Never was the opinion of sensible men on this subject better expressed
than by Sir Thomas Browne:(32) "Nor do we hereby reject or condemn a
sober and regulated Astrology; we hold there is more truth therein than
in ASTROLOGERS; in some more than many allow, yet in none so much
as some pretend. We deny not the influence of the Starres, but often
suspect the due application thereof; for though we should affirm that
all things were in all things; that Heaven were but Earth Celestified,
and earth but Heaven terrestrified, or that each part above had an
influence upon its divided affinity below; yet how to single out these
relations, and duly to apply their actions, is a work ofttimes to be
effected by some revelation, and Cabala from above, rather than any
Philosophy, or speculation here below."
(32) Sir Thomas Browne: Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Bk. IV, Chap.
XIII. (Wilkin's ed., Vol. III, p. 84.)
As late as 1699, a thesis was discussed at the Paris Faculty, "Whether
comets were harbingers of disease," and in 1707 the Faculty negatived
the question propounded in a thesis, "Whether the moon had any sway on
the human body."
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw, among intelligent men, a
progressive weakening of the belief in the subject; but not even the
satire of Swift, with his practical joke in predicting and announcing
the death of the famous almanac maker, nor contemptuous neglect of the
subject of late years sufficed to dispel the belief from the minds of
the public.
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