them from time to
time to fit conditions.

The dangers attendant upon astrology were of such a nature that the lot
of the astrologer was likely to prove anything but an enviable one.
As in the case of the alchemist, the greater the reputation of an
astrologer the greater dangers he was likely to fall into. If he became
so famous that he was employed by kings or noblemen, his too true or
too false prophecies were likely to bring him into disrepute--even to
endanger his life.

Throughout the dark age the astrologers flourished, but the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries were the golden age of these impostors. A
skilful astrologer was as much an essential to the government as the
highest official, and it would have been a bold monarch, indeed, who
would undertake any expedition of importance unless sanctioned by the
governing stars as interpreted by these officials.

It should not be understood, however, that belief in astrology died
with the advent of the Copernican doctrine. It did become separated
from astronomy very shortly after, to be sure, and undoubtedly among the
scientists it lost much of its prestige. But it cannot be considered
as entirely passed away, even to-day, and even if we leave out of
consideration street-corner "astrologers" and fortune-tellers, whose
signs may be seen in every large city, there still remains quite a large
class of relatively intelligent people who believe in what they call
"the science of astrology." Needless to say, such people are not found
among the scientific thinkers; but it is significant that scarcely a
year passes that some book or pamphlet is not published by some ardent
believer in astrology, attempting to prove by the illogical dogmas
characteristic of unscientific thinkers that astrology is a science. The
arguments contained in these pamphlets are very much the same as those
of the astrologers three hundred years ago, except that they lack the
quaint form of wording which is one of the features that lends interest
to the older documents. These pamphlets need not be taken seriously, but
they are interesting as exemplifying how difficult it is, even in an age
of science, to entirely stamp out firmly established superstitions. Here
are some of the arguments advanced in defence of astrology, taken from
a little brochure entitled "Astrology Vindicated," published in 1898:
"It will be found that a person born when the Sun is in twenty degrees
Scorpio has the left ear as his