Part 23

THE END.

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FOOTNOTES:

These reflections were suggested to Tacitus by the conduct of Thrasyllus (chief astrologer of the Emperor Tiberius), when his skill was tested by his imperial employer after a manner characteristic of that agreeable monarch. The story runs thus (I follow Whewell's version): 'Those who were brought to Tiberius on any important matter, were admitted to an interview in an apartment situated on a lofty cliff in the island of Capreæ. They reached this place by a narrow path, accompanied by a single freedman of great bodily strength; and on their return, if the emperor had conceived any doubts of their trustworthiness, a single blow buried the secret and its victim in the ocean below. After Thrasyllus had, in this retreat, stated the results of his art as they concerned the emperor, Tiberius asked him whether he had calculated how long he himself had to live. The astrologer examined the aspect of the stars, and while he did this showed hesitation, alarm, increasing terror, and at last declared that "The present hour was for him critical, perhaps fatal." Tiberius embraced him, and told him "he was right in supposing he had been in danger, but that he should escape it," and made him henceforward his confidential counsellor.' It is evident, assuming the story to be true (as seems sufficiently probable), that the emperor was no match for the charlatan in craft. It was a natural thought on the former's part to test the skill of his astrologer by laying for him a trap such as the story indicates--a thought so natural, indeed, that it probably occurred to Thrasyllus himself long before Tiberius put the plan into practice. Even if Thrasyllus had not been already on the watch for such a trick, he would have been but a poor trickster himself if he had not detected it the moment it was attempted, or failed to see the sole safe course which was left open to him. Probably, with a man of the temper of Tiberius, such a counter-trick as Galeotti's in Quentin Durward would have been unsafe.

The belief in the influence of the stars and the planets on the fortunes of the new-born child was still rife when Shakespeare made Glendower boast:

At my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes Of burning cressets; know, that at my birth The frame and huge foundation of the earth Shook like a coward.

And Shakespeare showed himself dangerously tainted with freethought in assigning (even to the fiery Hotspur) the reply:

So it would have done At the same season, if your mother's cat Had kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.

In a similar vein Butler, in Hudibras ridiculed the folly of those who believe in horoscopes and nativities:

As if the planet's first aspect The tender infant did infect In soul and body, and instil All future good and future ill; Which in their dark fatalities lurking, At destined periods fall a-working, And break out, like the hidden seeds Of long diseases, into deeds, In friendships, enmities, and strife. And all th' emergencies of life.

Preface to the Rudolphine Tables.

It is commonly stated that Bacon opposed the Copernican theory because he disliked Gilbert, who had advocated it. 'Bacon,' says one of his editors, 'was too jealous of Gilbert to entertain one moment any doctrine that he advanced.' But, apart from the incredible littleness of mind which this explanation imputes to Bacon, it would also have been an incredible piece of folly on Bacon's part to advocate an inferior theory while a rival was left to support a better theory. Bacon saw clearly enough that men were on their way to the discovery of the true theory, and, so far as in him lay, he indicated how they should proceed in order most readily to reach the truth. It must, then, have been from conviction, not out of mere contradiction, that Bacon declared himself in favour of the Ptolemaic system. In fact, he speaks of the diurnal motion of the earth as 'an opinion which we can demonstrate to be most false;' doubtless having in his thoughts some such arguments as misled Tycho Brahe.

To Bacon's theological contemporaries this must have seemed a dreadful heresy, and possibly in our own days the assertion would be judged scarcely less harshly, seeing that the observance of the (so-called) Sabbath depends directly upon the belief in quite another origin of the week. Yet there can be little question that the week really had its origin in astrological formulæ.

In Bohn's edition the word 'defective' is here used, entirely changing the meaning of the sentence. Bacon registers an Astrologia Sana amongst the things needed for the advancement of learning, whereas he is made to say that such an astrology must be registered as defective.

The astrologers were exceedingly ingenious in showing that their art had given warning of the great plague and fire of London. Thus, the star which marks the Bull's northern horn--and which is described by Ptolemy as like Mars--was, they say, exactly in that part of the sign Gemini which is the ascendant of London, in 1666. Lilly, however, for whom they claim the credit of predicting the year of this calamity, laid no claim himself to that achievement; nay, specially denied that he knew when the fire was to happen. The story is rather curious. In 1651 Lilly had published his Monarchy or no Monarchy, which contained a number of curious hieroglyphics. Amongst these were two (see frontispiece) which appeared to portend plague and fire respectively. The hieroglyphic of the plague represents three dead bodies wrapped in death-clothes, and for these bodies two coffins lie ready and two graves are being dug; whence it was to be inferred that the number of deaths would exceed the supply of coffins and graves. The hieroglyphic of the fire represents several persons, gentlefolk on one side and commonfolk on the other, emptying water vessels on a furious fire into which two children are falling headlong. The occurrence of the plague in 1665 attracted no special notice to Lilly's supposed prediction of that event, though probably many talked of the coincidence as remarkable. But when in 1666 the great fire occurred, the House of Commons summoned Lilly to attend the committee appointed to enquire into the cause of the fire. 'At two of the clock on Friday, the 25th of October 1666,' he attended in the Speaker's chamber, 'to answer such questions as should then and there be asked him.' Sir Robert Brooke spoke to this effect: 'Mr. Lilly, this committee thought fit to summon you to appear before them this day, to know if you can say anything as to the cause of the late fire, or whether there might be any design therein. You are called the rather hither, because in a book of yours long since printed, you hinted some such thing by one of your hieroglyphics.' Unto which he replied: 'May it please your honours, after the beheading of the late king, considering that in the three subsequent years the Parliament acted nothing which concerned the settlement of the nation's peace, and seeing the generality of the people dissatisfied, the citizens of London discontented, and the soldiery prone to mutiny, I was desirous, according to the best knowledge God had given me, to make enquiry by the art I studied, what might, from that time, happen unto the Parliament and nation in general. At last, having satisfied myself as well as I could, and perfected my judgment therein, I thought it most convenient to signify my intentions and conceptions thereof in forms, shapes, types, hieroglyphics, etc., without any commentary, that so my judgment might be concealed from the vulgar, and made manifest only unto the wise; I herein imitating the examples of many wise philosophers who had done the like. Having found, sir, that the great city of London should be sadly afflicted with a great plague, and not long after with an exorbitant fire, I framed these two hieroglyphics, as represented in the book, which in effect have proved very true.' 'Did you foresee the year?' said one. 'I did not,' said Lilly; 'nor was desirous; of that I made no scrutiny. Now, sir, whether there was any design of burning the city, or any employed to that purpose, I must deal ingenuously with you, that since the fire I have taken much pains in the search thereof, but cannot or could not give myself the least satisfaction therein. I conclude that it was the finger of God only; but what instruments He used thereunto I am ignorant.'

Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek were evidently not well taught in astrology. 'Shall we set about some revels?' says the latter. 'What shall we do else?' says Toby; 'were we not born under Taurus?' 'Taurus, that's sides and heart,' says sapient Andrew. 'No, sir,' responds Toby, 'it's legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper.'

'This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour), we make guilty of our disasters the sun, moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by inforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are, evil, by a divine thrusting on.'--SHAKESPEARE (King Lear).

There are few things more remarkable, or to reasoning minds more inexplicable, than the readiness with which men undertook in old times, and even now undertake, to interpret omens and assign prophetic significance to casual events. One can understand that foolish persons should believe in omens, and act upon the ideas suggested by their superstitions. The difficulty is to comprehend how these superstitions came into existence. For instance, who first conceived the idea that a particular line in the palm of the hand is the line of life; and what can possibly have suggested so absurd a notion? To whom did the thought first present itself that the pips on playing-cards are significant of future events; and why did he think so? How did the 'grounds' of a teacup come to acquire that deep significance which they now possess for Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig? If the believers in these absurdities be asked why they believe, they answer readily enough either that they themselves or their friends have known remarkable fulfilments of the ominous indications of cards or tea-dregs, which must of necessity be the case where millions of forecasts are daily made by these instructive methods. But the persons who first invented those means of divination can have had no such reasons. They must have possessed imaginations of singular liveliness and not wanting in ingenuity. It is a pity that we know so little of them.

Wellington lived too long for the astrologers, his death within the year having unfortunately been predicted by them many times during the last fifteen years of his life. Some astrologers were more cautious, however. I have before me his horoscope, carefully calculated, secundum artem, by Raphaël in 1828, with results 'sufficiently evincing the surprising verity and singular accuracy of astrological calculations, when founded on the correct time of birth, and mathematically calculated. I have chosen,' he proceeds, 'the nativity of this illustrious native, in preference to others, as the subject is now living, and, consequently, all possibility of making up any fictitious horoscope is at once set aside; thus affording me a most powerful shield against the insidious representations of the envious and ignorant traducer of my sublime science.' By some strange oversight, however, Raphaël omits to mention anything respecting the future fortunes of Wellington, showing only how wonderfully Wellington's past career had corresponded with his horoscope.

'I have still observed,' says an old author, 'that your right Martialist doth seldom exceed in height, or be at the most above a yard or a yard and a half in height' (which is surely stint measure). 'It hath been always thus,' said that right Martialist Sir Geoffrey Hudson to Julian Peveril; 'and in the history of all ages, the clean tight dapper little fellow hath proved an overmatch for his burly antagonist. I need only instance, out of Holy Writ, the celebrated downfall of Goliath and of another lubbard, who had more fingers in his hand, and more inches to his stature, than ought to belong to an honest man, and who was slain by a nephew of good King David; and of many others whom I do not remember; nevertheless, they were all Philistines of gigantic stature. In the classics, also, you have Tydeus, and other tight compact heroes, whose diminutive bodies were the abode of large minds.'

It is likely that Swedenborg in his youth studied astrology, for in his visions the Mercurial folk have this desire of knowledge as their distinguishing characteristic.

It is singular that, when there is this perfectly simple explanation of the origin of the nomenclature of the days of the week, an explanation given by ancient historians and generally received, Whewell should have stated that 'various accounts are given, all the methods proceeding upon certain arbitrary arithmetical processes connected in some way with astrological views.' Speaking of the arrangement of the planets in the order of their supposed distances, and of the order in which the planets appear in the days of the week, he says, 'It would be difficult to determine with certainty why the former order was adopted, and how and why the latter was derived from it.' But, in reality, there is no difficulty about either point. The former arrangement corresponded precisely with the periodic times of the seven planets of the old Egyptian system (unquestionably far more ancient than the system adopted by the Greeks), while the latter springs directly from the former. Assign to the hours of the day, successively, the seven planets in the former order, continuing the sequence without interruption day after day, and in the course of seven days each one of the planets will have ruled the first hour of a day, in the order,--Saturn, the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus. What arbitrary arithmetical process there is in this it would be difficult to conceive. Arithmetic does not rule the method at all. Nor has any other method ever been suggested; though this method has been presented in several ways, some arithmetical and some geometrical. We need then have no difficulty in understanding what seems so perplexing to Whewell, the universality, namely, of the notions 'which have produced this result,' for the notions were not fantastic, but such as naturally sprang from the ideas on which astrology itself depends.

The following remarks by the Astronomer-Royal on this subject seem to me just, in the main. They accord with what I had said earlier in my essay on Saturn and the Sabbath of the Jews ('Our Place among Infinities,' 11th essay). 'The importance which Moses attached to it [the hebdomadal rest] is evident; and, with all reverence, I recognise to the utmost degree the justice of his views. No direction was given for religious ceremonial' (he seems to have overlooked Numbers xxviii. 9, and cognate passages), 'but it was probably seen that the health given to the mind by a rest from ordinary cares, and by the opportunity of meditation, could not fail to have a most beneficial religious effect. But, to give sanction to this precept, the authority of at least a myth was requisite. I believe it was simply for this reason that the myth of the six days of creation was preserved. It is expressly cited in the first delivery of the commandments, as the solemn authority (Exodus xxxi. 17) for the command. It is remarkable that at the second mention of the commandment (Deuteronomy v.) no reference is made to the creation; perhaps, after the complete establishment of Jehovistic ideas in the minds of the Israelites, they had nearly lost the recollection of the Elohistic account, and it was not thought desirable to refer to it' (Airy, 'On the Early Hebrew Scriptures,' p. 17). It must be regarded as a singular instance of the persistency of myths, if this view be correct, that a myth which had become obsolete for the Jews between the time of Moses and that of the writer (whoever he may have been) who produced the so-called Mosaic book of Deuteronomy, should thereafter have been revived, and have come to be regarded by the Jews themselves and by Christians as the Word of God.

Of course it may be argued that nothing in the world is the result of mere accident, and some may assert that even matters which are commonly regarded as entirely casual have been specially designed. It would not be easy to draw the precise line dividing events which all men would regard as to all intents and purposes accidental from those which some men would regard as results of special providence. But common sense draws a sufficient distinction, at least for our present purpose.

This star, called Thuban from the Arabian al-Thúban, the Dragon, is now not very bright, being rated at barely above the fourth magnitude, but it was formerly the brightest star of the constellation, as its name indicates. Bayer also assigned to it the first letter of the Greek alphabet; though this is not absolutely decisive evidence that so late as his day it retained its superiority over the second magnitude stars to which Bayer assigned the second and third Greek letters. In the year 2790 B.C., or thereabouts, the star was at its nearest to the true north pole of the heavens, the diameter of the little circle in which it then moved being considerably less than one-fourth the apparent diameter of the moon. At that time the star must have seemed to all ordinary observation an absolutely fixed centre, round which all the other stars revolved. At the time when the pyramid was built this star was about sixty times farther removed from the true pole, revolving in a circle whose apparent diameter was about seven times as great as the moon's. Yet it would still be regarded as a very useful pole-star, especially as there are very few conspicuous stars in the neighbourhood.

Even that skilful astronomer Hipparchus, who may be justly called the father of observational astronomy, overlooked this peculiarity, which Ptolemy would seem to have been the first to recognise.

It would only be by a lucky accident, of course, that the direction of the slant tunnel's axis and that of the vertical from the selected central point would lie in the same vertical plane. The object of the tunnelling would, in fact, be to determine how far apart the vertical planes through these points lay, and the odds would be great against the result proving to be zero.