same hour, but in the same place. The fortunes and character of
Jacob and Esau, however, should manifestly have been similar, which was
certainly not the case, if their history has been correctly handed down
to us. An astrologer of the time of Julius Caesar, named Publius Nigidius
Figulus, used a singular argument against such reasoning. When an
opponent urged the different fortunes of men born nearly at the same
instant, Nigidius asked him to make two contiguous marks on a potter's
wheel which was revolving rapidly. When the wheel was stopped, the two
marks were found to be far apart. Nigidius is said to have received the
name of Figulus (the potter), in remembrance of the story; but more
probably he was a potter by trade, and an astrologer only during those
leisure hours which he could devote to charlatanry. St. Augustine, who
relates the story (which I borrow from Whewell's 'History of the
Inductive Sciences'), says, justly, that the argument of Nigidius was as
fragile as the ware made on the potter's wheel.

The belief must have been all but universal in those days that at the
birth of any person who was to hold an important place in the world's
history the stars would either be ominously conjoined, or else some
blazing comet or new star would make its appearance. For we know that
some such object having appeared, or some unusual conjunction of planets
having occurred, near enough to the time of Christ's birth to be
associated in men's minds with that event, it came eventually to be
regarded as belonging to his horoscope, and as actually indicating to
the Wise Men of the East (Chaldaean astrologers, doubtless) the future
greatness of the child then born. It is certain that that is what the
story of the Star in the East means as it stands. Theologians differ as
to its interpretation in points of detail. Some think the phenomenon was
meteoric, others that a comet then made its appearance, others that a
new star shone out, and others that the account referred to a
conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, which occurred at about that
time. As a matter of detail it may be mentioned, that none of these
explanations in the slightest degree corresponds with the account, for
neither meteor, nor comet, nor new star, nor conjoined planets, would go
before travellers from the east, to show them their way to any place.
Yet the ancients sometimes regarded comets as guides. Whichever view we
accept, it is abundantly clear that an