r subjects, except
those of mathematics and music. They are very bad reasoners, and
vehemently given to opposition, unless when they happen to be of the
right opinion, which is seldom their case. Imagination, fancy, and
invention, they are wholly strangers to, nor have any words in their
language, by which those ideas can be expressed; the whole compass of
their thoughts and mind being shut up within the two forementioned
sciences.

Most of them, and especially those who deal in the astronomical part,
have great faith in judicial astrology, although they are ashamed to own
it publicly. But what I chiefly admired, and thought altogether
unaccountable, was the strong disposition I observed in them towards news
and politics, perpetually inquiring into public affairs, giving their
judgments in matters of state, and passionately disputing every inch of a
party opinion. I have indeed observed the same disposition among most of
the mathematicians I have known in Europe, although I could never
discover the least analogy between the two sciences; unless those people
suppose, that because the smallest circle has as many degrees as the
largest, therefore the regulation and management of the world require no
more abilities than the handling and turning of a globe; but I rather
take this quality to spring from a very common infirmity of human nature,
inclining us to be most curious and conceited in matters where we have
least concern, and for which we are least adapted by study or nature.

These people are under continual disquietudes, never enjoying a minutes
peace of mind; and their disturbances proceed from causes which very
little affect the rest of mortals. Their apprehensions arise from
several changes they dread in the celestial bodies: for instance, that
the earth, by the continual approaches of the sun towards it, must, in
course of time, be absorbed, or swallowed up; that the face of the sun,
will, by degrees, be encrusted with its own effluvia, and give no more
light to the world; that the earth very narrowly escaped a brush from the
tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to ashes;
and that the next, which they have calculated for one-and-thirty years
hence, will probably destroy us. For if, in its perihelion, it should
approach within a certain degree of the sun (as by their calculations
they have reason to dread) it will receive a degree of heat ten thousand
times more intense than that of