he conceived that certain harmonious configurations of suit- 

 able planets have the power of exciting the minds of men to 

 certain general actions or impulses, so that the only effect 

 of these configurations is to operate along with the vital soul 

 in producing results which would not otherwise have taken 

 place. Kepler regarded his own zeal for study as a result of 

 his birth under a triple configuration (Brewster). Though 

 holding these notions he felt obliged to apologize in his writ- 

 ings for the drawing of horoscopes, saying: "Ye overwise 

 philosophers, ye censure this daughter of astronomy beyond 

 her deserts ; know ye that she must support her mother by 

 her charms. The scanty reward of an astronomer would not 

 provide him with bread, if men did not entertain hopes of 

 reading the future in the heavens." To support his growing 

 family he published what he called "a vile prophesying alma- 

 nac, which is scarcely more respectable than beggary," and 

 when he sent a copy of his Ephemerides to Professor Gerlach 

 he wrote they were nothing but worthless conjectures. 



"Thou damned mock- art, and thou brainsick tale 



Of old astrologie." . . . 



"Some doting gossip 'mongst the Chaldee wives 



Did to the credulous world thce first derive ; 



And superstition nurs'd thee ever since, 



And publish' t in profounder arts pretence; 



That now who paires his nails, or libs his swine, 



But he must first take counsell of the signe." 



Hall, Virgidemarium. 



Although gifted with extraordinary ability in mathemati- 

 cal deductions, Kepler indulged in singular vagaries as to the 

 tides; in his "System of Harmonics" (1619) he claims that 

 the earth is an enormous living animal, and that the tides 

 are waves produced by the animal spouting out water through 

 its gills; and the effects of the sun and moon on the tides 

 result from the alternate sleep and waking of the terrene 

 monster. This bizzare conception was allied to the philosophy 



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