee was imprisoned, ostensibly
for calculating and conjuring and witchcraft. "Calculating" probably
referred to casting nativity horoscopes. According to Dee's own account,
he was arrested because of his service to Princess Elizabeth, on the charge
that he "endeavored by enchantements to destroy Queene Mary" (quoted
by Clulee, p. 33; Clulee says this explanation is "substantially correct".)
He was acquitted of charges of treason, but remained for some time in the
custody of Bishop Bonner of London, a prominent Catholic defender.
According to Clulee, speaking of Bishop Bonner: "Not only did he
become a persecutor of Protestants, he was very unsympathetic to any
form of magic and not likely to look kindsly on those associated with the
governments of Somerset and Northumberland. Yet Dee does not seem to
have had a hard time of it. ... Either Dee was a very good dissembler [in
matters of religion] capably of playing a very convincing role over the
course of several months or he may in fact have had nothing to worry
about." (Clulee, p. 34).

2. Subsequently Dee found favor at the court of Queen Elizabeth
(who acceded in 1558) and to some extent with the queen herself,
especially by way of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and son of John
Dudley, and William Cecil, Elizabeth's principal secretary. (Clulee, p.
121-123). In 1558, Dee published a work commonly called the
Propaedumata aphoristica (Aphoristic Introduction), and a second edition
of the work in 1568.. The second edition has been translated into English
by Wayne Shumaker in John Dee on Astronomy (1978), which also
contains an essay on Dee's mathematics and physics by J. L. Heilbron.
Shumaker's translation of the full title is: An Aphoristic Introduction by
John Dee of London Concerning Certain Outstanding Virtues of Nature.
An earlier work by Dee called the Monas hieroglyphica had been
defended by Elizabeth herself. Clulee says (p. 189): "He [Dee] was ...
well considered at court. Elizabeth defended his Monas ... and read the
book with him ... She rewarded his gift of a copy of the 1568 edition of
the Propaedeumata with £20, and when her travels took her past
Mortlake, she occasionally stopped to talk with him."
3. Evaluations of John Dee have varied widely, from his own day to
the present. In her biography of Dee, John Dee (1527-1608), published in
1909, Charlotte Fell Smith says (Chapter 1): "There is perhaps no learned
author in history who has been so persistently misjudged, nay, even
slandered, by his posterity, and not a voice in all the three centuries
uplifted even to claim for him a fair hearing. Surely it is time that the
cause of all this universal condemnation should be examined in the light of
reason and science; and perhaps it will be found to exist mainly in the fact
that he was too far advanced in speculative thought for his own age to
understand. For more than fifty years out of the eighty-one of his life, Dee
was famous, even if suspected and looked askance at as clever beyond
human interpretation." And further (Chapter 23): " ... Dee's memory may
be entrusted to the kinder judges of to-day, who will be more charitable
because more enlightened and less impregnated with superstition. They
may see in him a vain, presumptuous and much deluded person, but at any
rate they must acknowledge his sincere and good intentions; his personal
piety; his uncommon purity of thought and mind. If in his thirst for
knowledge of the infinite unknowable, he pushed back the curtain farther
than was wise or justifiable, did he harm any one's reputation beside his
own? Did he not suffer all the penalty in his own miserable failure, so far
as comfort and prosperity in material things were concerned? In all the
vague hopes held out by him to Queen, Princes and Emperors, of
enriching them through his alchemical skill, he was no conscious
charlatan, playing a part to lure them on, but a devout believer in man's
power and purpose to wrest scientific secrets from the womb of the
future. Can we look back upon the discoveries of three hundred years and
feel his certainty was vain? The powers of electricity, the training to our
uses that marvelous and long concealed agency and light; the healing

virtues of radium, should be worth more to us than much manufactured
gold."
4. In his biography of Dee, John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan

Magus (1972), Peter J. French says (p. 4): "John Aubrey's brief estimation
[in 1718] of John Dee as 'one of the ornaments of his Age' may be as fair
as any that has so far been made. Although Dee was a major intellectual
force in Elizabethan England, many of his contemporaries -- the 'Ignorant'
Aubrey termed them -- branded him a conjurer. Posterity has not been any
kinder than his less learned contemporaries. Because of Dee's interest in
occult philosophy and because of the controversy surrounding his rather
remarkable life, many erroneous notions developed about him and his
activities, and these have frequently been embellished to the point of
absurdity in successive centuries. Opinions about Dee varied during his
own lifetime. Most erudite scholars on the Continent and in England
respected him as a learned man and a dependable source of information.
So, also, did the English mechanicians, those self-educated and middle-
class craftsmen and technologists who flourished in Elizabethan London.
In court circles Dee enjoyed almost universal esteem, though, as Aubrey
suggests, the commonalty feared him as a sorcerer and a necromancer, a
black magician left over from the medieval past." French says further (p.
8-9): "John Foxe, in his early editions of the Actes and Monuments,
probably did more than anyone else to brand Dee as a conjurer; among
other uncomplimentary references in the 1563 edition is the phrase,
'Doctor Dee the great Conjurer'. The intensely Protestant Actes and
Monuments enjoyed extraordinary popularity throught the Elizabethan
period; in 1571, Convocation ordered a copy placed in every cathedral
church, and the book was also to be found within most ordinary parish
churches throughout the kingdom. Finally, Dee could stand Foxe's
'damnable slaunder' no longer and, in 1576, he issued a plea that Foxe be
refrained from describing him as a 'Caller of Divels', and the 'Arche
Conjurer' of England. Dee's plea was successful for all references to him
by name were suppressed in the 1576 editioin of the Actes and
Monuments. The silencing of Foxe did not, however, end the vicious
rumours about Dee's activities. And during the final decades of his life
there was, in fact, good reason for the continuing suspicions: John Dee
had spent from 21 September 1583 until 2 December 1589 on the
Continent where he had quite openly practised cabalist angel-magic with
the disreputable Edward Kelley acting as his skryer, or medium." In his
conclusion (p. 208-209), French says: "His [Dee's] science and magic, his
art and even his antiquarianism, all form part of a universal vision of the
world as a continuous and harmonious unity. Dee did not gain his
European reputation, as one of his nineteenth-century biographers
claimed, for writing 'sheer nonsense'; rather, he gained it because he was a
brilliant representative of a philosophy that had inundated Renaissance
Europe -- Hermeticism". Hermeticism was, and still is, a multifaceted set

of beliefs and practices founded on an ancient collection of works known
as the Corpus Hermeticum, once thought to have been composed, or
revealed, at about the time of Moses, but now considered to have been
written sometime during the 1st to 3rd centuries A.D.
5. In a University of London dissertation of 1952 entitled "John

Dee Studied as an English Neoplatonist", I. R. F. Calder writes (Chapter
1): "Throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century John Dee enjoyed
a thoroughly European reputation for profound scholarship: his opinions
were widely consulted, his authority invoked in many diverse fields of
speculation and research. Yet, without minimising the value value of his
personal influence and attainments, the justification for a detailed study of
these must depend less on the limited value of the accompanying attempt
to assess Dee's own claims as an original thinker or direct contributor to
scientific discovery, than on the fact that he may be significantly
considered as the representative -- and in some respects the spokesman --
of an age. Dee in his life and writings championed a certain vigorous
"new philosophy" which flourished in the late Renaissance, and though
this philosophy, or rather the particular form which it then assumed, fell
later into barren obsolescence, yet some of its offshoots of that time were
to bear rich, and unexpected fruit in succeeding centuries. Dee's surviving
works are perhaps only fragmentary illustrations of certain aspects of the
general body of doctrine he maintained, yet an examination of them is
illuminating since, however limited or idiosyncratic their subject matter,
they exemplify a typical approach to various problems, and they also
occasionally give clear expression to broad statements of principle, which
should, Dee believed, provide a foundation for a multitude of particular
applications. In these respects, they throw some light, if only indirectly,
on much contemporary endeavour and achievement, even in fields
discussed not at all, or only incidentally by Dee, since these may often
properly be regarded as related and comparable effects arising from a
common intellectual tradition."
6. E. G. R. Taylor, in her Tudor Geography, 1485-1583 (1930)

speaks of John Dee as holding "an important place in the history of
sixteenth-century English Geography" (p. 76). She says (p. 8): "The fact
that John Dee was a practitioner of Judicial Astrology has, however,
created such prejudice against him, and has led to such a one-sided
estimate of his place in history, that it is here necessary to state
emphatically that a close examination of the evidence leaves no doubt of
his intellectual honesty and genuine patriotism. His fame as an astrologer
lent Dee prestige among the vast number of his contemporaries who
believed with him, that there was a legitimate as well as an illegitimate
exercise of that art; while his preoccupation with the search for the
Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life lent urgency to his desire for a
discovery of the way to Cathay, since it has been a constant tradition that

Initiates and Adepts are to be found among the learned of the Far East.
That such was the case, nevertheless, does not detract from the value of
his geographical studies or his geographical teaching."
7. However, Taylor's extensive description of Dee's contributions to

geography and exploration may not convince everyone of his importance
in this regard. For example, there is the matter of an instrument to aid
navigation which Dee claimed to have invented. Speaking of the era from
1547-1570 in England, she says (p. 95): "The two great problems, from
the theoretical standpoint, which faced the navigator in the far north, were
in the first instance the rapid convergence of the meridians, with the
resultant spiral curvature of the rhumb lines, and in the second instance the
very great variation of the compass from point to point. The current carta
marina, with parallel meridians, was, of course, quite useless under such
circumstances, and some fresh technique for setting and plotting a course
was necessary. To this end Dee invented an instrument or device, about
which, although he several times refers to it, he was extremely reticent: his
Paradoxal compass. A very careful study of all the inventor's own
references, together with those [references] made by the last of his pilot-
pupils, leads to the conclusion that this Paradoxal Compass enabled the
master to lay a course along a succession of rhumbs which would make an
approximation to great circle sailing. It was, in fact, a practical
development of the teaching of Pedro Nuñez on this subject, and its
invention belongs to a period when Dee is known to have been in personal
touch with the great Portuguese." One may note that Taylor says that Dee
was "extremely reticent" about his compass, and that the word "invention"
seems to have been applied by Dee to a supposed construction based on
ideas or perhaps designs developed by Nuñez. Taylor goes on to observe
that dates given by Dee for the invention of this instrument, stated in at
least one case 20 years or so after the event, were different in different
places. The dates were given by Dee as 1556, 1557 and 1559 in different
places. Taylor conjectures this may have been due to Dee's confusing
"when Dee first considered the device" and "when it actually took
practical shape in a form suitable for use". One might also conjecture that
the discrepancy in dating was due to Dee's faulty memory. However, later
in her book (p. 109), Taylor observes that Dee introduced the voyagers
Martin Frobisher and Christopher Hall to the compass, and that "Frobisher
told him [Dee] that its invention had been claimed twenty years since by
someone else: Frobisher further suggested that Dee should establish his
claim by publishing an account of the Instrument. The impudent plagiarist
was probably James Alday, who had been trying to get employment with
Frobisher, and who, twenty years earlier, must (as the assistant of the
official Chief Pilot Sebastian Cabot) have been very jealous of the part of
instructor played by John Dee. As regards publication, it may be
observed, Dee never got further than naming the Instrument in the title-
page of his General and Rare Memorials, where he puts back its discovery

to an earlier date than he claims for it anywhere else." Taylor gives no
reference to support what seems to be a gratuitous assumption about the
behavior of Alday in this connection, and begs the question by referring to
Alday as an "impudent plagiarist". Taylor notes further (p. 108): "Dee's
instructions, given to Frobisher and Hall 'in the Rules of Geometry and
Cosmography', for their better instruction in 'the Use of Instruments of
Navigation', were not so successful as might have been hoped, for as the
mariners hinted in a letter of thanks sent from the Scottish coast after they
had started, their grounding in mathematics was too scanty for them to
profit by his teaching." When this letter of thanks, as described by Taylor,
is compared with the page and a half of notables and nobles which Taylor
lists when first establishing what an important person Dee must have been
(p. 76-77), one may wonder whether or not Frobisher and Hall were
diplomatically thanking a person who had many connections with
influential and moneyed people, and using their alleged lack of
mathematical prowess as an excuse for rejecting the instrument -- if there
was indeed an instrument, and not just a set of instructions.
8. Another conjecture, which I base only on statements made by

Taylor herself, is that in fact Dee may have been something of a plagiarist,
or at least a dissembler, in connection with his Paradoxal Compass.
Readers of biographies of Dee may well conclude that this behavior on
Dee's part agrees well with numerous other estimations of his character
and actions. In this connection, one may also contemplate statements
made by Taylor in her later book Late Tudor and Early Stuart Geography,
1583-1650 (1934): "It would be not untrue to say that from about 1583
onwards, English geography entered upon a distinctly mathematical
phase. The connecting link between the two studies was, of course,
astronomy, which formed part of every normal course of mathematical
studies at the Universities. The seamen's problems of position-finding by
compass direction, latitude, longitude, and the use of the sea-chart, were at
that time problems which taxed the highest skill of the astronomer-
mathematician. Each difficulty, it is true, had been attacked by John Dee,
during the period of his active work for England's advancement by
discovery between 1550 and 1583, but he did not offer his solutions to the
public, and hence he advanced knowledge only among those who sought
him personally." (p. 68)
9. Francis R. Johnson, in his Astronomical Thought in Renaissance

England (1937) continues with praise for Dee, although his evaluation of
Dee's scientific work seems to be based to some fair extent on what E. G.
R. Taylor had published a few years before his own work. He says (p.
135-136): "Throughout the two decades following [Robert] Recorde's
death in 1558, Dee was recognized as the supreme scientific authority in
England, and was special adviser to the principal English voyages of the
period, beginning in 1553 with the first Muscovy venture, to which

Recorde also gave scientific counsel. Dee's later career, during which this
unrestrained optimism concerning the possibilities of natural science made
him the dupe of the charlatan Edward Kelley and caused him to turn his
energies to alchemy and crystal gazing, has tended to obscure his real
merit as a scientist and his very great services to his country. Even Dee's
modern biographer [Charlotte Fell Smith, see above] has emphasized his
reputation as an astrologer, alchemist, and dabbler in spiritualism, at the
expense of his significant work in legitimate science. One recent scholar,
however, has done much to restore the proper balance and give a truer
picture of the man. Professor E. G. R. Taylor, in her Tudor Geography,
devotes three chapters to Dee's labors in geography and the sciences
directly related thereto. She gives the following brief summary of his
position and contemporary influence." Johnson here inserts a long part of
Taylor's list of influential or noted people with whom Dee is said to have
connections with, of one sort and another. Johnson then continues (p.
137): "As the passage quoted indicates, Dee's great significance in
English science is due to his work as teacher, adviser, and friend to most
of the English mathematicians, astronomers, and geographers of his day."
It isn't clear how Taylor or Johnson arrive at the conclusion that Dee was
teacher and adviser to most of the people in the list given by Taylor, nor
who are the sources, other than Dee himself, for reports about his nature of
his contacts with these people. Johnson goes on: "His [Dee's] published
works were very few, though he lists many manuscript treatises which
were never printed." And, one may add, have been lost -- or, perhaps,
never existed except as titles which Dee hoped to write on some day?
"Whereas Recorde's influence." says Johnson, throughout the century, was
transmitted by his excellent textbooks in the vernacular, Dee's was exerted
through his personal advice and teaching, and passed on by the pupils he
had trained." Of course, we have no records today of his personal advice
and teaching. There were contemporaries who praised Dee's great
knowledge of mathematics (a term which was broader in scope than it is
today), but none, it seems, who go into any detail about it. Johnson, as do
all the writers about Dee I have referred to so far, discusses Dee's
magnificent library of several thousand volumes, including many
medieval manuscripts, which was often consulted by others. Johnson says
(p. 138, 139): "During the third quarter of the [16th] century, John Dee
and his friends and pupils constituted the scientific academy of England.
... This great library was always at the disposal of Dee's fellow scientists
among his friends and pupils. If one believes that the first essential and
the true center of any university is its library, Dee's circle might truly be
termed the scientific university of England during the period from about
1560 to 1583. ... The position of Recorde and Dee as the outstanding and
most influential English scientists at the beginning of the second half of
the sixteenth century was universally conceded by their contemporaries
among their countrymen." Of course, strictly speaking, there were no
people called "scientists" in this era, but rather "natural philosophers",

"mathematicians", and "astrologer/astronomers", etc. We will see shortly
that some more recent writers about Dee have not concurred with these
evaluations of Dee by Taylor and Johnson.
10. First, however, there is another person to consider who adheres

to an evaluation of Dee of the sort presented by Taylor and Johnson. In
her book Theatre of the World (1969), Frances Yates writes from the
standpoint of history of architecture during the Renaissance, especially in
connection with the Renaissance theater. She says (p. 7-8), referring to
the works of E. Taylor and Johnson, and after quoting a passage from
Taylor's Tudor Geography: "Thus modern historians of science have
rehabilitated Dee, have drawn aside the veil of the ridiculous and deluded
conjuror of nineteenth-century legend to show behind it the practical
scientist fully abreast of the latest scientific thought, translating it into
practical use for the service of his countrymen. Dee comes out now as in
the van of Elizabethan movements, the maritime expansion, the scientific
activity of all kinds, and moreover as particularly Elizabethan in spirit in
his appeal to the rising artisan classes. His was a new and modern kind of
learning which included technology as well as abstract speculation, which
made an appeal to new social classes, as well as to the queen and to
courtiers. In these most important respects, no more complete mirror of
the Elizabethan age could be found than John Dee." On p. 14, Yates
says: "It is surely time that Dee should be judged objectively and without
prejudice, and that critical historical enquiry should be made, not only into
the nature of his science and its place in the history of thought, but also
into the nature of his religion and its place in the history of religion."
Yates quotes from a letter of 1592 from Dee to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, in which Dee speaks of his religious beliefs, and she
concludes: "It was the religion of a mathematician who believed that the
divine creation was held together by magical forces. If we substitute
mechanics for magic as the operative force used by the Creator, Dee's
religion was perhaps not altogether unlike that of Isaac Newton." This
comparison is open to question, and I will return to it later. On p. 17 of
her Theatre of the World, Yates says: "Dee comes straight out of a main
Renaissance Hermetic stream which has reached him at rather a late date
and bearing with it accretions gathered in the sixteenth century during
which it developed, both in more extremely occult directions and in more
precisely scientific directions." A major thesis in Yates writing was that a
revival of the magic of Hermeticism (or Hermetism), based on works
ascribed to a person known as Hermes Trismegistus, was a dominant
influence in many areas during the Renaissance, and in particular that this
revival was an important source of the new sciences which arose in the
16th and 17th centuries. In her earlier book Giordano Bruno and the
Hermetic Tradition (1964), she says (p. 449-450): "Taking a very long
view down the avenues of time a beautiful and coherent line of
development suggests itself -- perhaps too beautiful and coherent to be

quite true. The late antique world, unable to carry Greek science forward
any further, turned to the religious cult of the world and its accompanying
occultisms and magics of which the writings of 'Hermes Trismegistus' are
an expression. The appearance of the Magus [Wise One] as an ideal at
this time was, as Festugière has said, a retreat from reason into the occult.
The same writer compares the appearance of the Magus idea in the
Renaissance as similarly a retreat from the intense rationalism of
mediaeval scholasticism. In the long mediaeval centuries, both in the
West and in the Arabic world, the traditions of rational Greek science had
made progress. Hence, it is now suggested, when 'Hermes Trismegistus'
and all that he stood for is rediscovered in the Renaissance, the return to
the occult this time stimulates the genuine science. The emerging modern
science is still clothed in what might be described as a Hermetic
atmosphere. Francis Bacon's New Atlantis is perhaps not a very good
example to take since Bacon's former position as Father of Experimental
Science is now weakened. Nevertheless, the New Atlantis is a scientist's
Paradise where every kind of discovery and invention is put to the service
of the happy people. ... Whether or not there is any real connection
between the New Atlantis and the City of the Sun [a work by Tommaso
Campanella, placed by Yates in the Hermetic tradition, along with
Giordano Bruno], those two Utopias come out of the same stream, and the
stream is Hermetic, or Hermetic-Cabalist."
11. In a turn toward studying the writings of Dee which bear on

natural philosophy, or as we now say, the sciences, J. L. Heilbron and
Wayne Shumaker published in 1978 a book which contains a translation
by Shumaker of Dee's first publication devoted to this topic, the
Propaedeumata aphoristica (Aphoristic Introduction) of 1568, a long
introductory essay by Heilbron, and notes by Shumaker, assisted by
Heilbron, on each of the 120 aphorisms. "John Dee (1527-1608)," says
Heilbron (p. 1), "was a geometer, physicist, astrologer, antiquarian,
hermetist, and conjurer, a mixture of mathematician and magician, of
scholar and enthusiast, of schemer and dupe." Heilbron observes that "
'mathematics' in Dee's time included many subjects that have since
become branches of physics or engineering, or entirely separate
disciplines: optics, architecture, surveying, fortification, cartography,
astronomy, navigation." (p. 4). As to Dee's capabilities as a
mathematician in this sense, Heilbron quotes a statement made by Dee late
in life in a work called the Compendious Rehearsal (1592), addressed to
Queen Elizabeth in the hope of refuting charges of conjuring made against
him and of obtaining a pension from a grateful nation, which runs as
follows:
"At the request of some English gentlemen, made unto to me to doe

somewhat there [Paris] for the honour of my country, I did undertake to
read freely and publiquely Euclide's Elements Geometrical, Mathematicé,

Physicé, et Pythagoricé; a thing never done publiquely in any University
of Christendome. My auditory in Rhemes College [the insignificant
Collège de Reims -- note by Heilbron] was so great, and the most part
elder than my selfe, that the mathematicall schooles could not hold them;
for many were faine, without the schooles at the windowers, to be auditors
and spectators, as they best could help themselves thereto. I did also
dictate upon every proposition, beside the first exposition." (quoted by
Heilbron, p. 6)
Heilbron comments: "Now Dee had lectured on only the first two of
Euclid's thirteen books, not upon 'every proposition," and his treatment
was by no means unprecedented. ... It was already a commonplace to refer
to Pythagoras, Plato, and the sublime when recommending the study of the
Elements. ... One can hardly avoid the conclusion that Dee's 'Pythagorean'
elucidation of 1550 was but a reworking of the traditional uplifting
prolegomena to the study of Euclid. ... The fact that no contemporary
reference to Dee's lectures has been found, not even in the lengthy preface
on the dignity of mathematics published by his friend Montaureus in
11551, provides further evidence that they contained little unfamiliar to
the Parisians. It appears that the aging Dee, dissatisfied with the reception
of his life's work and pressed to defend it, misrepresented the
commendable but unexceptional Euclidean lectures of his youth as a
spectacular and unprecedented achievement." (p. 6, 7-8). During the years
1551-1553, Dee served the Duke of Northumberland, "a man for whom no
one has ever had a kind word." (Heilbron quotes here G. R. Elton,
England under the Tudors, 3rd ed., 1969, p. 209). Dee tutored the Duke's
children, including Robert Dudley, later Earl of Leicester and a favorite of
Queen Elizabeth. Also, Dee helped the Duke "to promote a search for
northern routes to to the riches of the orient. Dee's confidence,
enthusiasm, and mathematics, not to mention his training by Gemma and
Mercator [two noted geographers and cartographers], were just what was
wanted to reassure uneasy investors in expensive voyages through
unknown seas." (p. 9)
12. Of Dee's prowess as a mathematician, Heilbron says (p. 17):

"The fact of Dee's contemporary reputation is easier to ascertain than its
basis. We can dismiss the suggestion that he was admired for
'profundity'. He quite rightly does not figure on van Roomen's list of the
chief mathematicians of the later sixteenth century. Dee's contributions
were promotional and pedagogical; he advertised the uses and beauties of
mathematics, collected books and manuscripts, and assisted in saving and
circulating ancient texts; he attempted to interest and instruct artisans,
mechanics, and navigators, and strove to ease the beginner's entry into
arithmetic and geometry. It is in this last role, as pedagogue, that Dee
displayed his competence, and made his occasional small contributions
(which he classed as great and original discoveries) to the study of

mathematics." As a sample of the sort of thing Dee added to Euclid,
Heilbron notes (p. 25) that Dee shows how to find lines x, y, z such that
x/y = y/z = a/b and xyz = c3 , where a, b and c are given. (I have used
anachronistic notation. Heilbron states the proportions as x:y::y:z::a:b.)
What Dee does, in effect, though with techniques adapted to the use of
proportions prevalent in his time, is set z = c, x = (a/b)/c and y = c/(a/b).
With the advantage of algebra as we know it nowadays, one sees by
multiplying x, y and z, that indeed xyz = c3 . The technique then available
to Dee for handling proportions was a little more involved, and he it was
necessary for him to work in terms of line segments directly, and not with
lengths of line segments. However, the procedure involved were
elementary and commonplace according to the standards of the time.
What is interesting, though, in connection with evaluating Dee's status as a
mathematician, as Heilbron observes, is that Dee connects this to the
ancient problem of duplicating a cube, i.e. constructing a cube with
volume equal to twice the volume of a given cube with only a straight
edge and an ordinary compass, or more abstractly, using only the axioms
and postulates given by Euclid in his Elements. Heilbron quotes Dee (p.
25): "Listen to this and devise, you couragious Mathematicians: consider
how nere this creepeth to the famous Probleme of doubling the Cube." In
fact, as Heilbron notes, the problem solved by Dee is useless in this
regard. This can be seen by noting that presumably Dee has in mind
taking a cube with length of edge equal c, and using his technique to find x
such that x3 = 2c3 . But the 2, necessary to accomplish the doubling, is
nowhere involved in Dee's construction. Again, this wouldn't have been
so apparent to Dee, since algebra was in his time in the process of being
developed into the system, or systems, we know today, and Dee was
evidently working with traditional Euclidean geometrical constructions of
line segments. In this regard, however, Heilbron notes that "although he
[Dee] usually sets up his problems and manipulates his proportions
geometrically, his treatment is strongly algebraic in spirit. The examples
so far given show his tendency to set up equations (as proportions) and to
juggle them until a solution emerges in the form of a constructible line."
13. Heilbron gives a detailed analysis of the contents of Dee's

Propaedeumata aphoristica as related to astrology of Dee's time in Part II
of his introductory essay. He says (p. 51): "Dee's approach to astrology,
although not entirely original with him, deviated in several ways from that
of the ordinary literature. There is no trace of the hermetic planetary
souls, for example: stars are not intelligences to be cajoled but unalterable
sources of exploitable power; they are not like people but like radiators;
their influences may be concentrated by optical instruments, not by songs,
prayers and incense. Again, Dee takes literally the demands of optical
theory; and since the intensity of radiation diminishes with distance and
increases with the size of the luminous source, he insists that an exact
astronomy, one that yields precise values of the sizes and distances of all

planetary configurations, is a prerequisite to a competent astrology." Dee
appears to have adopted the idea of considering radiations, modeled
chiefly after the example of light, as fundamental to astrology from works
of Roger Bacon (1214-1294), and possibly from works of Robert
Grosseteste (c1170-1253). This point of view led Dee to recommend that
geometrical optics, as explained by the Arab astrological write Al-Kindi,
who flourished about 850 A.D., and some others, be applied to the study
of astrology. Of the physics, astronomy, and astrology used by or alluded
to by Dee in his aphorisms, Heilbron says (p. 60): "Nothing exceeds the
grasp of a sixteenth-century undergraduate, even of Oxbridge." Dee
spends some time discussing from the point of view of elementary
geometry matters of the intensity and scope of radiations from the seven
known planets (counting the sun and moon as planets, but not counting the
earth). The diagrams and constructions involved are explained by both
Heilbron and Shumaker. As an example of what Dee recommends as a
basis for astrology is his calculation of 25,341 possible conjunctions
(angular separation of zero degrees as seen from the earth) of the planets
(2 at a time, 3 at a time, and so on, up to all 7 at once), taking into account
the various possibilities of relative differences in their powers or
intensities of radiations as to which planet has greater or lesser power than
another. (Dee says 25,335, but he made an error in an intermediate
number, putting 120 for 126.) To deal with each of these conjunctions in
a manner recommended by Dee would involve a knowledge the distances
of the planets from the earth, of the relative powers of the planets, such
matters as the time the planet spends above the horizon on different
occasions (the morae) and differences due to retrograde motion of planets
with respect to the stars, etc. Traditional astrologers are concerned also
with aspects, which are (approximately) angles between planets of 60 or
90 or 120 or 180 degrees, and taking into account the various possibilities
of different powers in this case would add many more cases. Heilbron
says (p. 91-92): "How is this vast mathematical apparatus -- these morae
directions, distances and periods, not to mention the 25,341 conjunctions -
- to be worked by the astrologer? How, if he lives long enough to make
the calculations, can he compute celestial influences upon the "'entire and
unchangeable order of every generation (XXI); upon events both
immediate and proximate (LVII); upon the 'chief and truly physical causes
of the procreation and preservation of all things which are born and live'
(CVII); upon the occasion of the death of the body (CIX). [The Roman
numerals refer to Dee's numbering of his aphorisms.] Dee's counsel in
these matters is not very helpful." The Propaedeumata aphoristica was
written relatively early in Dee's career. As he grew older, he began to
despair more and more of attaining the kind of knowledge and wisdom he
longed for. Eventually he turned, with the help of an associate, Edward
Kelley, to trying techniques for conversing with angels. Heilbron says (p.
15): "As he [Dee] told an emissary of the Hapsburg Emperor in 1584, he
had by degrees passed through 'all manners of studies ..., as many as were

commonly known and more than are commonly heard of,' and all
ultimately unsatisfactory. 'At length I perceived that onely God (and by
his good Angels) could satisfy my desire, which was to understand the
natures of all his creatures."
14. In his John Dee's Natural Philosophy (1988), Nicholas H.

Clulee says (p. 1): "Until the present century [20th], much of the
biographical literature on Dee has been concerned with him as a
personality and with the drama of his life; it has devoted little attention to
the study of his writings and has been less than scholarly." Clulee
comments on some of the writers I have referred to above. He says, for
example, of works about Dee in the 20th century: "Initially, the approach
adopted typically ignored the more questionable dimensions of Dee's
biography and focused upon his position within the evolution of some
narrow scientific development that aimed to indicate the importance of his
role in that evolution. E. G. R. Taylor took the lead in rehabilitating Dee's
reputation, emphasizing his work and his role as a teacher of practitioners
in mathematics and navigation. ... Likewise, Frances R. Johnson
considered Dee largely in terms of his accomplishments as an astronomer,
his attitude toward Copernicus, and his formulation of an idea of
experimental method. This approach, while not entirely claiming for Dee
a position of the first rank, did serve to earn for him some right to
consideration in sixteenth-century intellectual history, but at the expense
of divorcing aspects of Dee's activity from the rest of his work and
biography." Clulee speaks of a number of writers on Dee since 1950 as
adhering to what he calls the Warburg interpretation of Dee's position in
intellectual history of the Renaissance, referring to the Warburg Institute
of the University of London, an organization which, as one of their World
Wide Web pages states, "exists principally to further the study of the
classical tradition, that is of those elements of European thought,
literature, art and institutions which derive from the ancient world."
Frances Yates was a prominent participant in the Warburg Institute, and I.
R. F. Calder was a student of hers there. Peter French, Clulee says, "drew
the foundation of his interpretation from her [Yates'] works and
acknowledges her guidance." (p. 2) Clulee also mentions a dissertation by
Graham Yewbrey which "takes the framework developed by Yates and
French as the starting point for interpreting Dee's ideas." Of Frances
Yates herself, Clulee says that she "herself contributed significantly to this
view in a series of writings in which Dee assumed an increasingly central
place." These various authors have been mainly concerned, according to
Clulee, with placing Dee's works into an intellectual tradition of some
prominent kind. Calder examined Dee's works in the light of the thesis
put forth by Edwin Burtt in his The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern
Science (1924) to the effect that "the mathematical aspects of 17th century
science were an outgrowth of the conception of mathematics implicit in
the Platonism that was revived and developed in the Renaissance."

(Clulee, p. 3; Calder says in a Prefatory Note "The basic assumptions of
this study (set out in Ch. I.) are similar to those of Burtt's Metaphysical
Foundations of Modern Physical Science".) As I indicated above, Yates
places Dee in the tradition of Hermetic occultism and kabbalism
(Cabbalism). Clulee says (p. 8): "The culmination of Yates's progressive
unravelling of the English Renaissance is The Occult Philosophy in the
Elizabethan Age. Here she finds the key component of Elizabethan
culture to be a kabbalistic variety of the Hermetic occult philosophy built
from Lull, Ficino, Pico, Agrippa, and Francesco Giorgi, given a
particularly English and Rosicrucian expression by Dee with his addition
of alchemy. In the context of this philosophy, she interprets English
literature as a battle ground between competing ideologies, with Sidney,
Spenser, Shakespeare, and Chapman defending the occult philosophy of
Dee, and Marlow, the proponent of reaction, attacking the occult
philosophy and Dee."
15. Clulee studies in detail the main three surviving works of Dee
related to natural philosophy and mathematics. These are the
Propaedeumata aphoristica, whose presentation by Shumaker and
Heilbron was discussed above; the Monas heiroglyphica, a baffling piece
evidently related to alchemy and a proposed project for recovering the
original language of God (cf.. the book of Genesis) of which the languages
of people are corrupt descendants; and the Mathematicall Praeface which
appeared as a preface to a translation of Euclid's Elements attributed to
Henry Billingsley, which, as Clulee shows in his Chapter 6 owes much to
the commentary of Proclus on Euclid's Elements which dates from the 5th
century A.D. Passages from the Mathematicall Praeface have often been
cited, here and there, as showing that Dee was an early advocate of the
emphasis on experiment which many (often enough influenced directly or
indirectly by the late 16th and early 17th century jurist, and publicist and
theorist about science, Francis Bacon) think was characteristic of what
they take to be a Scientific Revolution in the later 16th and 17th centuries.
These latter two works are not much concerned with astrology, as is the
case with the Propaedeumata, and since my concern here is with history
of astrology, won't be discussed here. They are, however, major
documents for anyone who wants to study Dee's beliefs about magic.
16. As to the Propaedeumata, Clulee gives a succinct but detailed

analysis of it. He says about this work, after presenting his analysis of
individual aphorisms (p. 52): "What has emerged in the Propaedeumata
is an astrological physics in which Dee has developed and elaborated his
earlier ideas with much greater detail and precision concerning the
mechanism of astrological influence and has also developed a method for
quantifying the strength of astral virtues and mathematically determining
the nature and strength of astrological effects, thereby fusing his interest in
astrology with his early interest in mathematics. Much of Dee's general

theory can be traced to standard works on astrology and to Renaissance
formulations of astrological theory, despite the fact that Dee rejects or
minimizes the usual components of astrological prediction: the
constellations, the aspects, the houses, ascendants, and so forth. These
sources could have provided Dee with a vague notion of rays of force
analogous to light as the mechanism of astrological influence, which is
present in Dee's astrological notes from the beginning. These works do
not, however, account for all the details of Dee's theory. Most important,
they do not apply the mathematical treatment, which is characteristic of
Dee's mature astrology, to the diffusion of virtues. It is in this regard that
Dee's study of optics in the mid-1550s provides the essential foundation
for the astrology of the Propaedeumata and the development of Dee's
early natural philosophy in general." Clulee studies at some length the
influences of Al-Kindi, the 9th century Arab astrologer, Robert
Grosseteste and Roger Bacon on Dee, of whom Clulee says Bacon's
influence was preeminent (p. 64). Of these influences, Clulee says (p.
57): "The theory of astrology in the Propaedeumata thus reflects an effort
of intellectual archeology through which Dee recovered a tradition of
optically based natural philosophy that had continued only in attenuated
form after its culmination in Roger Bacon. ... Yet al-Kindi did not suggest
that the mathematical definition and study of radiation was relevant in an
astrological context, and although Grosseteste and Bacon implied that
astrological influences were subject to study by the philosophy of
multiplication of species [transmission of or transformation by radiation],
they never systematically developed the full implications of their ideas for
astrology. It was left to Dee, who in his early years was most intensively
interested in both mathematics and a causal mechanism for astrological
physics, to take these ideas out of the contexts in which he found them and
weld them into a theory specifically focused on the problem of astrology."
In his conclusions (p. 70-73) about this work by Dee, Clulee argues that
"Dee's natural philosophy and astrology was an eclectic individual
creation that does not have very much specifically in common with any
distinctly Renaissance philosophy whether Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, or
Hermetic. ... Dee was working very explicitly within the context of an
Aristotelian model of natural philosophy and science. ... The fact that
Dee's idea of natural magic [feats performed by human artifice, rather than
by spirits or demons] was derived in close association with his study of
Roger Bacon also should warn us that an interest in magic is not a specific
indicator of a particular philosophic position in the Renaissance. ... It
would be vain to argue that Dee's work on astrology represents any
contribution to the progressive development of science. His most
fundamental insights were adaptations of medieval ideas whose only
novelty was their resurrection after centuries of obscurity and relative
neglect. His concept of science is Aristotelian, his natural philosophy is
still limited to a qualitative view of nature, and his ideas on method and
'experimental science; come from Aristotle with the admixture of [Roger]

Bacon. The significance of Dee's astrology lies more in its attempt to deal
with contemporary criticisms and doubts concerning the validity and
precision of astrology, than with its role in any long-term revolution in
natural science. In these terms Dee's astrology was a significant and novel
attempt to develop a physical theory and mathematical method for
astrology."
17. What are we to make of John Dee, and in particular of his

beliefs about and contributions to astrology and astralism of other kinds? I
have shown here, mostly by direct quotation, a considerable variety of
opinions about the originality and depth of Dee's works. I expect what
one thinks about Dee depends on who one is -- what one knows, what one
believes, and what one wants to believe. There is a work about Dee which
I haven't mentioned up to now, called John Dee: Scientist, Geographer,
Astrologer and Secret Agent to Elizabeth I by Richard Deacon (1968).
Deacon presents a theory to the effect that Queen Elizabeth was a canny
user of spies, and that Dee was one of her most trusted agents. The
evidence which Deacon presents seems to me to be slender, based on
unsupported conjectures, and very trusting of Dee's statements about
himself. To get some idea, though, of how Dee appeared to Deacon, and
what his motives for his judgments of Dee might have been (back in the
1960s), here is what Deacon says about Dee at the end of his book (p. 276-
277): "Here was a complete man in every respect of that overworked
phrase, meticulously conventional at Court, yet with some of the qualities
of the uncaring Bohemian. Almost every aspect of his character could
form the theme for an enlightening essay. His religious outlook, his
inquiring ecumenical spirit, his insistence on a religious approach to
scrying and experiment mark him out as almost as fascinating a character
as Sir Thomas More. As an adviser on naval matters and an imperialist
planner he deserves at least a chapter in Britain's naval history. But it is
Dee the dreamer, the seer of visions, the romantic Hermetist that causes
one not only to look at Tudor England in a new light, but to ponder on
what lessens Dee might have for the psychedelic experiments of today.
For if Hermetist is the right word to apply to him, there was no other
Hermetist so practical, so sober and so far-seeing in his life-time. ...
Thus, with and through Dee, one sees Tudor mysticism in the light of
modern science and modern psychotical mysticism being submitted to the
tests of a critical appraiser of scrying and the commonsense of Saint
Teresa of Avila. With Dee one sees much of the present and not a little of
the distant future in his own past. It is like looking at the whole of eternity
through the shewstone of Elizabethan England." I do not find shewstone
(or showstone) in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary (1991), but I
presume it refers to a crystal ball or other device used in scrying, which is
the search for visions, of the future or of eternity, in crystal balls or other
reflecting or semitransparent material. One may compare this with a
conclusion about Dee made by Nicholas Clulee (loc. cit., p. 240-241):

"The need to distinguish between different types of magic, both on the
grounds of their content and theoretical presuppositions and on the
grounds of the motivation behind the attention paid to each, also applies to
the issue of the relation of magic to science in the Renaissance. Dee's case
indicates that the different traditions of magic in the Renaissance had
different implications for science. In his case the Florentine/Neoplatonic
approach, in which magic had a predominantly religious function, was
quite separate from his use of the medieval tradition of a natural magic,
with most of his scientific work that can be related to magic being related
to the latter. Dee also suggests that the place of mathematics, usually as a
mystical and symbolic view of numbers and figures as reflective of occult
correspondences, in magical philosophies does not justify concluding that
magic encouraged a mathematical approach to science preparatory to
seventeenth-century science. While he shows considerable interest in
mystical mathematical correspondences, this interest was quite separate
from his actual work involving the application of mathematics and and
mathematical reasoning. The sources that encouraged the expression of a
concrete approach to nature through mathematics were Proclus and
Cusanus, not any magical texts." I leave it to any reader of this that might
be to decide for yourself what you think about Dee and his works. I don't
feel the need to come to a conclusion about Dee. I enjoy having met him,
and I will no doubt muse about him and what he did as I muse about
others I have met, in person or in books. After all, I was born in the sign
of Libra. And I am a mathematician by profession, in the sense of
mathematics prevalent nowadays (year 2000 A.D.) in universities of the
world.
18. Since writing the 17 paragraphs above, I have come across a

translation of Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica ("A Translation of John Dee's
'Monas Hieroglyphica' (Antwerp, 1564), with an Introduction and
Annotations", C. H. Josten, Ambix, vol. XII, nos. 2 & 3, June and October,
1964, p. 84-221). From my reading of the secondary sources I have
discussed above, I was under the impression that the former work, the
Monas, was not of much interest in connection with the history of
astrology, being mainly about of alchemy and a kind of symbolism or
language suitable for communicating secrets of nature, as indicated by the
title, which can be read as The Hieroglyphic Monad. However, the work
contains astrological material as well. The term monas is related to the
term monad, which refers to an indivisible unit. We know that Dee was
acquainted with works of Proclus (5th century A.D.), such as Proclus's
commentary on Euclid (translated into English by Glenn R. Morrow, A
Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, 1970, 1990). Here
and elsewhere (such as in commentaries on Plato's works), Proclus
discusses the One, used in a way still sometimes heard from philosophers,
in such phrases as "the problem of the One and the Many", in connection
with works of Plato, Plotinus and others. For example, on p. 4 of

Morrow's translation of Proclus' commentary by Glenn R. Morrow (1972,
1990), Proclus speaks of "the Limit and the Unlimited" as "the two highest
principles after the indescribable and utterly incomprehensible causation
of the One". We may conjecture that Dee's monad was a symbol for the
One, and moreover that Dee was bent on describing and comprehending
this One, regardless of what Proclus said about it. Josten discusses the
choice of the term monad (p. 106-108), and says: "Essential oneness, or
monas, -- the constituent of numbers, though not itself a number -- is the
notion which links the alchemical contents of Dee's message with those
many digressions on number symbolism, especially that of the
Pythagorean tetraktys, and on the symbolism of geometry and of letters,
with which his magical parable is enriched." Presumably with the term
hieroglyphica, Dee was referring to a method which he took to underlie
such symbolism, and was wide-ranging, to be found in geometrical
diagrams in the manner of Euclid, to the traditional symbols used by
astrologer/astronomers to denote the planets, to the interpretation of letters
and combinations of letters found in the doctrines of the Cabala (Cabbala,
Kabala, Kabbala; "cabala" means something like "doctrine"). The Cabala
is an elaborate system which has been popular with some from European
medieval times up to the present. Some of its adherents make use, among
other things, of interpretations of Hebrew scriptures based on
interpretations and associations of letters and combinations of letters with
numbers (those we call positive integers, or whole numbers, or natural
numbers). Josten says (p. 84): "Dee goes so far as to assert that, although
he called the work hieroglyphic, it is endowed with a clarity and rigour
almost mathematical; yet at the same time he leaves it to the reader even to
guess that the subject of the elaborate display, which he is asked to view in
such dim light, is the hermetic quest. The semblance of clarity is achieved
by discussing the dark subject under the guise of a symbolic sign invented
by Dee, which is his monad. This symbol indeed lends itself easily to
digressive secondary interpretations of a numerological, cabbalistic,
astrological, cosmological, or mathematical nature, all which, however,
are without any doubt given so as to establish significant connexions with
the all-embracing central theme, alchemy, which is barely mentioned."
Josten is referring here to a passage at the end of Dee's dedication of the
Monas to Maximilian of Habsburg, King of Bohemia, the Romans and
Hungary, found in the translation at p. 121. Dee continues here: "Or is it
not rare, I ask, that the common astronomical symbols of the planets
(instead of being dead, dumb, or, up to the present hour at least, quasi-
barbaric signs) should have become characters imbued with immortal life
and should now be able to express their especial meanings most
eloquently in any tongue and to any nation." In this connection, Josten
comments (p. 103-105): "The symbol for Mercury [as used by Dee in his
Monad] represents in alchemy the matter, the method, and the result of the
alchemical process. Accordingly the modified mercurial symbol which is
that of Dee's monad may be assumed to stand for the subject, and the final

achievement in Dee's notion of the hermetic discipline. It represented to
him in its broadest interpretation, therefore, the principle of transmutation
itself, that principle of which Mercury is the universal agent and of which
mercurial man, i.e. the true alchemist or magus, as a fit recipient of that
influence, is the noblest subject. ... One would try in vain to go any further
in the alchemical interpretation of Dee's symbol and to derive from the
text any information on the practical, or psychological, application of
Dee's hermetic doctrine. ... One practical application of the symbol of his
doctrine is, however, indicated in the text. Theorem XXIII contains
eleaborate instructions for the mathematical construction of the symbol of
the monad, each part of which has to be of a size that is in strict numerical
proportion to the size of every other part. ... These instructions are
intended for the benefit of readers who would like to bear the symbol of
the monad "on rings or seals, or to use it in other ways". They are
addressed to the Mechanicus, i.e. the goldsmith or engraver, who
manufactures such articles. ... It seems, therefore, reasonable to assume
that Dee attributed to his symbol a power similar to that of other magic
characters which were supposed to perpetuate stellar influences, beneficial
or maleficent, when they were engraved, on metal or others materials, at
astrologically suitable times."
19. "The symbol of the monad," says Josten, "as it appears on the title-
page and in the illustrations of the text, is essentially the common
alchemical and astronomical sign of Mercury (d) to which the common
sign of the first division of the zodiac, Aries (q)has been added at the
bottom.
The half-circle and the circle forming the upper part of the common
Mercury symbol are represented as intersecting so as to convey the idea of
a conjunction of Moon and Sun. Besides, the lunar half-circle has been
enlarged into a crescent, and a central point has been added to the solar
circle, in order to achieve complete identity of those upper elements of the
monad symbol with the common signs of Moon (s)and Sun (a). The
central point of the solar circle symbolizes also the Earth around which the
Sun, the Moon, and the other planets, revolve; it is what Dee calls the

terrestrial centre of the monad. The sign of Aries appended to the cross at
the bottom of the Mercury symbol, thus modified to suit Dee's intentions,
is the first of three signs in the zodiac which the astrologers assigned to the
element of fire, the so-called fiery triplicity (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius). Its
addition to the symbol of the monad is intended, as Dee states expressly,
to signify that in the work of his monad ... the aid of fire is required. If
one leaves aside all refinements and all secondary interpretations with
which Dee so confusingly invests his concept of the monad, the most
general and obvious idea conveyed by its symbol is, therefore, that of the
alchemical process: Mercury, i.e. the philosopher's mercury, is seen as
being activated by alchemical fire ... " (p. 102-103). Further, Josten
observes (p. 110): "The signs of the Sun, of the Moon, of Aries, and the
cross of the elements (i.e. the component parts of the monad symbol which
had been derived from the straight lines and parts of the circumference
aof circle) are shown to be the component parts also of the five remaining
planets. Their shapes, inasmuch as they are at the same time the signs of
metals (lead, tin, iron, copper, mercury) are subjected to a symbolical
analysis bristling with alchemical allusions whose interpretation defeats
the powers of the present writer." On p. 100, Josten speaks of Dee's claim
that "the power of a cosmic symbol invented by himself could seem to
make the astronomers' work superfluous." And indeed, in his dedication
to King Maximilian, Dee says (p. 131): "And will not the astronomer be
very sorry for the cold he suffered under the open sky, for [all his] vigils
and labours, when here, with no discomfort to be suffered from the air, he
may most exactly observe with his eyes the orbits of the heavenly bodies
under [his own] roof, with windows and doors shut on all sides, at any
given time, and without any mechanical instruments made of wood or
brass?" So much for the astrologers' use of astronomical observations, of
the sort that Dee had called for in his work about the reformation of
astrology, the Propaedeumata aphoristica, involving a gathering of a huge
amount of data with a very demanding precision. I will indulge in a
conjecture here. Dee turned to what we see in his Monas hieroglyphica
when he realized, or faced up, to the immense difficult, or indeed the
impossibility, of carrying out this observational program. He was
searching for a method of finding out all about celestial influences on
human affairs in, as he indicates, his own home, by contemplating what he
took to be a powerful symbol which somehow contained all he wanted to
know, which was commensurate in his mind, it seems, with all there is to
know.
20. I have come across (9 Nov 2000) another translation of the Monas
hieroglyphia, this one published in 1947 by J. W. Hamilton-Jones, under
the title The Hieroglyphic Monad and with a commentary by him. In the
translation with analytical introduction published in 1964 by C. H. Josten,
discussed above, Josten says (loc. cit. p. 85) of the translation by
Hamilton-Jones and another translation into French: "There are two

translations of the Monas Hieroglyphica by modern occultists: [E. A.]
Grillot de Givry, Jean Dee de Londres, La Monade Hiéroglyphique, Paris,
1925; it leaves out Dee's letter to the printer; J. W. Hamilton Jones, The
Hieroglyphic Monad, London, 1947. The second of these is partly based
on the first, and leaves out the important letter of dedication to King
Maximilian and the letter to the printer. Neither translation may be
regarded as accurate." Josten gives no examples of such inaccuracies. I
will make some comparisons between parts of Josten's and Hamilton-
Jones's translation. To begin with, Dee wrote this work in the form of a
sequence of numbered paragraphs, each of which he calls a "theorem".
However, Dee gives no proofs of these theorems, so the term "theorem"
loses the force it has in such a work as Euclid's Elements. The structure of
Euclid's Elements, already described before Euclid in Aristotle's Prior
Analytics, furnishes a pattern which has been followed since been
followed by many mathematicians and many others who seriously want to
present their work in the manner of Euclid. In modern terminology, one
often distinguishes between statements which are to be proved or
disproved, called "propositions", and statements which have been proved
according to principles of logic and axiomatic procedure, called
"theorems". A well-formed statement in a formal system of the sort
Euclid gave becomes a "theorem" only after a proof has been furnished for
it. This already may lead one to wonder about the status of John Dee as a
mathematician. Certainly, mathematicians and logicians will wonder, and
I conjecture that some such people wondered already during Dee's
lifetime, whatever some of his influential acquaintances at Elizabeth's
court may have thought.
21. Theorem I of the Monas reads in Josten's translation: "The first

and most simple manifestation and representation of things, non-existent
as well as latent in the folds of Nature, happened by means of straight line
and circle." In Hamilton-Jones's translation, it reads: "It is by the straight
line and the circle that the first and most simple example and
representation of all things may be demonstrated, whether such things be
either non-existent or merely hidden under Nature's veils." For those that
read Latin, the original version of Dee's Theorem 1 is (as given by Josten
in a reproduction): "Per Lineam rectam, Circulumque, Prima,
Simplicissimaque fuit Rerum, tum, non ex[s]istentium, tum in Naturae
latentium Inuolucris, in Lucem Productio, representatioque" (Josten, p.
154). I am indebted to Gareth Prosser and Richard Kay of the MEDIEV-L
e-list on the Internet for the following translations, which seem to me to be
better than those of Josten and Hamilton-Jones: (Prosser) "The first and
simplest way of producing and representing into the light things either not
existing or hiding in the concealed parts of nature, is by a straight line and
a circle"; Kay (taking account of tum ... tum) "The first and most simple
way to lead forth into the light, and to represent, things that first did not
exist and then were hidden under the veil of nature [or "were latent in

nature's envelope"] was by means of the straight line and the circle." One
might want the definite article "the" instead of the indefinite "a", and put
"the straight line and circle" in the last phrase, but that's debatable. I like
the more literal "representing into the light" or "lead forth into the light"
better than the "demonstrated" of Hamilton-Jones and "happened" of
Josten on account of what Dee thought about the nature of light, as he
learned about it, mainly, from works of Robert Grosseteste and Roger
Bacon (see paragraphs 13 and 16 above). Such are the perils of language
translations. In any case, one may ponder how "non-existent" things can
be made to appear by means of straight lines and circles. There seems to
be an echo here of the first book of Euclid's Elements, an even cursory
reading of which will reveal that Euclid bases his geometry on straight
lines and circles. One may be reminded also of Proclus's commentary on
the first book of the Elements. But one will not find in Euclid or Proclus
any indication that the problem of generation or coming-to-be, to use
English versions of Aristotle's terms, is solved by postulating that
everything comes from straight lines and circles, even if all of Euclid's
plane geometry is based on these geometrical figures, be they ideal or
constructed mechanically. So it seems that at the very beginning of Dee's
Monas hieroglyphica we have a questionable "theorem", which would be
more appropriately called an axiom. Indeed, many of Dee's "theorems"
are in the form of what have considered to be axioms or postulates, since
at least the time of Aristotle. Euclid famously makes very clear a
distinction between axioms and postulates on the one hand, and theorems
on the other hand.
21. Let's see what we can do with Dee's Theorem II. In Josten's
translation, this reads: "Yet the circle cannot be artificially produced
without the straight line, or the straight line without the point. Hence,
things first began to be by way of a point, and a monad. And things
related to the periphery (however big they may be) can in no way exist
without the aid of the central point." Hamilton-Jones has: "Neither the
circle without the line, nor the line without the point can be artificially
produced. It is, therefore, by virtue of the point and Monad that all things
commence to emerge in principle. That which is affected at the periphery,
however large it may be, cannot in any way lack the support of the central
point." The original Latin is: "At nec sine Recta, Circulus, mec sine
Puncto, Recta artificiose fieri potest. Puncti proinde, Monadisque ratione,
Res, & esse coeperit primo; Et quae peripheria sunt affectae
(quantaecumquae fuerint), nullo modo carere possunt Ministerio." One
notes first that Josten has the "things" being however big, whereas
Hamilton-Jones has the periphery being however large. However, let's not
dwell on that. More interesting for present purposes is the comment
Hamilton-Jones makes on this passage. He says (p. 54-55): "Here the
principle of a point within a circle is established, from which all parts of
the circumference are equidistant. Dee says the central point supports the

periphery. Let us consider a sphere, which equally depends upon the
support of a central point, and we shall see immediately that we have
produced the seventh Platonic body. You will say that you were taught to
be cautious and that you were informed that there are only five. Think
again, Brother! The sphere is certainly one of them, because all the five
popular shapes are perfectly regular when placed within the sphere, and
you are going to ignore the point, particularly when you have been told to
find it on the centre? We suggest the five Plaonic solids, regular bodues,
forms, etc. are in reality incomplete without the point and the sphere. In
this theorem, Dee shos that although the point and the Monad are
identical, nevertheless in manifestation the Monad is an extension of the
point in a peculiar occult fashion which he proceeds to develop."
22. It's enough to make a mathematician cry, or at least cry uncle.

Euclid proceeds by way of definitions, and there is no consistent way that
a sphere can be regarded as a regular "solid", i.e. a polyhedron with place
faces. If we look at Plato's Timaeus, we might be willing to adjoin to
Plato's theory that four of the regular solids (terahedron, cube, octahedron,
icosahedron) are fundamental or primary figures in nature, corresponding
to the four elements or "bodies" (fire, air, earth and water) a proposition
that points and spheres are fundamental figures of the same basic status.
However, this poses problems if we are to adhere to Plato and Euclid. In
connection with the fifth regular solid (and there are only five regular
solids, as Euclid shows in his Elements), F. M. Cornford says in his
commentary on Plato's Timaeus (Plato's Cosmology, 1937, p. 218-219):
"The dodecahedron is not constructed [by Plato in the way he constructs
the other four]. Plato knew that the pentagonal faces cannot be formed out
of either of his two elementary triangles [picked as basic by Plato] ... Not
requiring a dodecahedron with plane faces for any primary body [the four
elements], the Demiurge [Plato's creator divinity] 'uses it for the whole',
i.e. for the sphere, to whcih this figure approaches most nearly in volume,
as Timaeus Locrus remarks." Plato's exact words on this topic, as
translated by Cornford, are brief: "There still remained one construction,
the fifth; and the god used it for the whole, making a pattern of animal
figures thereon." It is a matter of conjecture whether or not Plato intended
to identify the dodadecahedron with the sphere in some way. Cornford
alludes to the proposal that a model of a dodecahedron made of leather
could easily be deformed into (a model of) a sphere, although of course
these would not be the abstract or ideal dodacahedron and sphere treated
by Euclid. If such an identification is intended by Plato, then Hamilton-
Jones is not right to adjoined the sphere to the five regular solids as being
(somehow) an additional "regular solid". If such an identification is not
intended by Plato, but rather Plato only intended to account for the fifth
solid (for which there was no corresponding primary element available),
then Hamilton-Jones is arbitrarily calling a sphere an additional "regular
solid" by making a kind of pun on "regular": a sphere exhibits certain

"regularities", but not in the sense that the Platonic or Euclidean regular
solids do, with their plane faces. Thus Hamilton-Jones is, in effect,
redefining "regular" so as to include spheres along with cubes, etc., in the
same class. To a mathematician, this brings to mind countless problems
involving the relationship of curved figures, such as the surface of a
sphere, to plane figures, such as the faces of a polyhedron. As
Archimedes well knew, and well dealt with (by approximating circles with
polygonal figures), the difficult number pi, the ratio of a circumference of
a circle to its diameter, is involved here.
23. There are 24 "theorems" in Dee's Monas hieroglyphica. It seems

useless to go on criticizing Dee's work from the point of view of
mathematics and its history. Even what I have done so far might be
regarded as picayune pedantry if it weren't for the fact that a good many
people have asserted and still assert that John Dee was a great
mathematician of his time, partly on the basis of Dee's preface to an
edition of Euclid's Elements (see paragraphs 12 and 15 above). As I
discussed earlier, J. L. Heilbron has called Dee's reputation as a
mathematician into question. Frances Yates and other members of or
people influenced by the Warburg Institute of London, and earlier people
such as Johnson and Taylor (see paragraphs 3 through 9 above), and
others, particularly literary critics and theorists, and occultists, developed
or propagated in numberous works theories to the effect that the sciences
of the period from Copernicus and Galileo to that of Newton's time were
much affected by neo-Platonic, Cabalistic and Hermetic theories of the
Renaissance, and indeed that the sciences in question somehow grew out
of the latter kinds of theories. I have discussed this above; for example, in
paragraph 10. There, among other things, I quote Yates as suggesting that
Dee's religion was perhaps not that different from Newton's religion. This
is questionable. However, I think it is unquestionable that Dee's
mathematics was very different from that of Newton.

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MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE OF ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY HISTORY 1

OF ASTRAL PREDICTION FOR ANTIQUITYOF NEWTON

Marriage and Divorce of Astronomy and

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Chapter 1. Some Sources of Astral Beliefs

Chapter 2. From Astral Beliefs to Kepler, Fludd and

Appendix: Newton’s Laws

Chapter 3. Some Astrological Techniques

Chapter 4. From Babylon to Copernicus

Chapter 5. Stoics, Kepler and Evaluations

Chapter 6. Earlier Christians and Astrology

Chapter 7. From Ptolemy to Newton

Chapter 8. Updates and Addenda

Chapter 9. Pierre d'Ailly and Newton again

Chapter 10. John Dee and Astrological Physics

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Chapter 1. Some Sources of Astral Beliefs

"Even a god cannot change the past.”

--- Agathon, born c. 445 BC

--- Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited, 1901

1. The heavens—the physical ones—were for a long time

2. Aristotle based his theory on the evidence of our senses. He

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3. When Aristotle associates the divine with the outer heavens, he

4. The divinity and regularity of the movements of the sun, moon,

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6. Another example, from David Chandler, A History of

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7. This lining up of temples could serve utilitarian purposes. Ernst

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8. These examples show ways stars were connected to prediction

9. Sometimes visions of the future were read in bowls of water. E.

10. In another ancient method, used more frequently as time went

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12. Divination no doubt has its sources in basic features of animal

13. Certain decisions based on chance are a kind of limiting case

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16. Among the classical Greeks, a specialist in interpreting signs

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17. Any abnormal occurrence which can't be manipulated could

18. The philosophical question as to how omens,

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19. In classical Greece, seers or priests or priestesses, called

20. Revelation is the basis of Biblical prophecy, both in the sense

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22. Among all the techniques devised by people to predict the

23. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) distinguished in his

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24. Lynn Thorndike reports that John of Salisbury (1120(?)-

25. Richard Lemay tells us that John of Salisbury also

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26. Michael Scot (early 13th century) often used astronomia to

27. Astrology, as formerly practiced, was intertwined with other

28. Geomancy was especially linked to astrology. The word

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29. Until relatively recently, astronomy/astrology was commonly

30. It has often been conjectured that astrology/astronomy

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32. Although the origin of omen astrology is usually attributed to

33. As to the Mesopotamians, the Gundel's say: "The

34. According to Otto Neugebauer: "Before the fifth century B.C.

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