able in supposing that such a mineral
might exist, or the means of compounding it be discovered. Nay, many
arguments from analogy might be urged to show that the supposition was
altogether probable. In like manner, though the known facts of astronomy
oppose themselves irresistibly to any belief in planetary influences
upon the fates of men and nations, yet before those facts were
discovered it was not only not unreasonable, but was in fact, highly
reasonable to believe in such influences, or at least that the sun, and
moon, and stars moved in the heavens in such sort as to indicate what
would happen. If the wise men of old times rejected the belief that 'the
stars in their courses fought' for or against men, they yet could not
very readily abandon the belief that the stars were for signs in the
heavens of what was to befall mankind.

If we consider the reasoning now commonly thought valid in favour of the
doctrine that other orbs besides our earth are inhabited, and compare it
with the reasoning on which judicial astrology was based, we shall not
find much to choose between the two, so far as logical weight is
concerned. Because the only member of the solar system which we can
examine closely is inhabited, astronomers infer a certain degree of
probability for the belief that the other planets of the system are also
inhabited. And because the only sun we know much about is the centre of
a system of planets, astronomers infer that probably the stars, those
other suns which people space, are also the centres of systems; although
no telescope which man can make would show the members of a system like
ours, attending on even the nearest of all the stars. The astrologer had
a similar argument for his belief. The moon, as she circles around the
earth, exerts a manifest influence upon terrestrial matter--the tidal
wave rising and sinking synchronously with the movements of the moon,
and other consequences depending directly or indirectly upon her
revolution around the earth. The sun's influence is still more manifest;
and, though it may have required the genius of a Herschel or of a
Stephenson to perceive that almost every form of terrestrial energy is
derived from the sun, yet it must have been manifest from the very
earliest times that the greater light which rules the day rules the
seasons also, and, in ruling them, provides the annual supplies of
vegetable food, on which the very existence of men and animals depends.
If the